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So I'm painting some Viorl'a sept tau, which means that they are predominately white in color, and I'm shading them with Nuln oil to make the armor look more segmented. However, the oil is staining my nice white armor and I'm having to paint over it with white afterward. Is there a fix for this?

SirGunslinger wrote:
So I'm painting some Viorl'a sept tau, which means that they are predominately white in color, and I'm shading them with Nuln oil to make the armor look more segmented. However, the oil is staining my nice white armor and I'm having to paint over it with white afterward. Is there a fix for this?

Paint the nuln oil carefully into the crevices using a very small brush. I do the same thing with my Dawnstone Tau. Any small mistakes you can probably ignore or just remove while the wash is still wet with a clean damp brush.


Also, I did Nuln Oil over the head/weapon of my Apothecary. It's over Ulthuan Grey, but again, painted into recesses, not washed over. Followed by white highlights.


One other option is to Gloss varnish the mini before washes, then use a moist Q-Tip to remove the wash on the flat areas. Probably even more tedious than just using a small brush to paint Nuln Oil in the crevices, though it requires less hand-eye co-ordination.

Using oils for panel lines will allow you to clean the excess wash off using a little thinner.

@ SirGunslinger: As noted, starting with a very light grey, washing black, then highlighting / drybrushing with white.

@ John Prins: Not to hijack the thread, but can I ask how you did that orange?

SirGunslinger wrote:
So I'm painting some Viorl'a sept tau, which means that they are predominately white in color, and I'm shading them with Nuln oil to make the armor look more segmented. However, the oil is staining my nice white armor and I'm having to paint over it with white afterward. Is there a fix for this?

As Queen Annes said, consider using oil shade instead of acrylic shade. The great advantage is a much longer working time, coupled with better flow into panel lines. That means you can apply shade, have it run most of the panel line and use your brush, a tissue or your finger to remove or redistribute shade. The oil shade will dry to the touch in less than an hour, but problems can be fixed the next day with a bit of the turpentine replacement you use as a thinner for the paint.

I'd advise a tube of neutral black, semi-transparent oil paint and a can of turpentine replacement, easily available from a crafts store for a couple of dollars.

you can also try gloss varnishing your white basecoat. It will help the shade flow into the recesses and not settle as much on the surface.

Both these approaches come with tradeoffs - oils can be manipulated in a way that other paints can't, but they require solvents to work with and take much longer to dry. Painting the wash into the crevices and lines specifically is very time-consuming, and may end up taking more time and effort than you're currently spending to clean the up the white afterwards.

My suggestion is to thin your Nuln Oil with Lamian Medium. This makes it thin enough that you can apply it all over without darkening the white base coat as much, but still dark enough in the recesses to shade effectively. You may still want to go back and do a little cleanup/highlighting with white, but it should cut down on the need to do so considerably. You can see an excellent example of this in Sorastro's video on painting Heavy Stormtroopers from Imperial Assault:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In12QLHJxqc

 greatbigtree wrote:


@ John Prins: Not to hijack the thread, but can I ask how you did that orange?

I go through a lot of the iterations in my Knights of Gryphonne Blog (in my signature). The current version is:

Vajello Grey primer (airbrushed)
Reaper Orange Brown basecoat (airbrushed - Tau Sept Ochre is a good substitute)
Reaper Carrot Top Red undershade (airbrushed - skippable step that provides minimal shading)
Reaper Marigold Yellow zenithal (airbrushed - another skippable step)
Reaper Coppery Orange (airbrushed, which is important because the metallic particles settle differently than when brushed)
Army Painter Flesh Wash (thin coat, brushed on)
Citadel Agrax Earthshade crevice wash
Reaper Coppery Orange edge highlights/panel lines (brushed on)

Quasistellar wrote:
you can also try gloss varnishing your white basecoat. It will help the shade flow into the recesses and not settle as much on the surface.

If you go with Gloss varnish, IIRC you can also do a sort of oilwash type technique where you can wipe off the tide marks with water and or very carefully with iso alcohol and a Q tip. but only after the gloss is fully cured and the wash is dried on top of it.

@ John Prins: Thank you!

SirGunslinger wrote:
So I'm painting some Viorl'a sept tau, which means that they are predominately white in color, and I'm shading them with Nuln oil to make the armor look more segmented. However, the oil is staining my nice white armor and I'm having to paint over it with white afterward. Is there a fix for this?

I had same exact problem.
Here are some things I have tried:

1 - Wet the area with Mineral Spirits lightly and apply the Nuln oil in the recesses only. Mineral spirits will deliver the wash into the cracks better than using water.
However it is a time consuming process.

2 - Use oil wash instead of acrylic. By washing mini in the diluted mixture of oil-RawUmber and terpenoid or mineral spirit will get into the recesses very nicely, and long dry time leaves plenty of time to clean up surfaces with q-tip if need be.
However, it is a bit time consuming and does need to be varnish sealed.

3 - Instead of using Nuln oil I have used simple Yellow-Ochre or Raw-Sienna or Burnt-Ochre colors to wash with. It still etches the detail and inks the recesses, but it does not stain the white surface with weird black smudges.
The only downside is that the warm-brownish wash will need to be applied more than once to achieve darker levels for the lines in the recesses.