Prufrock's Wargaming Blog

Prufrock's Wargaming Blog

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

And that's a wash!

Had a pleasant surprise finding these at the local stationary store the other day. As I have some Greeks with pesky linen armour on the go I thought I would use them to experiment with a custom wash.


I used Future/Klear and water in a roughly 2:1 mix, and added in peat brown and black - also at about 2:1 - topping up with Klear/Water in the same ratios until the mix looked good to the eye.




Here it is slapped on a Xyston Theban. Figure on the left was undercoated gray with white drybrushed over that; figure on the right shows how it looks after the wash and before any further highlighting has been done.

It's a little bit grainy on close inspection, but a highlight and varnish should sort that out, I'd think.

Not too bad, but I might try to go thinner to see if I can keep the need for highlighting to a minimum, and in future I'll use more Future and less water to see if that will reduce the graininess.

8 comments:

  1. I think that it looks pretty good! One suggestion though - try diluting your paint for drybrushing a bit. It should go on more smoothly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the tip - I'll try for a runnier paint mix next time!

      Cheers,
      Aaron

      Delete
  2. I always find the black ink goes grainy, I just use peat myself. I suppose you could make it blacker by using the opposite side of the colour wheel and mixing in dark blue ink instead of black. Just thinking aloud really, I have never tried that though I might now it has occurred to me.

    good luck

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm, interesting. Thanks for your thoughts. I might try just the peat and see what happens.

      Cheers,
      Aaron

      Delete
  3. I use the peat for my 6mm and 10mm figures with a 2:1:1 mix of water/ink/thinner. I am still playing with the Black, because I found it concentrates very easily and acts like dye.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Dartfrog. I'll have a play around with that, too.

      Cheers,
      Aaron

      Delete
  4. The graininess can be caused for a couple of reasons.

    1) You are applying over primer. Primer is somewhat rough and often can absorb the paint causing graininess or muddiness.

    2) The paint you are applying it over has not completely set. The wash can sometimes break down the paint in places and cause graininess or muddiness. Anymore, I try to wait at least 24 hours before applying a wash.

    I think the figures look good. A quick highlight should fix them up nicely.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks very good. i can remember receiving comments upon the subject of the wash i used on some of my figures. When asked i being most truthful revealed that i had in fact used the dirty brown liquid in my jar i stood my dirty brushes in after use. Given a good stir up it did a perfect job of defining detail.

    Greetings from sunny Fiddle Wood, Norwich UK. BB

    ReplyDelete

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