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I was wondering what the best approach was to making a wash, would it be just adding a clear medium into the paint or would I need to do other steps?

Nope, no other steps.

It's not ideal, but even water will suffice in a pinch.

What are some of the other ways other than medium or water?

I find just using acrylic medium creates a glaze, not a wash.

The primary differences is that a glaze layers evenly across the area covered. A wash, being thinner, tends to be very thin or even non-existent over high points and ridges, and accumulates more thickly in the low areas. Thus, the pigment is evenly distributed in a glaze, and concentrated in the 'shadows' for a wash.

To create a wash, you need to add water and acrylic medium in roughly equal parts. It helps to have this pre-mixed in a separate bottle, with a drop or two of flow-aid or flow enhancer added.

I will need to remember that for when I am making a glaze.

There's a nebulous concept of surface tension to consider. It's the quality of a paint that allows it to adhere to a surface.

Adding water to acrylic paint breaks up the surface tension. The more you add, the easier it is for the paint to flow into the cracks and crevices.

But it's tricky. Add too much and the paint just becomes a runny mess.

Mediums, Flow Aid, Isopropyl, etc. are used because they preserve surface tension while thinning the paint. There's a property to them that keeps the pigment together as it spreads throughout the volume of the medium. It's worth it to look at several and decide the one that works best for what you are trying to do.

However, the surface it's being applied to matters as well. On YouTube, OrcPainterNerd has a good video about painting a Dark Angels Rhino. He coats the Rhino with a Satin varnish to do some really tight pinwashes and weathering. It's worth watching, in part because of how effortlessly he goes back and forth between washes and glazes. He seems to have mastered the concept and it's fun to listen to how he explains it.

I will have to check it out when I get home, I am always looking for a good painting videos.

There was a time when Les Bursley's wash recipe was the go-to wash recipe:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/261541.page

My mix, pulled from recommendations by Privateer Press, is 1 part paint, 3 parts medium, and 4 parts water.

I use tap water, but to each their own. Works beautifully.

I've been using Les' recipe for a while now and it works a charm.

However, around here tap water has so much garbage in it, it actually affects the final color and finish of the wash. Using distilled water is highly recommended if you have hard water issues.

I do paint + Liquitex Flow Aid + either water or Vallejo Medium. The Liquitex helps it really run into the recesses.

For glazes I do paint + Vallejo Glaze Medium + water

Mine are a mix of water, ModPodge, flow aid, and acrylic pigment from the art store. I've fiddled with a few different strengths and only ever really came up with something good enough for big pieces of terrain (which was why I needed it). I still use Agrax and Nuln for models... the flow characteristics are too good and I never came close to matching it. But it's nice to have a big pot of cheap black wash when I'm cranking out several dozen textured bases at once.

I personally use tap water these days and thats it. But if i were doing a big or exclusive model i would use GW's medium they sell. Would be a good idea to test out a few methods your self on a test model, see what you like. ( im noob so dont take my advice )

Just want to thank you people for the time in this thread. Super useful information and clear explanations always make my day. Once again Dakka comes through.

Agreed, thank you for all of the ideas and different methods to create both washes and glazes.

 techsoldaten wrote:
Adding water to acrylic paint breaks up the surface tension. The more you add, the easier it is for the paint to flow into the cracks and crevices. (...)

Mediums, Flow Aid, Isopropyl, etc. are used because they preserve surface tension while thinning the paint. There's a property to them that keeps the pigment together as it spreads throughout the volume of the medium. It's worth it to look at several and decide the one that works best for what you are trying to do.

Maybe it's because I'm a non-native, but I'd say it's the other way round. Water has a strong surface-tension and the more you add to paint, the stronger the surface-tension gets. Medium does nothing, it's the resin that bonds the paint when it dries. Flow Aid or Isopropyl and stuff (btw, Isopropyl dissolves resin and acrylics, beware when using it as a thinner, it may mess your paint to useless goo) are the ones who break surface-tension (that's why you can put a spheric drop of water on your floor, but when trying the same with alcohol, that stuff just creeps away all flat). You want to have surface-tension though for the paint to spread into recesses (capillary effect is also part of it), so that part was correct.