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What exactly is a highlight going to do on the undipped models?

Another method is to basecoat the figures black, then go over the whole thing with a drybrush of light grey or white. Use a big brush, it doesn't matter. Then paint your base colors on as usual. Then dip. The white drybrush will (obviously) produce highlights through the base coat.

Though this may all be moot if you're using Foundation Paints. They may cover so well they wash out the difference between the black and white base coats. I haven't tried them yet.

I usually basecoat black, and then drybrush white over the top. This makes the details pop. In the past, I have then glazed the figure with inks or thin oils, and gotten some very interesting, and often beautiful effects.

That won't work with foundation paints, though, they cover extremely well.

I just picked up some dip, and tried it on my minis, but I am not seeing the detail pop.

All I could find was minwax polyshade # 340 antique walnut satin, did I just waste my money on something that isnt suited for this purpose? Or does it take a days drying to get the detail?

Does it matter if the models are metal or plastic? Tried one on one of my plastic tau, seems to give a bit better shading then my older metal models.

Oh, don't misunderstand me- the white drybrush over the black primer is what makes the details pop. The contrast really helps these old eyes see the fine details. Once I have done that, then I go ahead with the basecoats and washes and layers and highlights.

Dipping won't make the details pop, but it is a quick way to get shading into the recesses on a figure. Since the stain tends to collect in the crevices, they get darker, and the high areas of the model look lighter. You can see a lot more detail on the figure once it is shaded, far more than you can see when simple base coats are applied. Of course, at the same time, dipping is going to mute the colors of everything on the figure.

I don't think it matters whether the model is metal or plastic, so much as whether the detail is high-relief or low-relief. I can't advise you on the drying time... maybe you need to sling off more of the stain?

If you are interested in mass production, I've found a cordless drill to be great instead of shaking off the mini by hand. First superglue a nail to the bottom of the base of each mini. Put that in your keyless chuck, dip the mini. Then hold the mini upside down in a box or other spatter-proof container and spin the excess dip off. By ork #60 your hand will be thanking you, plus I find I get less pooling and more consistency.

You guys are getting waaaaaay off topic, what with all this talk of dipping techniques. More bitching about people who dip their armies please.

Orock wrote:I just picked up some dip, and tried it on my minis, but I am not seeing the detail pop.

All I could find was minwax polyshade # 340 antique walnut satin, did I just waste my money on something that isnt suited for this purpose? Or does it take a days drying to get the detail?

Does it matter if the models are metal or plastic? Tried one on one of my plastic tau, seems to give a bit better shading then my older metal models.

The exact stain does not matter. The final appearance is decided by various factors; the thickness of the varnish, the colours in the base coat, and the detailing on the model.

The thicker the varnish the more dulled down the whole model will be. Brighter paint jobs have the opposite effect. A model with a lot of crevices and folds will dip up better than one with a lot of flat surfaces.

Dip works very well for WW2 figures who have naturally dull colours. It does not work so well for Ultramarines.

You should leave the varnish for a whole day to dry thoroughly since in the crevices it can be quite thick compared to a normal layer of paint.

Like any painting technique you need to practice to get the best out of it. Read the tutorials from Fanaticus (linked above) and try various dipping, spinning and painting on techniques until you find out what works for you.

First of all, some dipping tips.

1) YOU MUST GET A GOOD SOLID COAT OF PAINT ON. The skorne model a few posts back has black showing through the red. It is imperative that you get a consistant, even coat of whatever you are painting.

2) SOLID BLACK AND WHITE DO NOT DIP WELL. Black just looks like smily black, and white gets stained brown, and looks like smiley used toilet paper. If you want to dip white, use bleached bone and then highlight back up after the dip goes on.

3) Most stain is brown, so colors that look good with a brown ink wash will look awesome with dip. Meaning, earthtones, greys, greens, reds, yellows, oranges, browns, etc etc. And gold looks great! Blues, whites, purples, etc look CRAPPY when dipped.

4) Use BRIGHT versions of the colors you are using. For example, if you want red, use blood red, not scab red. Also, try not to put colors next to each other that are close to the same shade, or very light. For example, don't paint bleached bone pants with khommando khaki leather. After you did, the separation will be less apparent, and it won't look that good. For all my stuff I want brown, I've found that GW Bestial Brown dips the best.

5) The stain most people use is MINWAX POLYSHADES - ANTIQUE WALNUT SATIN. This gives a very even medium brown look that is not too dark or too light.

