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Hi guys I was wondering what you think I shud do? I am coming to the point were I have almost finished painting my whole dark angels army, and my troops were painted washed decals put on then the whole model covered with gloss varnish. Shoud I leave them the way they are or should I give them a matte coat to get rid of the shine? I don't mind either way but I just wanted to hear other people's oppinons. Have any of you got shiny space marines? Thanks.

Have any pics of them?

Always matte. Gloss, outside of some artistic use on gems if that's your thing, looks tacky and ugly. It also blows out your highlights. Gloss varnished armies pretty much uniformly look awful, and it's so tacky and garish that people won't be able to pay attention to your actual paintjobs. Matte those suckers!

I don't have a photo just now but I can take one the only problem is I'm using an iPad to go online and stuff andive never used it to upload photos or anything yet but that sounds like a nice challenge. Ill try and see what I can do.

I hate gloss so id say matte, but its upto you really.

I'm with SRM, mostly. Satin can work as an overall finish to achieve a specific effect, but unless your entire model is supposed to be covered in slime and you exaggerate your highlights to compensate, pure gloss almost always looks like pants. I keep brush-on gloss on hand for water, fresh blood, shiny gems/lenses, etc. but everything else gets a topcoat of matte and looks so much better for it.

I tried glossy on some white helmets for a unit of Imperial Fists.

Absolutely Horrible.

Use a clear matte finish, it will tie everything on a figure together. As with the other posts I pick out bits of kit with gloss or semi-gloss paints so they stand out. Testor makes a range of clear coats, the Glosscoat makes an ideal surface for decals. The Dullcoat dries dead flat and works great for my IG uniforms. Their Semi-gloss has a nice eggshell sheen and looks good on SM armor, just enough reflected glint, not overpowering as straight gloss.