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Hi there!

To get to the next level in my painting I am trying out new techniques and right now I am trying to master Oil Washing. I did as follows.

1. I primed the mini (Airbrush)
2. Applied a basecoat (Airbrush)
3. Applied a coat of gloss varnish (Airbrush)
4. Mixed a bit of artists oilpaints with odorless white spirit and sloshed on the mini
5. Waited for it to dry (took days so I ended up leaving it for weeks)
6. Tried to swab of excess paint with a cotton swab dipped in the same spirits.

Now the problem I was having is one, should it take that long to dry and could I shorten the drying time? Also, the was stuck harder than I thought it would and I had to rub quite vigorously to remove any of it.

Also, when trying to remove before it was completely dry I found that I washed away all of the wash thus eliminating the effect.

Where did I go wrong and what could I do better?

Don't 'slosh' it on. Oil washes work best when directed (pin wash or gently blending into a recess). You need surprisingly little.

You're letting it dry too long. You shouldn't really need to leave it more than around 12 hours, tops.

When cleaning up, the cotton swab / tissue / whatever you're wiping with should be just moist, not wet. If it's too wet you'll wash away your panel lining. If you've done a directed / blended fade with the oils, you shouldn't need to wipe down.

Once the cleanup is done, you then leave it for a while longer to dry before sealing on with another varnish coat. This stops you wiping off the rest.

Thank you very much for the advice!

I will be starting a new test tonight with a disposable model. Luckily the model I first tested on is a tank that is supposed to be dirty and grimey.

I found the best thing (for me personally) was to think of the "cleanup" stage less of a cleanup and more of a blending stage. If you apply too much and have to remove it, at least for me, it always ends up looking messy. But if you apply just a small amount and then in the cleanup stage just blend the edges of the oil paint in to the surroundings, it ends up looking much neater.

Also very good advice, thank you!

I uses oil washes and can second all of the advice here - they are amazing, but have small learning curve - but will be awesome once you get the hang of it.

best of luck!

Try looking for matte mediums for oil paints, they make oils dry faster and more matte, if the problem is that the oils you use are taking longer to dry than usual.

Using only the minimum amount of paint you need is also a good idea.

Perhaps you aren't using enough white spirit or mixing your paints enough? Maybe using too much oil paint when creating your wash? Oil paints don't need THAT much time to dry, especially when using them on models.

With a gloss coat you really don't need a lot of oil paint when doing a wash. Capillary action takes care of a lot of the work in terms of getting paint around the rivets and into the recesses, etc. In terms of having "excess" oil paint on the model, I use an old drybrush or something equivalent with a bit of white spirit to blend away the excess into the model. This method also works very well when you're trying to create rain or weather streaking on your vehicles. With all the weathering and wear and tear that many put into their vehicles, I don't feel its necessary to wash your entire model with oil paint. I basically just do the areas that need shading or some form of weathering.

It's the paint. I have had a tube of Abteilung Oil Paints come out very liquidy out of the tube, because of separation of the pigment and medium. The liquid comes out but not the gunky pigment. This oil paint will never dry. Remove it with spirits and do the wash with a different tube of paint.

So, time for an update...

I made a batch of test figures that I had lying around. This time I started with a basecoat of bonewhite to more easily see what actually happened and the more subtle effects on the edges.

1. I picked a dark sepia to get a good contrast but with a matching tone. I mixed it rater thin and stirred real well to really blend the wash. (btw my medium is odorless mineral spirits)
2. I tried one model with the sloshing method and one model with a more precise application just to compare.
3. I noticed the pigments grouping on the surfaces much like when a medium looses suspension.

This is as far as I have come today. I am waiting for the wash to dry and it seems like its drying way faster than last time but it is hard to tell with the oil paints.

So, do you guys think the problems with the pigments is due to bad quality paints (they are pretty damn cheap) or due to some additive in the mineral spirits?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So I waited a while more... the drying was much faster with a better mix...



I don't really have good control yet and perhaps the contrast was a bit much but I am pretty happy with the result for a second attempt. The next thing is to find out why the pigments are acting up, I thought I would go down to the artstore and buy one tube of premium paint for comparison.

This is a very abstracted test ofcourse, no shading or anything done under the wash so it will be interesting to see what happens to a fully shaded model.

Well I can tell you guys this much... looking at the "cleanup" as a "blending phase" was extremely helpful...

What I did was use the spirits with a brush rather than with a q-tip and then used the q-tip tip remove excess paint but with no spirits to get more control.