Couple of varnish questions

[Connectamabob]

To be fair, I think I've only ever stripped a second-hand model once that I can remember. I prefer buying as pristine as possible, to the point of rejecting something altogether if it isn't sufficiently so, and am not very nostalgia oriented. My experience with stripping comes mostly from occasionally bollixing up a paint job and having to start over.

[hubbabubba]

I've been using Vallejo Brush on, mat and gloss, diluted with destilled water, and shot through an airbrush.

2 coats of gloss, one or two coats of mat depending on how effective the first coat is.

It's gives a good level of protection to the figs, and has given me fairly consistant results.

I have had a few problems with clouding when shooting the mat, especially with blacks and dark greys.You just need to be careful to put on a really light coat and let it dry for at least 8 hrs, (says 4 on the bottle but better safe than sorry,) before repeating.

What Orctrader said is excellent advise, if you know you're going to varnish the fig, and that varnishing dulls down the colours and flattens contrast, then paint accordingly. Exagerate the contrasts and don't worry so much about super smooth blends. It can actually speed you paiting up.

[FramFramson]

Well, are there any acrylic varnishes that DON'T dull colours and reduce contrast? Or at least not noticeably?

Because I do engage in some rather subtle shading in my figures.     I'd hate to think that my current options are now 1) Ruin my carefully-painted figures or 2) Ruin my carefully-painted figures.

[hubbabubba]

I've heard a lot of people swear by the Daler-Rowney or W&N brush on water soluable acrylic picture varnishes.
I can't tell you anything about them because I've never tried them, but Orctrader gets good resullts with them

[Connectamabob]

Well, are there any acrylic varnishes that DON'T dull colours and reduce contrast? Or at least not noticeably?

Because I do engage in some rather subtle shading in my figures.     I'd hate to think that my current options are now 1) Ruin my carefully-painted figures or 2) Ruin my carefully-painted figures.

I may be wrong about this, but IIRC it's an optical effect, not a chemical one. Like having a clear layer on top of the paint increases the amount of polarization in the light reflected by the surface, maybe, or some sort of diffraction/subsurface scattering effect (those are just guesses: I don't remember the actual particulars). Basically the fact that a clear top layer is present is what does it, not so much what said layer is made of.

[FramFramson]

Well, I've got the Windsor & Newton already, and I'm committed to making some experiments before going nuts on my main figures, so I'm not as frantic about it as it may seem. I certainly might err on the side of thinner coats though.

[hubbabubba]

I took some before and after photos of the last lot of minis I varnished.

This one had two coats of gloss and one of matt.

As I stated before, Vallejo brush on, diluted and shot through an airbrush.

There's some difference in picture quality, but in general not much change.
 I'll reèat though that I have had clouding in the past, but it's still my favoured method of those I've tried.

Let me know how you get on with the W&N.

Before


After

[FramFramson]

Seems like it's killed the colours and highlights a bit (though the latter might just be the camera flashing off a glossier surface in the first picture?)