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I was wondering, dear dakka community, is it a good idea to paint a wash onto tanks? As it stands, my tanks are a basecoat followed by a dry brush. Would it be a good idea to coat my tanks with nuln oil?

P.S: my infantry have the same painting scheme but they have received a wash as well

If you watch orc painter nerd in YouTube he doesn't wash as such he applies a pin wash to the recessed areas of the tank after a gloss varnish has been applied to help said wash flow. If you apply say nuln oil over the top it will have a tendency to dry patchy across the surface

So if I wash the tank it won't give me the varnish effect? Because I'm very happy with the way the wash looks on infantry

the 'Varnish' effct your speaking of, comes from not shaking the wash. And applyin it too heavily. The model its going onto doesnt really have any bearing on that.

I,ve not tried it(I don't have any vehicles at the moment!) but there is a company going by the name of modelmates who have sprays that are specifically aimed at this. Wayland stock them and they are readily available on Ebay also.

I'd say a pin wash is the way to go, as well. Overall washes on such broad surfaces result in oddly mottled patches, stark tide marks, etc. that have to be painted over. There's a lot of waste in the process, both in terms of paint and time/effort. Pin washes get you the shading and delineation of panels that you want, without all of the waste. On a 15mm vehicle, I'd say slop it on and clean up the flat spots by soaking up/pushing away (clean, damp brush) the excess. On a 28mm model, no way.

What is a pin wash?

Pin washes don't just shade most heavily in corners and recesses, they stay in them, exclusively. Instead of coating the entire model, you use capillary action to apply small amounts of wash that flow into and around the areas you want to shade. To flow properly, you need to give the entire model a coat of gloss varnish, first. After that, just touch a brush loaded with wash (premixed, oil in turps... any type should work) to a panel line or crease and you can watch it spread along the line.

Pop onto Youtube and search for "pin wash tutorial." Should net you more than a few good videos to watch.

Thanks all for the advice, i will certainly follow it up