6) MAKE SURE YOU STIR THE DIP BEFORE YOU USE IT! If you just crack open the can, after it has sat a while, the urethane tries to separate out of the stain, and the pigment all goes to the bottom. This always results in a poor dipping situation. I always stir the can very gently for about a minute before I start dipping.

7) For easy dipping, the idea solution is a "dip stick". For regular sized models, I glue a straw into a paint pot cap, and then glue the base of the model down on that. You can then dip the entire figure in, and then hold it UPSIDE DOWN over a trashcan (with a new liner preferably) and "spin" the stick between your hands like you are trying to make a fire. This is alot easier then "flicking", and all the excess will just go in the trash can, making for very little mess. For larger models, you would probably need a wooden dowell rod and a screw for good dippage!

These are just some of the things I have learned while dipping my models. I hope this helps somebody.

I don't really get the hostility towards dipping. Do people get hostile about spray primering/basecoating? Basically the same type of shortcut... If it makes the army look good, who cares about what technique was used. I don't think dipping is a technique that will ever win anyone a GD (the effect just isn't nearly good enough) but it can make for a nice looking army to play against. I've never dipped any models although I have seen and like the mass effects of the technique.

As for Stelek, who was so put out about a dipped grot force winning two awards... Well it sounds like a whole vine of sour grapes to me... If the judges thought his visual effect was better than others (or yours) then that's the way it goes.

mauleed wrote:
And here's a technical question: can you highlight them after they're dipped and sealed? For example, could you highlight up the blue if you wanted to?

Absolutely. You can't just dip them though-- Dull Kote is required to get the paint to adhere right. That's my "dipping" methodology (besides that I paint the stuff on rather than dipping)

I echo whitedragon. Don't flick your models, spin them. I glue a dowel to the base with superglue and roll it between my hands. I've also heard of people rigging up dremels to do this.

I dipped my Dark Eldar for two reasons: 1) I'm a slow, not very good painter (my hands tend to shake). 2) I don't really like the models. Now I have a nearly fully painted 1850 army that actually looks pretty good on the table.

BTW, I also dipped my vehicles, but I thinned the dip and used a large brush to paint the dip on. I've gotten lots of compliments and I was able to paint A LOT faster.

Now I'm thinking of dipping my wood elves...

Ozymandias, King of Kings

One more thing. You can highlight before the dip. It actually does a nice job of blending between the highlights and the base color. Otherwise, highlight after the matte spray.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I've never dipped, personally. I've played people who do, and while I can see that it is a time saver - I don't think they look as nice as something that was treated by hand.

With that said, I don't think that the point is to make them look like Golden Demon winners, but instead to get a solid look quickly. I'm not hostile towards it... just indifferent.

Dane of War wrote:I've never dipped, personally. I've played people who do, and while I can see that it is a time saver - I don't think they look as nice as something that was treated by hand.

With that said, I don't think that the point is to make them look like Golden Demon winners, but instead to get a solid look quickly. I'm not hostile towards it... just indifferent.

That is a most sensible reply.

Dipping comes from historicals where armies are often a lot bigger than 40K. Most ancients armies contain over 100 up to 300 figures and being mounted on movement stands do not show up so individually. Dipping works even better on smaller figures like 10mm or 6mm where there is less detail to paint and usually more figures too.

This is just such a funny topic... how elitist do people really need to be with this hobby?

... "So, you actually used glue that was not made by your own hand huh??? LAME."

Fact is... I LOVE playing painted army vs. painted army... period.

NOTE: I have dipped chaos, orks, eldar, skaven and now Necrons... However, after some thought most recently I did not dip the warriors and hand painted them so to bring out the details better. Decision making is key.

I have WON several Best Painted awards with both dipped and non dipped armies. I do what is most flattering and most efficient for any given model. I think that should be taken into account on all occations. WHY would anyone give 150 clan rats 4 layers of highlighting and inks... no one cares nor can see them. If people need to do that to sleep at night, its their problem.

I don't care about winning something, but I want something that "looks good".

After talking about some dipping recently at the shop, a friend then told me "you will never stop hearing gak from me about this". He's a pretty good painter and a good player, all around nice guy, but he seems to get pretty annoyed at the topic once he heard about it.

Something about taking shortcuts, and never getting as good as I can be by taking said shortcuts.

I don't think I ever pointed out that I don't really enjoy painting all that much, but then that'd probably spark a whole nother round of "Dude WTF is wrong with you."

