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I'm close to being ashamed for asking this yet again, but it's that time of the year.
I've currently tried my hand at oil washes for Deathwing again. And it is as bad as I remember.

A bit of background on the WHY:
I like my Deathwing to be a light off white, basically Ushabti Bone. Acrylic washes tint the surface too much for my tastes, plus it destroys any airbrush zenital I have done.
This colour however seems to be exceedingly hard for me to do... the brown on the bright offwhite just sticks out like mad if it doesn't work very well.
Basically the effect I want is the one BuyPainted demonstrates here;
http://youtu.be/FWRs68COj64?t=6m50s
also, the blue wash on the feathers just looks phaenomenal!

"My" wash just does not behave the way it does in his vid.
I've watched at least half a dozen tutorials and read as many articles, but I'm not getting what's going wrong... Not really.

I think the consistency of the wash gives me trouble. I kind of need the wash to run of the brush onto the miniature and, nearly by itself, flow into the crevices and nooks, yes?. But if I do this, the wash dries uneven and blotchy. More like dirt than some solid shade. Sometimes it will not even stick to the mini at ALL and run off and pool pretty much only at the bottom, not even in the corners.
If I make it too thick it clings to the model and leaves blotches that need cleaning - which on the other hand messes up the clean line I hope to go for. One not exactly placed brush and there is the "shadow" of the wash...

Satin or gloss? I see BP uses satin varnish. Is using a gloss varnish actually a bad idea? Could it cause some of the troubles I'm seeing,t least at this type of application?
Or is the actual colour combination just harder to do (a dark brown on a bright off-white)?
Currently there are some Deathwing that caused this post drieing in the other room... I might snap a picture for illustration, though it won't show what I mean, being static and all.
So my main problem is the consistency of the wash and its flowing property which leads to all matter of further troubles.

I guess I'm just rambling on now, so I better quit Materials I'm using is Vallejo Gloss, W&N Odourless Thinner and Maimeri as oil paint.

P.S.: Now that my rambling is complete and I've been thinking, an uneven application of the varnish might cause these exact issues with different surface properties...

If it is drying like dirt, that sounds like it is a paint with too large a pigment - I have found some really good artists oils have pigment that does this, while cheap stuff works beautifully - it depends on the colour and brand.

If it is running off completely, that sounds like big pigment and too thin.

BP usually uses gloss, then covers it with satin.


MY problem, if I can piggy back off your thread, is that I can't find a medium that doesn't completely eat paint - I have tried white spirit, sansodor, odourless turps, etc - they all seem to eat paint (or at least rough the surface up completely).

I suspect my gloss varnish layer simply isn't thick enough, but then I see BP doing it as a demo in the above video with no varnish at all and it is perfect.

I use gloss varnish.

Use a brush to apply it only to the areas where you want it rather than slopping it on and hoping it will trickle down to the crevices. For rivets, a very small amount on the brush just touched to the rivet should be enough. If you watch close in his video, he dots it on rather than using a brushing motion. When it goes beyond where he wants it, he wiped it off quick with his finger. While its still fresh, its better to take a cotton swab and wet the tip with mineral spirits (aka white spirit) and roll it gently over large areas to recover highlights or get rid of the dirty look over a light color.

In the video you posted the wash seems to be drying gritty. It also appears that he is using a thicker wash consistency.

You want approximately a 50/50 mix of oil to dilutant for a pin wash consistency.

Some paint pigments, not just paint brands have a bad consistency. I tried to use grumbacher Van Dyke Brown and the paint would turn into tiny, distinct grains of pigment that dried like gak on my miniature when thinned with white spirits.

Satin or gloss varnish is fine for doing a wash on. Just make sure your varnish is acrylic based and your oil is ... oil based.

A few things that might help:

1. put a dab of oil paint on cardboard to soak up the carrier for an hour. This will remove the glossiness from the oil paint. And it should help it dry faster.

2. mix the piss out of your wash to make sure you get all those little grains of pigment into your wash.

3. fill two spots on your palette with white spirit. Mix your oil wash in one of the two really really well. Then with a fat brush start adding the mixture from the "pre wash" to the "clean wash". If you have large particles of pigment in the "pre wash" they will hopefully stay in that spot on the palette and your "clean wash" will just have pure pigment dissolved in thinner.

Yeha, pin washing is the way to go. Like BP I do the wash after I've done everything else.. Slobbering it on would be a bad, bad idea

50/50 sounds really thickish, way thicker than I tried mixing my paints. I will give it a shot though, thanks for the hints!
Oil washes can be quite frustrating.. at least I'm past the part where I rub off the base colours when trying to clean up stuff

Going back to the acrylic washes: instead of washing the entire surface, use a size 0 or 1 brush, and wash only the crevices *lightly*. don't saturate it, and don't let it run or pool.

When you're done, take a size 0 and paint thinned ushbanti along any edges that aren't even, or to just soften them, if they are too harsh (or too wide). The trick is just consistent shadow lines. The result will be very crisp (this is how I paint white models, as well).

You're unlikely to be able to preserve zenithal highlighting from an airbrush, because if you do that, you won't be able to correct any errors during the crevice-only wash process.

Yes, and there the oil washes come in. With a drying time of several hours and the ability to wipe em off with either cotton bud or a moist brush they have the highest chance of preserving the diff. colours

You might try the enamel washes from MIG Productions, AK Interactive, or AMMO of Mig. (Man, that guy gets around...) They work more or less the same as oil paint washes, except they are already thinned. They can be cleaned up with turps/white spirits, but they dry a bit faster. Once all the thinner has flashed off, you still have an hour or so to touch/clean them up before they cure completely. Also, being made specifically for scale models, the pigments are very fine, so you get much much less of the grainy effect after they dry. The main limitation is that they only come in a few colors meant to be paired with traditional armor colors.

Worth a look. Part of the problem is that the brown contrasts strongly with the off-white.
On green and the likes I run into FAR less trouble.
So having one of those until I get better is a good hint, ty!

Make sure you are not trying to dilute oil with water, or use brushes which you cleaned in water. White spirit or turpentine replacement from the same shop that sells the oil paint should do the trick.

 Thairne wrote:
Worth a look. Part of the problem is that the brown contrasts strongly with the off-white.
On green and the likes I run into FAR less trouble.
So having one of those until I get better is a good hint, ty!

Yes, light colors are more difficult to deal with than dark ones because unevenness is much more cisible. So, Caliban will be much easier than Sybarite in the greens, for example.