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Alright guys, real quick question. I started painting imperial guardsmen, and when I did I generally just washed the whole model and it turned out great to me. However, doing this to larger mordels, like raveners, turns out not so great. I'd be willing to say it nearly ruins the model on how bad i makes it look. I've been thinking over what I'm doing wrong, and then the thought occured to me that it's entirely possible that you don't wash the WHOLE model. What I'm worried about though, is when I wash my nids, badab over red gore, I'm worried that there will be black splotches here and there, while the rest of the model is unusually not dark. Also, when I wash I go straight from the pot to the model. I hear some people say you dilute the wash, but like I said I've never needed to do that so I simply haven't. If I'm supposed to dilute it sometimes, how do you go about doing that? I use a floor tile as a paint plate, and I get the feeling if I treat wash like paint it would just flow like water and be wasted by attempting to pour it on tile. So what do I need to do guys?

Let the wash down with some Formula P3- medium. You don't lose the colour so much, and it tends not to pool.

If you're worried about having to mix it on a tile, then get a palette

There's a couple of things you can do, either:

Very carefully, using a fine brush, apply the wash only to the creases and indentations in the model.

Or

Wash the whole model, then go over it again with the colour you put on it before you washed it, then highlight on top of that.

I experimented with both, and have found the second to get better results. Both are fiddly and time consuming though.

Washes alone look fine on smaller models, but on larger ones, especially with larger flat areas, the washes have a tendency to pool where you don't want them.

Although I will admit that I've never played around with thinning/diluting washes

Interesting, I think I've heard that stuff mentioned before, but I never really looked into it. I imagine it's better than water for thinning purposes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The_Happy_Pig wrote:There's a couple of things you can do, either:

Very carefully, using a fine brush, apply the wash only to the creases and indentations in the model.

Or

Wash the whole model, then go over it again with the colour you put on it before you washed it, then highlight on top of that.

I experimented with both, and have found the second to get better results. Both are fiddly and time consuming though.

Washes alone look fine on smaller models, but on larger ones, especially with larger flat areas, the washes have a tendency to pool where you don't want them.

But if you painted over, wouldn't you still see where the new paint and the darkened old paint meet? Unless you mean that wash it, then paint over it to sorta achieve the first method without having to be so careful about things.

Depends. If you paint over large areas and then drybrush the edges to soften the transition (creating a color grade) it actually looks pretty good.

Some military modelers use an interesting technique - I believe it was called "reverse washing," or something to that effect. Basically, a wash was applied over the entire surface, then something absorbent (cotton swab, bits of paper towel) was held over the center of the plate and allowed to start wicking away excess wash. The end result is a plate with darker edges and lighter center, bridged by a smooth gradient.

Wouldn't do you much good if you planned to do stark edge-lining and dark recesses, but as an overarching effect, it's quite striking.