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So I recently bought the new Guilliman blue glaze from the recent citadel paint line. After a few trial runs with it, it seems like I am just using the old Asurmen blue wash, not being able to tell much diffference. Am I doing something wrong? Is that the glaze purpose? Right now I am at a loss and feel like GW just shafted me into buying a pot of something I already had.

Washes are now there to provide shading better than the old ones did...the glazes are pretty much the old washes...I think...DON'T quote me on that :/

Well if that be the case... GW got another sucker

Yeah, don't quote Lazarus on that.

Washes and Glazes are two very similar products, either of which can be used for both washing and glazing (two very different techniques) despite their intended application.

Washing is where you apply so much that it floods the model and gathers in the recess, thus providing easy shading.

Glazing is a method of smearing a very small amount of paint evenly across a surface to either create some very gradual and subtle blended layers, or to tint the surface to provide a subtle deposit of the chosen hue.

GW washes are formulated to be more suited to washing, though can also be used for glazing (as can any paint when thinned enough). Washes are formulated to support this action by gathering the pigment where you want it, and are made predominately of darker pigments (which is what you want in the recesses of course).

GW glazes are formulated to be more suited to glazing. They are often used after highlighting and blending up, to return some saturation to your models that may be looking a bit pasty after adding lighter tones to the model. As such, ready formulated glazes tend to be more saturated and lighter in hue that washes, and don't pool up as smoothly in the recesses the way washes do.

Meh, I did say not to

Anyway, thanks for the heads up there Orki...although the way I'm managing to advance painting wise, washes might not be quite so essential to me soon

Thank you for the in depth response. It makes a lot more sense now. I guess I will just have to keep messing with it to see what all can be done.

Sorry to necro - if I mix blue shade and blue wash together what do I get? A runny wash or a more intense wash? Or a ruined model/paint?

Neither, they're similar, but a glaze is formulated to sit in a thin layer over a surface, a wash is formulated to run into crevices and recesses, so mixing them will theoretically cancel them out (or result in the end of the world)

I've experimented with the glazes (I own all of them but the yellow one) and discovered a lot of nifty little things you can do.

Basically the differences between the glazes and the shade paints is they dry differently. The glazes feel to me like there's a little bit of sealant in them, similar to Lehmian Medium. They dry with a tad of a crust to them, which is fun for mixing with other paints to create cool effects.

Personally the best use I've ever had of them is on my Ravenwing Champion model.



See the shield carried by the statues in the back? I wanted to make it look Jade-like. I've tried a few different techniques for it and didn't really like the look of any of them so I tried something new. I just did the whole thing black and then used greys to scratch it up and highlight it. Then I mixed some Caliban Green in with the green glaze (I forget it's name off the top of my head) to go over the whole thing. I wiped it off before it completely dried else it would have been mostly green rather than simply glazing over what was already painted there, and that's the end result.

IMHO it looks fantastic and I am looking for excuses to try it again to see if I can't refine the technique. It came about rather haphazardly. Happy accident.

The shades are all much darker than the glazes. (theyre for shading! )
Glazes are highly transparent, and not anywhere near as dark as the washes.
If your guilleman blue looks like asurmen blue... somethings wrong tbh! asurmen blue was incredibly dark compared.
Glazes are intended to help bring layers together, or as a kind of colour filter if you like; paint monochrome and then glaze a colour over it.

Also the glazes should be less prone to pooling and want spread evenly across a surface when compared to a shade.