Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Can someone explain why I'm getting distinctly gray shading from using a black wash, specifically Vallejo's black shade? It is prominent on the boot in the picture, and it seems to apply in places where the wash would pool the most.
The paint inside the bottle seems to look fine, and I don't have the issue with my green and brown washes, also from Vallejo. I haven't noticed the issue when using the same bottle on 20something Necrons, although that might be because I'm mostly shading gray metal.
Is it a bad bottle, or am I doing something wrong?

Only two times i've seen this is when the wash/shade needed shook up more and when it was applied to heavily.

Oh and if shaking dosen't work it's [probably] a bad batch.

I tried shaking the bottle violently for a few minutes and tried it on two cut off sprue bits that I painted up and let dry for an hour. One of them I washed heavily and the other lightly (soaked up visible pools with my brush, at least).

On the heavily washed one there were large gray spots all over the place. The lightly washed bit was mostly fine, with a few gray streaks in the deepest crevices (where you'd want it to be the darkest). Elsewhere where the wash hadn't turned gray there was barely any definition where I would want there to be. Even if the batch wouldn't be bad, I wouldn't want to be forced to paint such a light layer and end up with barely visible results.

Guess I'll go out and buy another bottle tomorrow and hope for the best.

It's probably matting agent. You get this with the gw shades too on occasion. Possibly a bad bottle, but more likely it's just in need of a prolonged, vigorous shaking.

Edit: 2 mins may not be enough, also rotate the bottle now and then when shaking.

If anyone's still curious, I tried the same wash one final time after shaking and rotating for 5 minutes on 3 separate occasions (one being right before usage), again testing with a heavy and a light application. Both bits still ended up with prevalent gray areas.

the other thing you need to make sure of, is that your brush is completely, perfectly and 100% clean. The tiniest smidgeon of anything on the brush, and the pot will die on you. I know, because I've seen it happen to the little bit of wash that i pulled out onto my pallete which wasn't as clean/dry as i thought it was, and then somehow, inadvertently, tainted the pot as well.

I'm pretty sure I've seen the same thing happen with insufficient shaking or that has been sitting with an improperly closed lid (damn hard to get the darn lids closed properly on these bloody pots, I've also noticed 1/10th of the paint getting wasted by leaking out onto the lip during shaking). Once you dip in and get too much of the wrong stuff out, it won't go back.... And if it starts to turn in the air.....

could also be a bad bottle, but I doubt that, as even the ones I bought used to work perfectly fine when i first cracked them open.

I've had the same issue happen with my vallejo green ink (game color).

I have no idea what causes it. Only good thing is that after applying second or third time I get the right shade and the mini isn't ruined (I only reapply where wash has gone grey).

Maybe orks don't like vallejo washes?

Have had the same problem with one bottle of Vallejo umber shade. Has not happened with any other umber, sepia or black wash I've had from Vallejo. I turfed it, next bottle was fine. The risk of it turning bad isn't worth trying to rescue it imo, is only a couple bucks. Thankfully none of my 200ml pots of wash have screwed up, that would be more expensive!