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So from some googling, there seems to be a difference between an ink vs a wash. According to my (limited) understanding, an ink will run if you paint over it and is designed not to become opaque but stays shiny, whereas a wash is designed to go into crevices and you can paint over it.

But I've also read that the Army Painter inks behave exactly as the old GW Badab Black / Delvan Mud washes.

So are they an ink or a wash?

I had a quick look at their website and they appear to be proper inks. Inks will behave very similar to a wash if you use them in the correct manner, in fact it was pretty much all people used until fairly recently unless you made your own washes.

Inks won't run if you paint over them, but you have to make sure that they are dry before you do so, and that takes far longer than a normal wash.

Due to the availability and ease of use of pre-made washes now you are much better off just buying some of them rather than inks.

They behave like the GW and you can paint over them.

Dark Tone is exactly like Badab Black ; soft tone is a good deal darker than Gryphonne Sepia. Have't used their Devlan Mud equivalent.

Just an issue with their labeling. The Army Painter Quickshade Inks are, in fact, pre-mixed washes. Use them as you would GW's washes.

Yep. Washes. Very good so far. I use Soft, strong, and dark tone. They are almost exactly like the old Gryphonne Sepia and Devlan Mud from GW. I switched to them after having huge problems with the new GW range of washes.

I also use the standard Warpaints too, although I am not a fan of the AP sprays. but that was just my experience.

I love the Army Painter sprays but have fallen out of love with the ink/quickshade. It takes 24-48 hours to dry!

Looks good when you're done though

About half way down in this excellent article by tale of painters they have a very very good series of comparisons of gw vs armypainter. imho they are excellent direct replacements http://taleofpainters.blogspot.com/2012/02/review-army-painter-warpaints.html

 nwns wrote:
I love the Army Painter sprays but have fallen out of love with the ink/quickshade. It takes 24-48 hours to dry!

Wow, I haven't used the Quickshade though, I use the washes in the dropper bottles, which I think may be different. They dry pretty quickly.


I've heard a lit of good things from other people about the sprays. I've just had bad luck since I live in a very humid area and they work a little differently than other sprays. But the main problem I had is that they can be a little unforgiving since you can't strip them and the slightest move the wrong direction and the coat is flooding the details.

 Orinoco wrote:
About half way down in this excellent article by tale of painters they have a very very good series of comparisons of gw vs armypainter. imho they are excellent direct replacements http://taleofpainters.blogspot.com/2012/02/review-army-painter-warpaints.html

They are great replacements altho I wonder if they've changed the formula for Soft Tone. It's much browner than Gryphonne Sepia (darker, less toffee-coloured, and it doesn't flow quite as nicely); I've done a direct comparison and they're nothing like. Ours dates from June. The Dark Tone performs exactly as Badab Black. For a more mid toned sepia look, especially for use with yellow, I now use Seraphim Sepia, which seems to work perfectly and is more similar to the old Gryphonne than the AP Soft Tone.

I had three or four pots of the new GW range of washes when they first came out that just separated into a chalky mess. I'm not sure what happened, but I couldn't recover it, stripped them and had the problem with AP sprays where it doesn't strip and it kind of melted the models.

So I'm now a little skittish.

The GW washes pigment separations though, no one else that I talked to has mentioned ever seeing that, so could have been a bad batch, but I won't buy them again. Not with that many gone bad.