making washes

[Thedarkprincesnun]

Hey guys how easy would it be to make a wash? Is it as simple as taking say a bit of Abbadon black/imperial primer and mixing it with water?

[Gurth]

That’s what a wash is. (I put that in bold because I get mildly annoyed by all those youngsters who think a wash is something you buy in a bottle … )

 

Washes have been around for a long time, and even since before modelling was even a hobby, people have been making them by thinning paint — nothing more to it than that. You just put a dab of paint on a saucer or other palette, add a few dabs of (in this case) water, and stir them together. Apply to your model and see if it’s the right consistency; if it’s too thick, apply water straight to the model to thin it some more (and then to the wash on your palette); while if it’s too thin, just let it dry on the model and meanwhile, mix a bit more paint into the wash on your palette, then try again. You’ll soon develop a feel for it.

[Razblood]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkMnP6p08I

Here's a link to Les Bursley's method, this is pretty much how Secret Weapon washes are made

If you want to do it via the paint and water method there are a few things to consider....

1. If you use paint as the basis of the wash it will not have the same depth of colour as a commercially available wash and so will require more coats.

2. As an alternative you can use inks instead of paint, these will generally require more thinning however and the addition of something like washing up liquid/dish soap in order to break the surface tension of the water in the mix (unless you want some nasty tidemarks).

3. Be aware of how much water you are adding, too little and you won't have the transparency of a wash, too much and you'll go to far over and end up in glaze territory (P.S. you can make glazes in the same way as washes, just add water ;) )

4. If you use paint as your basis then you will find the resulting wash to be very flat/matte depending on what kind of paint you use, with inks however it can end up quite glossy and so will need a matte coat afterwards if this is not what you want.

5. Never NEVER use craft paints to make your wash/glaze, it is really not a suitable kind of paint for the job and the scissor man will come for your fingers it'll look terrible.

Best of luck in your endeavours brother :tu:

[Subtle Discord]

^ This! ^

 

Save yourself a ton of money and make your own; I've been doing it for about 20 years. And once you have a recipe you like you never have to dread it being discontinued. I got lazy when commercially made products started to arrive, but have since gone back to making my own. It's a fraction of the cost of even the cheapest pre-made products, and you get full control over the colour, strength, and consistency/viscosity of your washes. Bottles of ink are so concentrated that they last a loooong time, if you're an average painter.

 

While I suspect Gurth means well, he couldn't be farther from the truth with his comment. Thinned down paint is thinned down paint, not a wash. Paint is made of pigment particles suspended in a medium (in this case acrylic plastic) that dries and locks the pigment in place. While you can thin it down and get a reasonably good result it will labour intensive beside proper washes and glazes. This is more akin to blending paints than washing/glazing. A powerful painting technique, but not the same animal.  

 

A wash/glaze is an ink suspended in a medium that is still a similar viscosity to a slightly thinned paint; the ink is molecular, so there are no visible particles. It's that balance that makes washes so powerful; ink can be diluted down to a translucent colour and the medium can keep a level of viscosity so the surface tension will blend out the colour for you with much less work.

 

Thinning paints will require that you thin them so much that they lose the viscosity advantage, and the pigments are not best suited to being thinned to translucent. Pigment particles are meant to microscopically layer up and bind together with each other in order to create a colour. Washes and glazes are made by design to the the exact opposite, in a good way; they spread out evenly and only build up where the medium becomes pooled and concentrated by the viscosity.

[Gurth]

While I suspect Gurth means well, he couldn't be farther from the truth with his comment. Thinned down paint is thinned down paint, not a wash.

Excuse me? A wash, in modeller’s terms, is paint that’s been thinned down so far that it runs around detail and into crevices on the model, but isn’t visible (much) elsewhere. This is the meaning of the term “wash” as it’s been used in modelling magazines for decades.

