Need advice for working with washes

[OSHIROmodels]

That's worked  treat 

Hopefully you'll post plenty more.

[Munindk]

I thinks that pretty impressive for your 13th miniature

On a seperate note, who makes that miniature?

[ErikB]

Good job on the Retro-Raygun mini!  (http://shop.hydraminiatures.com/index.php?cPath=2_31&osCsid=a68ddde6679881a2e895f94d017cfe09)

I've been painting minis for 15 years and made every mistake a guy can make... here are some things I have learned - and I love washes and it drives me nuts trying to get them to behave as inks (I'll explain the difference as I see it).

GW has a good technique for layering.  It's usually:
1 - Base coat
2 - Wash
3 - Base coat again, leaving the wash in the crevacess
4 - Layer #1
5 - More layers (if you like)
6 - Edging/highlighting

Step #3 is necessary to make that washed area no longer look dirty.

If you don't wish to layer and are just looking for a nice, cleanup after the wash, I suggest using multiple thin layers of the color (called a glaze).  This makes a nice, opaque surface. 

Dave Woodward (DWArtist) taught me about that and it helped A LOT.  You'll notice that his painted surfaces are nice and opaque, they don't have the dirty, faded look you had mentioned.

http://dwartist.blogspot.com/ 

When I made model airplanes with oil-based paints, I was better able to get a wash to go into the crevices without discoloring the surfaces.  I have not had much luck getting this to work with acrylics.

I have started using a mix of lahmian medium plus flow-improver (from the art store) with the wash or with the paint I want to use.  You'll have to experiment with what % of each ingredient.

The flow-improver takes a day or two to dry, unlike the other ingredients.  Be prepared.

I hope this helps you!  I look forward to seeing more of your work!

[SteveBurt]

You can omit steps after 3 if you are painting more than a few dozen figures. Life is too short :-)

[nic-e]

I prime white and always wash my figures before putting any colour down.
That way your cracks and crevices are already shaded, and this will show int he final figure.

I do quite alot of the heavy lifting in my painting with washes and weathering, and i find that it helps to treat them less like a liquid you can't control and more like a paint. if you just soak the mini it will be covered, but you'll get pools of chalky dry wash full of pigment, but if you take brush your wash on and focus it to certain areas you can avoid this. you can also go in with a clean wet brush after and remove any streaks/blend your washes smooth and get rid of any dirt patches.

[SteveBurt]

Absolutely - don't just slap wash all over the place - treat it like paint.

[ErikB]

Hold on - you wash over white primer first, then put on paint?  How does it turn out?

Sounds like the crevacess then don't have a shaded shade of the base color but instead have only the wash color.

I like how washes are part wash-color and part base-color so you get a shadowed version of the base, not a totally different color.

Does that make sense?

[SotF]

Hold on - you wash over white primer first, then put on paint?  How does it turn out?

Sounds like the crevacess then don't have a shaded shade of the base color but instead have only the wash color.

I like how washes are part wash-color and part base-color so you get a shadowed version of the base, not a totally different color.

Does that make sense?

There's a lot of people I know that prime and then wash models, especially ones with a lot of details. It tends to make a lot of the details more visible for your actual painting. It can also be used similarly to a zenith technique depending upon how you use it...

[Munindk]

I've seen it used i zenith techniques.
If you thin the base colour paints you use, you can actually get a lot of shading done by giving a white primed model a black or brown wash first. I think it works best if you're going for fairly light colours.

[SteveBurt]

The 'white base and washes' technique is sometimes called 'stain painting'.
If done right, you get highlights very quickly. Works really well for WW2 stuff, I find (although I'd use diluted paints, not inks).
I tend to use flat colour + washes - the washes being diluted and applied to just those bits which need them (e.g. diluted Payne's Grey ink over blue trousers, diluted Sepia for facial features, and so on)

[ErikB]

Then what's the relationship between the base color and the wash?

I can see the wash bringing out nice details but isn't that darkest shadow meant to be a dark version of the main coloring?

For example, if it's khaki pants, then the wash would be a mix of, say, Earthshade or Strong Tone, on top of the khaki, so the two colors mix.

It wouldn't look right to have shadows in the recesses that don't have some of the main color in them, right?

What am I failing to visualize and understand, here?

[SteveBurt]

Inks are translucent - you can see the main colour through them.
So if you use a dark grey ink for cool colours (blues, greens, purples) and a dark brown ink for warm colours (reds, yellows, browns) then you'll get a nice effect. White can have either grey or brown wash depending on the effect you want.
The inks settle in the crevices and darken the base colour - they don't obscure it.

[SteveBurt]

Here's an example of some recent figures painted this way

[ErikB]

Inks are translucent - you can see the main colour through them.
So if you use a dark grey ink for cool colours (blues, greens, purples) and a dark brown ink for warm colours (reds, yellows, browns) then you'll get a nice effect. White can have either grey or brown wash depending on the effect you want.
The inks settle in the crevices and darken the base colour - they don't obscure it.

Right, but I thought we were discussing putting the wash on directly over the primer as opposed to the base coat.

[SteveBurt]

Ah, ok, well stain painting uses diluted paints over white, so the paint is translucent, and the white shows through on the highlights while you have more or less solid colour in the shadows