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Hey everyone,

Okay, I was intending to repaing my gaming table. However completely painting it black and highlighting it up would first of all take some considerable time, I can't work outside due to winterweather so I have decided that I want to do the following.

The table is now a basecoat grey with texture (sand, and small particles mixed in the grey basecoat paint) and I to give it more depth I want to apply a wash.
As this is for a huge surface (3 meters by 1.25 meters) I need a large ammount of wash. I was thinking about taking a small bottle of valleyo airbrush black and mixing it with water? Or is that not the right type of thinner? I have airbrush thinner, but that is expensive and I would need alot of that.

Anyone that can tell how I can make alot of black wash? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

get a bottle of black drawing ink you can pick it up for a couple of pound in any art shop, mix with water you want to mix it 1 part ink to about 3 parts water and apply with a large pruch to your board this is esentially what nuln oil is anyway just vampt up price for a smaller bottle lol i use it as a black wash on my models and i was given the tip by a GW staff member it has always looked good.

Les Bursley has what you need. You may read it here.

 Ouze wrote:
Les Bursley has what you need. You may read it here.

I have used his wash recipes for a while now and love them. I can make washes of any colors for any occasion. Take a look at dick blick art supplies for inks, they have boxed sets with several different colors in them, all acrylic(mind you it seperates after a while but a little shake and you are good to go again.)
My only modification is i dont use the flow aid he suggests, just because i cant find it over here in Japan and for some reason they wont ship it to me. BUT, the washes still work well.

-Cheers

depending on how intense you want the black wash there are a few things you can do.

rather than acrylic ink, i have used drafting pen ink (also called rapidograph ink). the pigment is super fine and very intense. typically when making a 20ml bottle of black wash i use about 4 drops of ink and it is very dark.

if you cannot get flowaid, you can use dish soap or baby shampoo. flow aid just helps breaks the surface tension of water so it flows better in crevasses. soaps and shampoos have the same additive to do this, baby shampoo will foam/lather less. again only a few drops.

the rest is matte medium and water 50/50.

Sometimes people using this recipe find it's a little shiny. Using Ultra-Matte Medium, even a few drops, helps knock the shininess down.

Varangian wrote:
Sometimes people using this recipe find it's a little shiny. Using Ultra-Matte Medium, even a few drops, helps knock the shininess down.

was just going to say, I find it leaves quite a shine once it dries (I have some of the secretweaponmini washes, which use Les' recipe). I haven't tried adding matte medium to the wash itself, but the shine's easy enough to fix with a quick spray of matte varnish once the wash has dried.