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I'm doing a small squad for the painting contest and I want kind of a blue steel look for the armor. I've already sprayed Leadbelcher and will probably dry brush another silver or two before or after the wash. The blue tint needs to come from the wash, and I dont want to invest in a full pot of blue wash (or venrure out) for just five models.

Can I cheat and mix some blue paint into Nuln Oil? Or thin blue paint with water, medium, and flow agent? My blues on hand are Maccragge, Altdorf, and Thunderhawk.

Thanks in advance for the guidance.

mixing blue with nuln oil will look awful. you need to use pure blue and make a glaze. I would use water, or possibly lahmian medium if i wasnt feeling lazy.

A small amount of water or medium mixed with blue will work fine.
That’s how a lot of us made washed before they were a thing.

Okay, great advice. So a starting point would maybe be Macragge Blue, thinned with 1:1 matte medium and water with a drop of flow aid? I also have a pre-mixed "wet water" that is 1:10 flow aid to water (but no matte medium) that I use sometimes for thinning or decanting paint.

I want to strike a good balance between coating the surface for a blue tint and drawing down into the recesses for a lowlight, since I won't be doing Nuln Oil as I usually would over Leadbelcher.

Thanks!

Here's my best effort so far, and it's not what I'd hoped for. I posted in my P&M thread a couple days ago, but I'm hoping for more community insights and I intend to pick up the brush again tonight. I may scrap it, repaint a couple of models, and fall back on good ol' Nuln Oil. But that would yield a very monochromatic model, and I was looking for that splash of color. Here's where I stopped:

Both models coated in Leadbelcher. Left model upper is plain Leadbelcher, left model lower has a Nuln wash, and right model has a homemade wash made of Macragge, water, and flow aid. I wanted a light bluish tint with some deeper color in the recesses, but I just got dull, powdery blue all over that sort of kills the metallic aspect. I may keep fiddling with the recipe, but I'm on the clock for the monthly contest and I'm tempted to back off the the experiment. What say any of you?

Thin it even more and use very little on the brush. Just moisten the brush with the glaze and be very gentle, you can always build it up but its hard to take it back down.

This is the problem with putting acryllic paint over metallic. You're always going to lose some of the metallic.. You could try using a blue ink instead of a wash.

Dragonhoff Nightshade ?

If only using GW paints, then only use the lightest blue layer paint, if you have contrast paint blue, a drop of that is better, blue "ink" even better.
You could also try their jewel blue technical paints if you have it: it will restore some of the covered shine..
You want as transparent a paint as possible and only a hint of it: go the tiniest of drops into possibly a half and half of medium and water.
A tiny bit of flow aid or dish soap will help the wash run a bit more in the crevices and suggest a blue without smearing all over the raised surfaces.

To be very clear: you have no blue "shader" anywhere?

This is my thought process in your situation.

The contrast paints diluted with medium over metallics work well, also there are clear air paints from gw that work well too.

Thanks everyone, great advice. This was more a case of trying to work with what I had... I see now that a blue ink, wash, or glaze would have been worth looking/waiting/paying for. I thought i could shortcut my way there. I'll try to combine your advice tonight: a lighter layer paint, less pigment, and more flow aid, plus a light touch. Results tomorrow! Thanks again, all...

Two tutorials from GW for doing blued steel (i.e., Grey Knights armor), one with a wash and one with contrast paints:

Alright, I'm calling it good. Drakenhof would have been the right call if I had more time. But thanks to your advice I managed a reasonable effect (I think). I watered down Altdorf just a little to the point where I'd have wanted to paint with it, then thinned it with pure flow aid. It took to the recesses better without clouding the metallic effect as much. I'm not thrilled, but satisfied enough to get moving on the painting contest. Thanks for all the support and suggestions!

First attempt on the left, second on the right: