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I'm experimenting with making my own washes and suddenly found myself wondering, why aren't there any metallic washes? Has anyone ever made a metallic wash, or tried? If they don't work, for some reason, then why?

Not sure how this would work out, but for sure try it out and see.

It might end up being a bit like an interference medium - example Liquitex irridescant medium adds a pearlescent shine that is more noticable from certain angles, and more transparent from others. Theres other interference effects for paint out there too

I'll have to look up that irridecant medium. I want to do something different with my psychic hoods, other than the ones that everyone does which just look like steel plates. I feel like psychic hoods should look delicate but be indistructable. Something like an irridescant sheen over white might work.

You might also try something like Vallejo's metallic medium. It's just basically 'shiny in a bottle'. There are flakes of silvery metallic, but no pigment. You could mix this with the desired color, or maybe paint it over the color. It's not very expensive to experiment with.

Winsor & newton also do an iridescent medium which mixes well with gw paints. Not sure about other brands as I haven't tried yet.

I personally use Daler Rowney FW Inks. They have White and black, which i give a metallic finish on black paint, or white pearl look. There are also color with the iridescent finish also.

I've never tried it myself, but Vallejo makes a metal medium you may want to take a look at.

You don't really need to wash them really as the metallics stand out and usually go on raised areas. but the video above seems a good way!

Companies like Speedball, Daler Rowney, and Liquitex that make acrylic inks often have pearlescent and/or metallic options (silver and gold are usually the limit on metallics, but pearlescents introduce other color options) for artists and calligraphers. Aside from the pigment settling out more readily and potentially clogging fine fountain pens (not an issue, for us), they work the same as any other acrylic ink, meaning you could mix up a wash with them using your recipe of choice (Les Bursley's wash recipe is popular, but I didn't like the results - I use a "magic wash" base of water and Pledge FloorCare).