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I've read a few articles about making your own washes using Future Polish mixed with water and then adding paint for the pigment. This is supposed to make the wash pool less on flat surfaces and pull the color into the crevices, I've never tried it myself yet though. Can this work with existing GW washes? I'm painting my terminators and I want to avoid a lot of pooling and 'dirty' look from using washes. If the polish method wont work for this, what about just thinning the wash? Any other ideas that I've missed and don't know about, please feel free to add as well!

Trying having a look at oil washes.

If you are not confident in your ability to mix up a wash of your own you can try just painting the wash in the correct area and not just lazily slathering it over the surface. Washes CAN be treated like any other paint I'm that they will stay where they are placed as long as you don't have too much on your brush

I generally find ink-based washes to work better than those made with paint (at least when talking about acrylics). Future washes are still liable to stain surfaces, though, if you slather them all over the place. You really want to direct the wash where you want the color and nowhere else, i.e. a pin wash.

Hit the model with a coat of gloss varnish (can even use more Future, here - the stuff is cheap and you'll already have some), first, to aid wash flow, and touch a brush loaded with wash to your panel lines/recesses. Capillary action should pull it right along the lines, avoiding the flats entirely. The key here is low surface tension, meaning your choice of wash is important. I find that oil or Future (relatively heavy on the Future - it has enough surfactant in it to flow better than water, on its own) washes work better than pre-mixed washes (GW, Vallejo, etc.) for the task. Oils have the added benefit of being able to clean up any overflow after drying (re-soluble for a while, just use a cotton swab or sponge and some thinner - Future isn't re-soluble, being acrylic-based; it has to be spot-stripped).

Also, if you want this effect more...

"This is supposed to make the wash pool less on flat surfaces and pull the color into the crevices"

Gloss varnish your model first, it will cause less of the "staining" effect of the washes on the flat surfaces.

There is another thread here on washing panel lines on vehicles I think, take a look for it, it has some similar techniques.

Ok, so...a few updates. I held off for now on getting the future polish, in favor of learning to use oil washes. However, I have a question regarding the glossing of the model before the wash. One of the videos I saw showed the fellow cleaning up the was with a cotton swab dipped in white spirits, mentioning that white spirits is safe for to use on acrylic paint. The only gloss that I have right now is testors glosscote. I don't think that that is acrylic...it's lacquer right? Unless I'm an idiot, which is possible...this is always a learning process, after all...is the white spirits safe to use on that? Or do I need to invest in an acrylic gloss first? Back to the Future perhaps, if only as a gloss coat?

Anybody?

Future makes a great gloss for oil washes. If you have an airbrush or spraygun, it's invaluable for many purposes. Even if not really, it brushes on pretty well too.

The Testor's will work fine.

Thanks everybody for the advice. I think this weekend it will be time to do a few test minis to see what I like the look of before hitting the terminators!

Good idea.