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Hey guys I would like to start out by saying I really freggn hate painting. I REALLY HATE painting, to me its the largest hurdle for people to get into the hobby and a hurdle I struggle with when I consider buying miniatures. I could just not paint the models and leave them grey but I belive any person I play against deserves the respect of playing with\against a painted army and thats the thought thats kept me from really enjoying the game of warhammer 40k as much as I enjoy the fluff. I found hope in The Army Painter 3 step process and I've started off painting up a squad of Anvil Industries Black ops and I'm not sure which quickshade I should use, I know there are some very talented people which practiced eye who could point me to which one and I'm asking that question now.

Here are some pictures




Another question I have is about baseing and quickshade, do I paint the bases then quickshade then flock\what-not?
I watched a Girl-Painting tutorial on Youtube that says dont quickshade your bases, but thats difficult for me because I can't dip my models without the bases and I paint the bases before I put the models on them

Hi mate, ive used quick shade a few times with mixed succsess, its briliant on organic models, like nurgle deamons, imperial guard or say skellys. The problem with it is that its realy realy bad with power armour, its to smooth and as a result will look blotchy. Fear not my friend thear is a solotion, have you heard about using an oil wash? if you have use it, if not let me know and i can explain it all for you. hope this helps.

Never even heard of it, please continue

Oil washes are the way to go. Much more control, and no brown tint.

I use quickshade on my Tyranids and it's excellent. I tried in on one of my blood Angels and it was ok - nothing special though.

If you were going to Quickshade those, you'd definitely want Dark Tone (a black tint). The Strong Tone is brownish and will make the green armor look funny - it would be reasonable for ork skin, but not so much for power armor. It probably wouldn't be dark enough to be visible either.

However, I agree that Quickshade is not the best choice for these models in these colors, even though I'm a dipping fan in general. Quickshade with power armor is generally kind of bad, because the big, smooth surfaces will collect up pools of shade and get blotchy. It's possible to minimize that, but you'll be spending time on it and the whole point of dipping is to be fast. With a better dipping color (like red or orange), it might be worth the trouble and still save you time overall, but I don't think the results here will be good enough to be worth it. I just went through essentially this same process with Ultramarines - did a few test figs and got some amount blotchiness and muddied colors no matter how careful I was. Doing it the right way with a wash and relayer of the base color came out tremendously better and was only slightly more time-consuming than the time I spent trying the get the dip to work just right.

I'm not familiar with these models and the pic is not that clear, but it looks like you've got black pads and green limbs? Doing black well is hard, and probably more time investment than you want. But it doesn't look like there's all that much green there. I'd just do a wash of the recesses with Nuln Oil or Agrax Earthshade or whatever GW's green wash is called and then repaint the green avoiding the recesses. That shouldn't take very long. Then pick out other details (eyes, sensors, etc.) with just a color or two (or a drybrush, or a color and a wash). That won't look as good as doing proper layering on the black and edge highlights all-around, but it will be fine for tabletop.

As for dipping bases, that can sometimes make sense. If you've got rocks or something with good texture and appropriate color, you could dip the whole thing. But fluffier materials like static grass or regular flocking grass would definitely want to go on after the dip.

I have used quickshade (strong tone) on all of the minis in my gallery.

I don't use it as a dip but paint it on so I can control where it goes and how much. As it leaves a gloss coat, I often go back and get any fine panel lines with an oil wash if needed. Dipping and not shaking it off sufficiently will result in pooling but the same can be said for washes if not applied correctly and slathered on.

If I want to recover any of the highlights, I take q-tip swab with some mineral spirits and roll it over the area to draw off any varnish I don't want.

I have not been painting long but I'm surprised that a product like Quickshade has such a bum rap. I prefer it over an acryllic wash as I find it goes on more even.

I have used it on space Marines in the past with success. To aid with pooling, I use putty and stick them to my power drill to wick away the excess. Check out some of my pics to see the results on Ultramarines.

 Havok210 wrote:
I have used it on space Marines in the past with success. To aid with pooling, I use putty and stick them to my power drill to wick away the excess. Check out some of my pics to see the results on Ultramarines.

Those are a lot better than what I had managed to produce with the dip. I'll have to try that power drill trick next time I want to dip something.

Oil washing.........At the stage your at with the models. firstly get some modeling gloss varnish and give the models a solid coat, not to thick. U can either paint it on or buy a can of the stuff, possibly army painter does some. then get your artists oil paint, i would use black for these guys and mix it with white spirit/or mineral spirit i belive its called in the usa. the consistince should be similar to a wash. apply the mix into th recesses of the model, it should flow from the brush easly and will sit nicely in the recesses due to the gloss layer. once this is dry overnight. use a matt varnish to seal it all in and get rid of the shinyness. Again army painter does a good matt varnish. Additionly when the model id drying you can remove execss oill wah with a qtip, and mineral spirit.

