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Hi, I'm having a bit of a dilema with adding a gloss coat to my minis and having finer details disappear before my eyes.
I'm working on some 15mm tanks and thought I'd found the perfect way to get a chipping and scratch effect on the hulls. After adding basic chipping with dark paint very dry on a rough piece of sponge, I highlighted one edge of each chip with a 2b pencil and the rubbed the edge of the pencil on some corners, track edges etc. It gave a really nice metallic sheen that was subtle but noticeable at that scale.
After brushing on a gloss coat however, the effect vanished. Thinking I'd rubbed the fine graphite off while brushing, I started over and this time thinned the varnish and applied with an airbrush. A couple of heavier spots survived but overall the effect seems to have vanished again.
I used GW ardcoat (probably my first mistake!)

Anyone got any ideas on how I can protect this layer without destroying it in the process?
Thanks in advance.

I haven't tried pencil weathering myself but it makes sense that it would disappear because it is rather subtle and relies on the shininess of the graphite which would be dominated by the gloss coat you're applying. Have you tried a satin or matte varnish instead?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I haven't tried pencil weathering myself but it makes sense that it would disappear because it is rather subtle and relies on the shininess of the graphite which would be dominated by the gloss coat you're applying. Have you tried a satin or matte varnish instead?

The other thing that you could try doing is using a pigment setter or something like white spirits to set the graphite.

Treat it like you would weathering pigments and you might preserve the effect after varnishing.

How about thinning some wash and use the capillary effect to draw the wash into the crevisses and lines?
Or pin washing?

 Tjomball wrote:
How about thinning some wash and use the capillary effect to draw the wash into the crevisses and lines?
Or pin washing?

That's a completely different effect to pencil weathering, you'd often use it in addition to pencil weathering, no instead of it. Pencil weathering gives the effect of worn paint but is scale-appropriate. If you actually painted silver lines on to the raised areas, on a 15mm model it'd look like huge chunks of paint are missing. Using a pencil it only looks shiny when light hits it at the right angle, so you get a more subtle worn paint effect.

I'm reasonably sure the OP's problem is either the gloss varnish hiding the effect or it actually being washed/rubbed away. So I'd start by trying a matte or satin varnish and perhaps using a spray varnish instead of a brush on one. You can do a light dusting of matte varnish to fix effects that might be rubbing or washed away easily from a heavier coat.

When it comes to 15mm tanks my process looks something like this...

1. Paint basecoats
2. Apply gloss varnish
3. Apply decals
4. Apply another thin coat of gloss varnish to protect decals
4. Apply weathering
5. Apply matte varnish

If I were doing pencil weathering, I'd probably do the it after step 5 and then give a light dusting of matte varnish again to finish it off.

When I say a "light dusting" of matte varnish, I mean something like shown in this video just after 4 minutes...

https://youtu.be/H7a3pgN7xy4?t=4m14s

I'm sorry to hear that mate. I had the same issue with weathering powders, the areas i'd applied them where they were thin, they disappeared completely, leavingonly the areas where they were thick. I believe that it's just something that happens... I'm going to check in with an expert later today and will post his response as well.

If your gloss is overpowering the shininess of the pencil, consider a matte lacquer instead. You can even spray a matte finish over a glossy one and it will take on the dullness of the matte without having to remove the old gloss. This could help your pencil show through.