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I'm trying to figure out whether dipping my Eldar is feasible. I know it's a crime to miss the painting opportunities of the wonderful Goodwin plastics, but I'm beginning to think I will never have the time to fully paint the army any other way.

Here's my question: Can brush-ed on dip look decent on Serpents/Falcons? I know that large, flat surfaces are dip's falling-down point. I also know that it's going to have to be brushed, as I can't flick or spin the nice Forgeworld conversions I have without breaking something important. So I want to know who's done this successfully. I've dipped some 'Nids, so I know the infantry will work fine. But those beautiful vehicles? I don't want to ruin them.

Have any of you done this with either success or some lesson-worthy failures? Advice would be very much appreciated.

I saw a Blue Table-painted Eldar army on eBay recently. They used a bone/gold scheme, dipped (glazed, whatever they cal it- it's dip), and then gems painted in Hawk Turquoise. I'm thinking about something similar, sprayed bone and detailed gold, but with red instead of blue (still painted after the dip), and black on cloth sections and some aspect armor.

I may also try some DA/Snot Green on large surfaces, as that's my base color for the current scheme. Has anyone here tried dipping lighter greens? Im curious how they work with the dark-brown shade from Minwax Antique Walnut. I've used dip with Camo Green before, but that has a lot of brown in it already. Has anyone here dipped Snot Green or other light greens with brown dip? Does it work well?

Finally, I'm frankly pretty ashamed to have to resort to the Dip for Eldar. Oh well. Success in business has left me with little time, but still not enough cash to justify hiring the pros. When/if I ever get there, I'll just buy a Krieg force to have painted...

Brushing on vehicles works just fine. Just like with the smaller figs, work out your color scheme for maximum dip/endresult.

I love dipping then readdressing highlights and details. Works really well.

Thanks, theblklotus.

Does anyone have tips for brushing dip, too? Can one brush straight dip, or do you need to thin it?

A buddy did brush-on dip with Tau devilfish and hammerheads (GW paintscheme) and it looked fine (this was back in '04-'05). I don't see why the principal wouldn't work for Eldar vehicles as well. Just be careful what colors you go for: my sense is that you want 'warm' colors (reds, earthtones) rather than 'cold' colors (white, grays, blues, greens, etc.).

Thanks- I'll stay warm for anything that has dip on it. I may experiment with dip over Snot Green just to see what it looks like.

Do you know if your buddy thinned his dip?

Hopefully I'll have an army that I won't be ashamed to post here, soon... I'd really like to show off my Exodites and scratchbuilt Nightwing, but they look really silly monocolor. Painting them would motivate me to get the photo gear out, too...

Supposedly you can thin the "dip" (Minwax) with mineral spirits, but I never really had all that good results with it. Consequently, I'm looking into the future floor wax heavy ink, glaze whatever, method for brushing on my vehicles, and then I'll try it on infantry as well.

I never had a problem dipping infantry, its just the larger figs that present a problem. In one of the other dipping threads, someone has a recipe for the future floor wax mix that I'm going to try.

i used dip on my Iyanden nid hunters, worked ok but needed a lot of work after the dip to get it smooth. would probably been better off just using yellow ink.

As long as the minwax is fresh... shaken and ready... you will not have to thin it.

I have experimented with thining it using paintthinner and it works quite well.

Just make sure you get the dip on fast with a large brush, look out for pooling (keep a paper towel handy) and brush strokes... just like any technique, the more you do it the better you get.

i have dipped a landraider, 2 defilers, most of my chaos, all my nids, my necrons, tons of orks... you name it. Work out the colors, apply it by dipping/painting it on and GO!!!

I think the MOST IMPORTANT RULE... keep your colors in mind when working out the original dip scheme... some colors just don't dip.

I brushed the dip on my DE Raiders and it worked well. I did thin it down with Mineral Spirits and that helped the overall result.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

Thanks for the advice, guys. I'll be trying out both the thinned and unthinned brushing on a crappy Wave Serpent this weekend. Will report results afterwards.

On a related note, does anyone have a lead on old spraycans of Bleached Bone? I've got 2, but could use more. I'm looking at doing all 9K points of my stuff if this works.

The Fanatic Army Painter (I think its called - same company that charge £30 for woodstain) do spray cans of bone.