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This last weekend I decided (i should note i was painting really late into the night) to try out the "Total Immersion" part of my Vallejo black wash on my bright colored lizardmen. I had used this before, painting it on, without mixing or shaking it.

So I took my painstakingly painted scar vet and dipped him in the wash head first, assuming thats what total immersion meant. Well about 50% of the model came out of the wash completely black like i had dipped it in a pure black paint. I kind of freaked out but i was about to paper towel it back to a decently normal color 10x shades darker than before, losing some of the original paint in the process.

I decided my problem was I didn't mix the wash up so i put that cap back on and shook it. I then proceeded to give a standard saurus a test with similar results except the entire model was now pure black.

Finally I tried just brushing it on like before, and again same thing. I might as well just add a little bit of water to my black paint.

Few questions
1) Am i doing something wrong with this wash? Is it just a really dark really thick wash?

2) Can I dilute this with water to make it softer? Or should i use another substance (alcohol, flow-aid, etc?).

3) Finally, i have other washes so should i just use those and set aside this wash until i want to do very dark models?

Well to state the obvious. Use a test piece if your going to test out a new process

If your trying something like dipping then i suggest you start by getting a coat of gloss varnish.

Then try to thin out your wash. ( check if its water based or not)

Dip then remove access with a brush around places you want to be lighter.

But i have never used Vallejo washes

Edit: (it appears to be an ink. at least as far as i can tell.)

Quick answer, don't use acrylic washes on acrylic paints without sealing them first unless you want to affect the underlying color. You have seen the results! The more dense the wash, the worse the staining problem is, but it cannot be avoided entirely.

Glossing first will help restrict the wash to the recesses and watering it down a bit will drop the intensity. I only ever brush washes on, even if going for overall coverage, as it lets me manipulate the thickness of the application to my liking. Unless you plan to use "fire and forget" dipping, letting things pool and run as they will, it really takes no longer than dip+cleanup.

I haven't used the black, personally, but I've found other Vallejo washes I've used to be a bit much, right out of the bottle. They're highly pigmented and tend to stain surfaces readily, so I almost always water them down before use (more for a wash, less or none for a glaze, depending on desired intensity). Think of them more as "wash concentrate" than something ready to go out of the bottle and I think you'll get better use out of them.

The reason you had good results brushing it on the first time may have been due to pigment settling (you didn't shake it, right?), effectively diluting what you pulled from the top of the jar. I actually had to go to their website to double-check, as I hadn't heard of these dipping washes, before. I can only assume similar properties to the brush-on variety, regardless of whether they're formulated differently, as the website claims.

Unfortunate that good models got mucked up, but it's a learning experience - best to try new methods on scrap/test models before committing.

Dipping makes the painter baby Jesus cry.


But seriously, just test the waters before you do anything with your miniatures, will help you get used to how the fluid reacts.

Thank you guys for the replies. As I said i'm pretty new and everything I had looked at didn't mention doing a varnish first. I will try that and I will try diluting the wash down slightly.

I wanted to follow up really quick.

Last night I decided to strip the models that had the issues with the wash and start over. I found that as soon as the simple green touched the model the wash came right off leaving the under paint mostly intact. I just have a little bit of touch up to do and they are back to normal.

Finally what I thought was really interesting was that if I applied a small bit of simple green to the model it would take wash completely off the top and everything would re-pool back into spots it was supposed to. Since what i am painting is an orange red this made a really distinct outline. I didn't try leaving it this way as i wasn't sure the simple green wouldn't take of the rest of the paint if i left it sit.