The broad hobby of tabletop wargaming overlaps with military modelling. At one end of the spectrum are highly skilled modellers and painters who never play a game, at the other end are players who are quite happy with boardgames and pre-painted miniatures.

The tension in the middle of the spectrum is increased by GW's committment to paint scoring as part of the total scoring for tournaments. This committment is unusual in historical wargaming where the paint scoring is separate to the game scoring. However it fits with GW's concept of GW being "the hobby".

Not in the UK anymore.... the six best painted at the Heats get a automatic place at the final. No painting scores, sportsmanship scores or composition scores. Of course, there are penalties... WFB Heat 3 was chock full of penalties IIRC....

Before that you only ever got standard scores for painting - 3 colours, based, hightlighted, detailed. Pretty much everyone got full marks. Kind of preferred that method, as there have been some pretty grotty armies turning up in the last two seasons.

All I can say is this thread has convinced me to try dipping.

mauleed wrote:All I can say is this thread has convinced me to try dipping.

I've already started testing for mass production. Doing the whole "glue a wooden dowel to the base and use a drill to spin the dip off" test last night worked well enough. Stuck the dowel/model into some styrofoam to dry last night, looks like that's the process I want to use.

Also the Miniwax dip seems a bit weak to me. I'm liking the darker stuff I used earlier for the test model shown. It really makes the Orks look good.

I plan on trying to speed paint an Ogre army in a weekend or a week after XMas. Spray, paint, dip. I figure I'll make a blog/log out of the project. I'm sure the comments I get from that at the shop will be pretty funny. Dipped Ogres, the ultimate in Lazy Gaming.

Whereas I plan on getting you to invite me over to test it out with your rig.

mauleed wrote:Whereas I plan on getting you to invite me over to test it out with your rig.

Mrs. Voodoo works Saturday night (after 5) if you wanted to come over, just give me a call or PM when your free.

EDIT: Sunday looks free too, she's going to a play that I miraculously didn't have to go to.

The whole argument is stupid, much like the argument about wether Non-Metallic Metal Painting is superior to painting with metallic paints.

I've been pretty impressed with dipping for some time, and use a variation of it for orks I painted a while ago (just slop on a heavy brown wash in this case, pulling wash off the highlight areas where appropriate).

The dipped models really sing when, after the dip, a little more care is taken with them by adding details and highlights. It disrupts the speed inherent in the technique, but makes them look that much better.

GrimTeef wrote:The whole argument is stupid, much like the argument about wether Non-Metallic Metal Painting is superior to painting with metallic paints.

I've been pretty impressed with dipping for some time, and use a variation of it for orks I painted a while ago (just slop on a heavy brown wash in this case, pulling wash off the highlight areas where appropriate).

The dipped models really sing when, after the dip, a little more care is taken with them by adding details and highlights. It disrupts the speed inherent in the technique, but makes them look that much better.

Sure the argument is stupid, I don't think you'll find anyone who's bothered to post in the thread about it who will say otherwise.

That doesn't change the fact that I've found a lot of people who either get pissy about the idea or start yelling about shortcuts, laziness, and the like.

Plus the idea that you'd do it with a tournament army also seems to really get people in a tizzy. As many here can attest, getting a good paint score is crucial to winning a tournament. And people seem to hate the idea that people who don't like or aren't good at painting can easily get a good painting score. That's doubly true if the complainers in question also really don't like the army list that "the dipper" is running too.

Voodoo Boyz wrote:

That doesn't change the fact that I've found a lot of people who either get pissy about the idea or start yelling about shortcuts, laziness, and the like.

Nice when people are jealous about your paint job...isnt it?

Deadshane1 wrote:

Voodoo Boyz wrote:

That doesn't change the fact that I've found a lot of people who either get pissy about the idea or start yelling about shortcuts, laziness, and the like.

Nice when people are jealous about your paint job...isnt it?

I don't think it was jealousy, I think it was him being pretty annoyed at the idea of it being done quickly, with little painting skill required, and that it got results. He was also sure that "it looked like crap", because I didn't have my test model on me at the time.

Also the fact that whenever we discuss it at the shop (usually around the painting counter where I'm painting the base colors on a model), invariably there are newer people around there who obviously aren't very good at painting who hear this and quickly pipe up their interest and ask for all the details on how to do it.

So it's not just that I'm doing it, but that the idea is spreading too.

I'm fairly amazed by the results Voodoo posted...

