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Hey! Im working on my Tau and am wondering how to panel line them. Im not looking to buy any more items to do it with so here is what I have to work with.

Variety of brushes
Variety of washes
Many of paints

traditional panel lining, at least in scale modelling, is done with enamel products. This allows one to perform "clean up" with white spirit swabs after applying the washes.

If you are only using acrylics, you cannot "clean up" the panel lining the same way, so you will probably want to take it easy and apply the wash in several lighter passes. Doing it in one heavier acrylic wash pass will probably end in tears, unless you are super talented with applying washes

You often want a pain that is somewhere between a 'normal' paint and a wash - just mixing a wash with paint works. Or contrast paints right out the pot are good.

Then it's about a fine-pointed brush, a steady hand and time. Keep some cotton buds handy - it's easy to quickly wipe over overspilled paint when its thin.

Enamel washes are a bit of a shortcut buy they don't work for everything; nothing is a true replacement for practiced brush control

 tauist wrote:
traditional panel lining, at least in scale modelling, is done with enamel products. This allows one to perform "clean up" with white spirit swabs after applying the washes.

If you are only using acrylics, you cannot "clean up" the panel lining the same way, so you will probably want to take it easy and apply the wash in several lighter passes. Doing it in one heavier acrylic wash pass will probably end in tears, unless you are super talented with applying washes

Thank you guys both so much! I will try it tonight!

I believe for the enamel method, the idea is that you do your base colors, and then do a varnish. and then do the enamel pin wash with the varnish protecting the acrylic paint beneath.

I haven't used the technique personally.

Gundam markers can be a useful tool, as well.

I use a 00 sized brush and panel line with black intensity ink (green stuff world) from a wet pallet. As long as you don’t have too much on your brush it flows into the lines.

The new reformulated GW shades are better at this than the old version, but yeah the gold standard is enamel/oils.

Do your acrylic paintjob, then gloss varnish. It's not for protecting the paint, it's for decreasing the surface tension so that the paint runs into the recesses better. Let it dry a bit to a lot, depending on preference, then wipe off the excess with white spirits.

Search up, "pin wash", it is basicly the same thing as panel lining and done with brushes.

You can use i litte diswasse midle to losen up the surface tension from the paint/inkt.

Indeed. Dishwasher or Flow Aid should work a treat and make acrylic wash hug the crevases better

You can go three ways really. You can use acrylics, enamels (the traditional panel liner) or oils.

I personally use oils. You can thin student grade oils with white spirits or any other thinner you fancy. I use Sansodor thinner as it has a longer working time and lets me play with effects in addition to panel lining.

There are lots of purpose built products you can try to make your life much easier and avoid getting the right consistency.

I used to be an advocate for acrylic panel lining because you don't worry about hazardous materials. Unless you plan on spending an age working on brush control and doing the clean up on the fly, the result isn't the same quality.

I use gw inkts or those new quick paint from them. And when i need some more pigment i use some paint mixed with the inkt. no white spirits for me, they smell bad and i get a problem with breathing.