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I wonder if I've been wasting time, and perhaps not getting results that I might. I tend to use a watered down brown vallejo ink over a whole model to shade it. Being ink, it dyes the colours darker. After that I have to paint on several highlights.

What should I be doing? Use a wash instead, leaving most areas as I originally painted them. Use different coloured washes for different colours on the model?

Inks have quite a high pigment content. You need to thin them quite a lot and add a flow improver to get them to behave nicely as a 'splosh' wash as opposed to glazing them into the recesses only.

But typically we highlight after using an ink or a wash to shade anyway. Alternatively you can highlight very harshly first, and use the wash to tone things back and unify (this is sometimes done when 'dipping' - there's a good Imperial Fists example on here somewhere I think).

A wash is basically watered down ink with flow enhancers and some other bits added isnt it? Premade for what the majority of painters will need.

Washes work better for shading entire models. Inks are great for outlining though as they have a lot of pigment in and flow better than paint, and suprisingly good for doing bases quickly (coat base with pva, apply sand, wait for pva to dry, paint sand with ink, job done)

Chocolate Soldier wrote:I wonder if I've been wasting time, and perhaps not getting results that I might. I tend to use a watered down brown vallejo ink over a whole model to shade it. Being ink, it dyes the colours darker. After that I have to paint on several highlights.

What should I be doing? Use a wash instead, leaving most areas as I originally painted them. Use different coloured washes for different colours on the model?

I personally love the wash line that GW sales, that being said, you might check out Army Painter, if you are washing the whole model, as their dip method (somewhat mentioned above I believe) might be close to what you are trying to accomplish.