Keep in mind that Quickshade ends with a glossy finish, so add a Matte Varnish, best the one of Vallejo (the Army Painter Matte Varnish ironically seems to attack the Quickshade with its solvents). And instead of dipping (messy) you can also apply it with a brush (as Quickshade is not water based, you need a separate brush and cleaner). A friend of mine always uses Strong Tone, even on Space Marines.

BTW, don't oil paints take ages to dry?

There are a lot of videos on oil washes (BuyPainted has one, as does AwesomePaintjob), but this is the only one I've seen that explains the consistency this well. Watch to see how the wash bleeds into the paper towel.

Thanks so much guys, to be honest I'm intimidated with the oil washing. If I only put the wash in the recesses wouldn't it make the models' paint inconsistant? I tell ya what, Joel from Anvil sent me a couple extra models so i'll try the oil washing on one and I'll do a Quickshade dark tone on the other and see how it works out and post on here.

Thanks for the youtube video by the way, I forget how much stuff you can find on youtube.

Excellent vid, Matney - thanks for the link!

OP, please do post back pics. I'm really curious to see the results. If you have another spare mini (maybe just some random one - heck, even an unpainted one), it might be a good idea to practice applying Quickshade on that before doing a proper comparison. The dip is pretty touchy to work with, and unlike oil washes it's not easy to clean up. For a short time, you can soak up pools of it and the rest will smoothly flow into the gap. But after a minute or two it will start to set and messing around any further with it will leave brush marks. Getting even one model's practice with it would make for a better comparison, I think.

If there is one thing I have plenty of, its un-painted miniatures. I could use 1 or 2 to practice models I go balls to the wall.

 Newabortion wrote:
If there is one thing I have plenty of, its un-painted miniatures. I could use 1 or 2 to practice models I go balls to the wall.

As Kroot already pointed out, you HAVE to spray on a Matte finish after the Quickshades, you will hate your life and the model before you do this, but then after, it will probably be the greatest thing that has ever happened to you.....


Hyperbole is overrated....

Hey guys, I never did buy quickshade, but the The Army Painter mega paint set had dropper bottles of each shade so I painted it on a model...then a couple, next thing I knew I quickshaded my whole force.
The thing is I'm not sure if the dropper bottles are even the "real" deal, there is absolutely no shine afterwards so I'm wondering if I should even paint the varnish on.

anyways here is a before and after comparison photo.

Personally, I like the before. It's clean and defined.

The Army Painter offers 3 washes to match each shade of Quickshade, and my bet is that's what you used. The Dark Tone is the equivalent of "Badab Black" and the Strong Tone is like "Devlan Mud." I'm pretty sure the Soft Tone is just a sepia of some type.

You just washed your minis is all, but either way, it looks pretty decent. You dislike painting, so smack it with a matte coat and call it done.

The quickshade varnish comes out a satin finish in my experience.

Maybe you used a wash rather than a varnish.

Hmm, I went back and read the label its called an ink, its ment to be an exact match to the quickshade, I guess you cant tell from the before and after picture but the ink is very matt to begin with should I still use the matt varnish? If its already matt and I don't need to matt varnish it I heard I can use hairspray to protect the paint instead? Can too much matt varnish be seen if I do a bad job applying it?

Nah, hairspray isn't all that resilient. It'll rub off when the first sweaty handed opponent picks it up. But you don't generally have to worry about too much matte coat, because it's clear.

Even if the model is already matte finished, you're looking for the protection more than anything else from the spray. I like Krylon Matte spray personally. Just read the label on the can, paying specific attention to temperature and humidity conditions.

 Newabortion wrote:
Hmm, I went back and read the label its called an ink, its ment to be an exact match to the quickshade, I guess you cant tell from the before and after picture but the ink is very matt to begin with should I still use the matt varnish? If its already matt and I don't need to matt varnish it I heard I can use hairspray to protect the paint instead? Can too much matt varnish be seen if I do a bad job applying it?

However, don't discount hairspray as a hobby tool -- it's great for weathering effects! (Look up "hairspray weathering effects" on youtube.)

You should definitely matte varnish the figure whether or not you quickshade it. It's the only way to protect the figure from scratches.

If you want a really hard surface and aren't dipping (dipping already coats the model in polyurethane) then give it a coat of gloss varnish followed by a coat of matte varnish.

If you're worried about over-spraying, you can use any brand of artist's brush-on matte varnish slightly watered down. It goes on thin and you can apply multiple coats if you wish.

The AP quickshade dropper bottles say ink, but defintely come out like washes (they're what I've been using for a couple of months and I had the same initial reservation).

And yes, it should still be varnished. AP's spray is dual purpose in that it removes the shine and protects the model, but if there's no shine to remove all it'll do is protect the model.