It's really pretty amazing the final result, but also how totally lame the starting point is. It basically takes a model I would feel embarassed to field, and turns it into a model I'm somewhat envious of.

I think my Orks look a bit better, I spent time slaving over each one, painting muscle striations on, etc. etc. but at the end of the day, it's fairly heartbreaking just how similar they look to that dip job.

And, honestly, my Orks are basically just overcomplicated dip jobs in the end anyway. I painted careful highlighting over each section of them, then applied a wash/glaze (if you call a dip that, it becomes legitimate) over each section, with carefully colored inks. End result: not much better (if at all) than just dipping.

I'm definitely going to try this out. I think it could produce some amazing Plague Marines.

Also, for the record, dipping isn't the total no brainer some suggest. It's certainly not a high end skill, but doing anything right takes time and practice. Getting the color on the dip right, getting the consistency right, it's not at ALL idiot proof. That said, once you've got it, you've got it, and then it is fairly idiot proof.

At least that's my impression, having "dipped" many times in the form of using a big brush loaded with wash to coat a model down.

But, as I said, seeing the results, I will have to try the actual products and techniques Voodoo recommends. The results are simply stunning.

Edit: One thing occurs to me that I'd like the veteran dippers to weigh in on... My dad used to tie a lot of fishing flies, and in some cases they'd have epoxy components to them that would sag or run if left sitting in one position for too long. The solution he came up with, was a large foam disc mounted on a slow turning electric motor. The flies could be mounted on the disc via their hook, and would slowly revolve around with the disc, perhaps one rotation every 30 seconds, preventing the epoxy from every settling in any one direction. Could this be useful when combined with the emerging field of dipping technology?

Phryxis wrote:I'm fairly amazed by the results Voodoo posted...

It's really pretty amazing the final result, but also how totally lame the starting point is. It basically takes a model I would feel embarassed to field

You mean the models that I painted and played with for what, 4 years now?

I told you people that I'm a terrible painter, though admittedly those were literally the first figs I ever did.

I do appreciate the kind words, and to be honest all this is hoping to do is get my models looking good, better than if I tried to do this normally and in less time.

I don't disagree at all that this takes its own skillset. You learn a LOT by just doing it and experimenting. But the trick is once you get going and organized it can save you a ton of time, and in my case, it'll get you better looking mini's than if you did it yourself.

And BTW, if people have questions or problems with dipping, or want to see more pics, I put up a thread here in Painting & Modeling.

The only people who are hostile towards dippers are other equally bad painters who feel they have a moral obligation to learn the techniques of highlighting by drybrushing or blending etc. It's funny, but what's even more funny is that the dippers seem to think their models look somehow great simply because their painted models looked absolutely horrifying. Most dipped models are on the second stage of painting. Base colours have been painted and shaded. The model still lacks all highlights, definition and detail. That's why they will never score high on any competitive painting score system.

I'd like to add that I still rather play against models that have clean base colours and a dipped shade than against models highlighted by people who simply can't paint. To noone's surprise the best dipped models come from people who can paint but want to finish an army over a weekend. The best results are gained by painting a couple highlights with stronger than usual colours on the model before dipping it, and by dipping I mean painting the dip on the model with a brush.

Most dipped models are on the second stage of painting.

I can't entirely agree with that...

I'd like to see a really good pic of a dipped model. Everything I've seen online gives an impression of a great finished look, but the pics aren't clear enough to really know how the model looks.

For example, Voodoo's shots aren't the clearest, but they're decent. What I see there looks very good, and when a model looks very good, I'd call it "finished." But, perhaps if I held the model in my hand, and could look very closely, it'd not be so impressive.

One thing that is not in question, is the massive improvement the dipped model is over the simple basecoat job.

All that said, there are many models where dipping won't get you very far. Probably the great majority, in fact.

Any model that works well "dirty" or "natural" looking, like an Ork, Tyranid or Kroot, I think you can get truly great results with dipping. Something that rivals a skilled painter using advanced techniques in terms of final product.

But, High Elves? Empire or Brettonians? Pretty much any model that needs to look clean, crisp and to show nice hard edges between colors, ths technique will fall pretty flat. I think it'll serve the painter well as a partial technique, for example dipped chainmail, with a nice clean tabard over it, but clean paint jobs demand more.

My Blood Angels, for example, I basecoated red, applied an all over wash (essentially a brushed on dip), then layered/feathered several shades of red and orange over this. In this case, the dip really was just the second stage of painting.