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Hey guys, So one quick question. Should I put transfers on before I dip/wash my mini's or put the transfers on after I wash/dip them?

I'm doing a couple marines with the wargaming dip and also with standard dark wash to see which I like better but I want to be sure I do it in the right order so it works correctly.

I would say before and to make sure you seal the transfers with varnish after you apply them (which you should do whether you dip the mini or not).

cool, would you say there is a better varnish to use for the sealing? I got matt and gloss. I heard the gloss might help the dip/wash settle in the recesses easier but IDK.

I would do the decals before the dip. For two reasons: the dip will tie everything together and your decals won't have that freshly-painted look. And the dip will do a fantastic job of sealing the decals.

So I should wait till after the dip to do the matt varnish to dull everything out?

The way Ive done it with my salamanders was first dip. Allow to dry for several days (2 at least but I use minwax polyshade). Then using the smooth glossy surface of the dipped model, place the decal. Then brush on the dip over the decal to give a nice varnished hard candy coating. I think it gives pretty good and durable results. I keep all my minis in ziplocks. No decal casualties yet.

Here's an example. Excuse the THSS conversion. It was my first.

looks good. But it seems the decals are really white while the rest is a dingy color. personally I think I'll end up doing it before that way it will work into the color and not stand out or pop too much.

MitchellTyner wrote:
So I should wait till after the dip to do the matt varnish to dull everything out?

Yes, the dip will have a sheen to it, so hit it with a matte sealer after it has properly dried.

sounds good. I'll give it a try

MitchellTyner wrote:
So I should wait till after the dip to do the matt varnish to dull everything out?

Yes, but seal the transfers with Future or another gloss varnish before you dip. The decal process should be: paint, gloss varnish, apply transfer, seal transfer with gloss varnish, then whatever is next in your work flow.

It also depends on what you plan on doing after a dip. Is it done, or will there be a bunch of layering/highlighting work? One reason to put off applying a decal is so that stray brush strokes don't hit it.

Just be aware that often a dip/wash will catch on the edge of the transfer and therefore give a distinctive border where more wash catches in the small lip created between the model & transfer. To minimise this cut your transfers as very close as possible to the print of the transfer leaving no 'clear bit'. Alternatively (if DIY transfer) waste paper by having a sheet cover the entire section (so like have an armour plate etc be entirely covered by transfer). This will not be possible in all situations, but gives you a couple of ideas.

Best bet (IMHO) is to create weathered transfers and then add them to a washed vehicle with the border cut close. This way you cover both problems.

I also wouldn't be overly concerned with more freshly painted insignia. If you look at real tanks etc you will notice that often the ONLY washed (as in cleaned) area of the tank is the insignia and/or freshly repainted due to being redeployed from another theatre and so wanting to say to friendlies "hey, I'm a friend... please use your expensive APDSFSDU round on the enemy and not me"

Yeah I'll be using micro set and micro sol on it so I hope that it will smooth down that edge so the wash/dip doesn't stick to much on it.

as for finish work, idk. I think I might do a little more work on my characters for the army but I'm tired of not making progress and I want to get the durn thing on a table for a match or two so the bulk will probably be dipped and that's it.

This is actually an interesting problem. The edge of the transfer will definitely want to accumulate the wash/dip, so you'd want to seal it first.

When you seal it, you want to be consistent across the entire model, you don't want one area more glossy than another because it'll cause the wash/dip to settle differently.

So my approach would probably be to gloss varnish, apply decal, apply gloss varnish with a brush over the decal itself, then spray the entire model with a gloss or satin varnish prior to dipping.

I typically use a wash rather than a dip, but my approach is paint -> airbrush gloss -> decal -> hairy brush gloss over the decals -> wash and weather -> satin varnish to tie it all together.

I will admit I'm not a huge fan of dip, I find a wash can be applied very quickly if you need speed but also can be done neatly in areas where neatness is required and doesn't dry glossy.

what ever you do; DO A TEST FIRST.

A piece of sprue, old model, chuck of plastic, whatever.

Just do a test first, with the technique you are considering, and see what actual results look like.

Nothing is worse than experimenting on a assembled and fully painted model, only to ruin it.

One note: if you do any type of varnish at the end (matte or gloss) make 100% sure the model is completely dry,or you could get weird effects.

best of luck!

thanks for the tips guys. I finally got my bolts to do the decals in from a member on the site here. So I'm about to start working on one this week. I'll try the gloss, decal, gloss again then dip strategy. Think it will turn out very nicely for some table top. If the dip doesn't look good on one then the next I'll just use the wash but I've been getting very spotty results with the wash even with the mini sprayed with gloss varnish. It seems to want to settle/pool in the high spots and not where it should be going...

MitchellTyner wrote:
It seems to want to settle/pool in the high spots and not where it should be going...

That can happen when you spray models and more paint accumulates on the raised surfaces and then when you go to wash it, the wash is attracted to the area of thicker paint rather than in to the crevices.

Not sure if that's your specific problem, but I have had that problem in the past.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

MitchellTyner wrote:
It seems to want to settle/pool in the high spots and not where it should be going...

That can happen when you spray models and more paint accumulates on the raised surfaces and then when you go to wash it, the wash is attracted to the area of thicker paint rather than in to the crevices.

Not sure if that's your specific problem, but I have had that problem in the past.

It could possibly be, since I'm a novice at airbrushing. Sometimes with the lighter colors like reds and the necrotic flesh color of these marines, it's hard to get a good coverage.

Yeah I don't know if that was specifically your problem with washes, it's just something that's happened to me at times and produced the exactly opposite effect I wanted (there's no wash in the crevices themselves, but instead it settles on the raised surfaces where more paint has accumulated from spraying. You apply it initially and it goes in to the crevices, but then as it dries it soaks in to the paint on the raised surfaces.

If I'm going to wash a model directly after spraying it I will work harder to get the spray to settle in the crevices and sometimes I'll go over with a hairy brush with a very thin layer of paint or varnish to try and homogenise the surface.


I think (but haven't actually tested it yet) that if you leave the model for several days between spraying it and washing it, the problem might be reduced because paint becomes less porous as it has more time to fully cure. But that's just a guess, I take no responsibility if you assume it to be true and it's not

Decals can be a pain bit just be patient and never settle.

For varnish I use Golden. They have gloss semi and matte. Pricey but very worth it.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
The post above talks about curing paint.

This is good advice because all paint needs this. Even your fiddly line highlights need time to cure. I used to think that I really sucked at prep because sometimes paint would wear off from minor handling, but eventually I realized that the reason paint wouldn't set is because I didn't let anything dry out properly! That and I learned how to pin a model to a cork for painting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Btws

I noticed the ops custom thammer. Nice work, reminds me of the really old artwork you used to see in WD
May I ask for some details about that? How did you build it?