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Hi guys,
I am currently painting an ultramarine's dreadnought and have a question about washes. I am building up layers starting with Regal blue , then Mordian blue then finally Calgar blue, Now i have washed the first layer of Regal blue with drakenhof nightshade and was wondering as i build up to the lighter colours should i be washing every stage or just for the Regal blue coat. For example when i have got a few layers of Mordian blue should i wash it before i apply the lighter Calgar blue, Should i wash over again when i have finished highlighting ?Basically do you wash over after every stage or just at the outset before building up to the lighter shades of blue. I assume this would apply to shadeing reds, yellows, greens or whatever choice of colour i use for any model i paint. Cheers guys.

Washes are generally used to darken the recesses, if you do this after your base color, your highlights shouldn't need another wash.

Does that make sense?

It depends on what you are trying to accomplish by using the wash as a 'glaze'. Each wash makes it darker so if you wash every layer, the mid-layers may end up too dark.

I usually highlight all the way up and then wash/glaze at the end to help blend everything together. If you went pretty extreme on your last highlight, you can add more washes to just those small areas to blend it even more. It just depends on what kind of contrast you want to achieve.

As you start from the darker blue and add layers to highlight, it is not even necessary to use washes.
It's an option, yes. But not mandatory. If you want to use washes, I'd use them after the Mordian blue.

cool great bit of help there, i found that the mid layers were to dark on one of the arms, I have three dreadnought to paint and i was always going to use the first as a practice model, the models have some quite wide areas of armour to practice blending techniques and i have found that the layers on 1 arm were darkened to the detriment of the over all model so i will try just washing the first layer of regal blue on the other arm. I have also dry brushed the main body lead belcher to paint over to see how that works, I have also been told if you use the blue glaze 'gulliman blue' it will pull all the the blues together after a final highlight. Thanks guys. dreadful tom