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So I bought army painter quickshade, but I'm not too impressed (and this is partly my fault). I didn't realise it contained varnish as well, so it's a bit too thick for my purposes.

All I really want is a quick way to shade my models with a nice brown wash. Do you think perhaps that mixing 2 bottles of devlan mud with water and dipping into that might work in the same way? Has anyone had experience of mass washing models before?

Thanks
Lunarman

Which tone did you buy? Are you shaking the can?

I've nothing but insane success with Quickshade. My latest mini has been turned into something more incredible than I could possibly imagine:




Yes, this is severely blown up and it's right after the dip. I need to upload pics of the mini once I finish basing it.

I bet you needed to fling the shade off more, when i dipped my Terminators I flung shade off in an arc from above my head to my knees 10 + times per model, and I had pretty decent results.





Those pictures are before Dullcote and before final details like lens and bases.

I will try flinging it off more. I was indoors, so I didn't give it much force.

However, my issue is mainly this: This colour scheme features both yellow and blue and white. I spray the mini yellow (then it was my intention to dip in Strong Tone) then do the blue and the white and finish off the piece. However, I'm concerned with the thickness of the shader it will leave me with no details to work with for the other colours.

On the terminators above (which look great) did you paint the whole model in base colours before dipping the whole thing? Your whites look a lot cleaner than I would've expected. Are you using soft tone?

I will finish my test model tomorrow and get back to you on this. Perhaps with the rest of the colours to break up the shader and when sprayed matt the mini will look a lot better .

I can recommend applying the dip with brush. It is easier, cleaner, faster and does not waste any product. Obviously, do not use your fine detail brush but something about the size of Tank Brush and make sure you clean the brush thoroughly with turpentine.

These Ogryns were finished off with a light coat of Army Painter Strong Tone, applied with brush:

I use a lot of Liquitex Soft Acrylics (available in almost any art store) for my washes. They are pretty think, but can be watered down as much as you want. Take a look at the Burnt Umber and Raw Umber colors.

I used all base coats and then dipped, and no it is dark tone, If you do the true dip method, you really have to fling a lot of shade off. If you feel like you have flung too much off, then fling it another 2-3 times. Seriously.

Then dullcote it with Testor's dullcote. I had 0 negative side effects with Testor's.

There are a lot of ways to approach this issue.

1. Quickshade includes varnish, that is one of its advantages. After it's dry, you hit it with spray matt varnish. Make sure the Quickshade is completely set before spraying or you can get crackling.

2. You may not be getting all the excess Quickshade off the model. This can be done by the flicking technique, or I saw a nice tutorial recently where the guy bulldog clipped the model to a cappucino frothing machine -- the battery powered type -- to whizz the excess off by centripetal force.

3. Perhaps Strong is too dark. I am using Soft, for my desert coloured models. It's great as long as I don't let it pool. My models are from light to medium darkness of paint.

3a. Quickshade is an expensive version of floor staining polyurethane polish. Historical gamers have been using the "magic dip" for two decades. Look at the wide range of shades available (Minwax, etc) in DIY shops. You can get a lighter tone than Softone.

4. The paint on, paint off technique is more controllable than dipping. You can go over an area two or three times if you need. Let the varnish dry in between.

5. Alternatives to Quickshade include acrylic inks, GW's shades, and home made shades. Do a search for Les's Shade Recipe.

I'm not going to try and persuade you that Quickshade is the only way to go. Plenty of people get good results with it. OTOH plenty of people uses washes, dry-brushing and so on. All methods need a bit of experience.

The main thing to realise is that you don't use Quickshade to win a Golden Daemon. You use it to get a better shaded tabletop army into battle as quickly as possible.

Look at the Ogryns for an example of what can be achieved.

For sure I know i won't win golden deamon with it! Hell, I was never gonna win beforehand.

thanks for all the help. I'll post a pic of two approaches I'm trying tomorrow