I know that washes have been discussed at length in this forum, and I read quite a few posts, as well as articles on it. It all sounds so simple, and yet I can’t seem to get it right!
I tried using a sludge wash repeatedly (water, Tamiya acrylics plus some dishwashing soap, over a coat of future-like stuff) but it either came off completely, or did not come off at all (I had to strip the entire layer of varnish [:(] ) I then tried a very thin wash of Tamiya acrylic with water, but it was way too thin, you could barely see the difference. I also tried watercolours as well, with the same effect. I kept trying, but in the end did not seem to get anywhere.
I ended up inking the panel lines (slicing each panel line with a blade, and using drafting ink), and this works well. However, this is a very tedious and unforgiving process - you need to slice every panel line, and one slip of the blade ruins everything…
Any idea on what I am doing wrong? (there probably would be a few… [:)] ) I really want to accent panel lines, since it looks good, but I don’t want it to be a complete headache!
Sludge wash, a great way to ruin a fine paint job perpetuated by an entity in whose best interests it is to have you buy more models.
Seriously. Acrylics are very touchy for washes of any kind. Intead of acrylics and majic alchemic formulae of soap, water, alcohol, paint, and eye of newt. Get some burnt umber artist oil, the stuff in a tube and some hardware store thinner. Put a drop or two of thinner in a shallow container and a small dab of oil. Mix well. Test it on scrap with a panel line, when the paint is drawn out by capilarry action and leaves a shade, you hav ethe right consistency. Take a fine brush and place a small amount of wash at panel line junctions and at the base of raised details. Nothing to wipe off, no need to slice panel lines, just nice accents where you want them.
Thanks! [bow] Will try on my next model (too late for this one…)
I read about artist’s oil washes, but didn’t try it, since by that time I was thoroughly frustrated with this whole wash idea, and I thought that this oil wash is the same as the rest.
By the way, if this oil wash ends up where I don’t want it, with what can I remove it?
Once again, thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. [:)]
You can remove it with mineral spirits, which is the best thing to make it with, too.
As a general rule, if you paint with acrylics, use an oil or enamel wash. If you paint with enamels, use an acrylic wash (model paint or artist’s acrylic). You can also use a clear coat as a barrier if you want to use the same system for both paint and wash. The clear coat has to be of the different system: acrylic over enamel, enamel over acrylic.
It is possilble to do an acrylic over acrylic wash, but the results are much harder to control.
I use enamels, with a clear coat over it, to seal the paint in. The stuff that I use for the clear coat is similar to future (we don’t get future in this part of the world), so an artist’s oil wash will be fine over it, right?
I’ve found that oil washes work best of Acrylic paint/Future. Just put a BB sized blob of artist oil paint in a soda bottle lid, add some turpenoid, mix and voila! It won’t affect your acrylic paint, and if you used Future as a gloss coat it is easy to wipe off. [:)]
I prefer the artist oil method. I recently tried it for the first time and I will never use anything else in the future. It you can mix it with turpentine or mineral spirit and it applies very well. You have plenty of time to wipe off the excess and the result is more “even” or “smooth” than trying to use these Tamiya acrylics. I never had good results with them.
If you apply an acrylic wash directly over flat (or any wash directly over a flat paint) the wash will change the apparent color of the flat paint. This is a great weathering technique, but if all you want to do is accent raised panel lines and surface detail, then obviously you want to seal the surface with a gloss, first.
Mineral spirits are carried by hardware, paint, and home improvement stores. Turpenoind is more likely to be found at places that sell artist’s supplies.
so for washes you use artist oils right? what kind? I have herd about them but have not been able to find them. Do you get them all from art suply stores, craft shops, or hobby shops? and do you just use umber artist oil, or are there other tints and such that I might be able to modify?
thanks for any info!
They’re just the standard artist oil paints which you can get from any art supply store, and many craft stores. There are many different colors available. The ones I used most are burnt umber, sienna, indigo and a dark red color, the name of which escapes me at the moment.
What about Lamp Black? Isn’t Burnt Umber a bit too brown to use for aicraft panel lines? Or are my eyes deceiving me? (I haven’t tried using this paint yet… Just speculating! [:)] )
It kinda depends on the look you’re going for. Panel lines themselves have no color other than the paint color and they’re a little darker depending on the angle of the light shining on them… i.e. shadows.
Dirt, dust, sand, oil, hydraulic fluid etc are all shades of browns, and that is theoretically what is gunking up the panel lines. Even shadows are not black, they’re various shades of gray. I’ve found that black makes the panel lines way too dark, which gives them an unrealistic almost cartoonish look. It will make them look like you took a fine tipped sharpie pen and colored in the lines, like the lines of a coloring book. That’s why most people tend to use shades of browns like burnt umber and raw sienna. [2c] [:)] That’s just my opinion, of course.
Thanks for the explanation. Like I said before, I used black ink on my BF 109D, and it looks good to me (but it may look unrealistic to a more experienced modeller). I’ll give Burnt Umber a shot on my next model, maybe it looks even better? [:)] I probably should take a decent photo of the BF 109 and post it here, to show what I mean…
Most important though, is that it is a matter of personal preference, and how heavy you apply it. That’s the beauty of the artistic side of this hobby, we can each do it the way we like, and no way is right or wrong. [:)]