[Subtle Discord]

Yes, as a term for a certain effect in painting, you are correct; you can thin down a paint to be used as a wash to create a wash effect. Exactly as I said. (Note: I'm an 'old guy' as well :)) However, as a contemporary term it has evolved, for many years now, from that into a specific product that has properties that lends itself to achieve the desired effect more readily. So, I think it's not accurate or very helpful to say "A wash is just thinned paint." when someone asks how to 'make a wash'. If it was just thinned paint, why would these products even exist and be so popular? Simply thinning paint with water is at everyone's disposal. I suspect the original question was looking for a recipe to create a modern wash product that exploits the material properties that I explained.

[Bartali]

Should probably also add to this, always consider the surface that you're applying the wash or glaze too.

 

Gloss/Satin finish will naturally allow the paint to flow into the recesses of the model. 

Matte finish and the paint will naturally spread evenly across the model for a glaze effect.

 

You can get around this should you wish by adding other ingredients to your mix. A flow aid (or dab of washing up liquid) will encourage the wash to flow. A drying retarder will help with clean-up after applying a wash.

 

I like Oil paints and Turpentine/White Spirit for washes. Flows well and a long drying time allows you to manipulate the wash on the model.

[Gurth]

If it was just thinned paint, why would these products even exist and be so popular?

Because they make money for the manufacturer. Somebody — IIRC it was MIG — hit upon the idea of selling what amounts to a pre-made wash, and modellers, being magpies when it comes to new tools and stuff, let themselves be brainwashed.

[Subtle Discord]

Or, it's a product that actually does achieve a certain result that many thousands of people have used and they have come to that conclusion by being happy with actual results, not broad assumptions. You keep ignoring the actual points I'm presenting to reinforce my point of view and assert that people only buy it because they're stupid and gullible. That's very close minded and condescending; while I didn't agree with your original assertion I still gave it merrit and didn't openly insult your intelligence. It feels like you're more offended that I disagree with you then actually having any points (beyond intelligence levels of the consumer) to counter what I feel are real material facts. New materials, techniques, and tools do in fact come into existence and are improvements on the old, even if you've become skilled and comfortable with an older method that achieves similar results.

 

When I was mixing my own many years ago I wondered why nobody had commercialized it, and now someone has. All the power to them, I wish I had of been smart enough to actually do it. Is it overpriced when you consider what you get? No argument there; hence the reason for this thread. Just because it's easy to make and use does not remove the merrits of the final product/results.

 

Let's just agree to disagree on this subject. I agree that people are crazy (read: stupid, if you really must call them that) to purchase premixed washes, not because they are bogus and don't work as intended, but because of the price. However, I feel for all the technical material reasons I noted in my first post, that washes are not merely watered down paint.

 

Note also that I don't consider washes as some magic product that can be slopped on a bad paint job and make it wonderful; it is one of several tools that can be combined to get wonderful, easy, and repeatable results every time. Nothing less, nothing more.

[Gurth]

And you seem to be ignoring my implication that, since a wash is thinned paint, the product sold in bottles to modellers/wargamers should really have a different name. Maybe I should have said that more directly before. The word “wash” has been used for a long time to mean “thinned-down paint,” but because various companies now sell products with similar — but not identical — capabilities/effects (note I’m not saying anything about which one is better or worse), you’re saying the word now properly refers to the latter. And that’s what I don’t agree with. I’m ignoring your points about the merits of the pre-mixed “washes” because I’m making a comment on the terminology, not the products themselves.

[Lucien Eilam]

A wash is primarily a technique. The pigment and medium you use to achieve it is really beside the point of how it's defined.

 

And none of this childish squabbling is helping the OP.

[Gurth]

The terminology matters because being clear in that makes it easier to get the information or help you want.

[Subtle Discord]

Ok, I’m not trying to beat a dead horse here, I’m not trying to troll. I’m posting now to try to relax things and extend an olive branch, as it were. This is an apology if I offended, because it is the farthest thing from my mind. I’ve been trying to choose my words carefully, and these will be my last on this. I truly am trying to bring something useful to the original conversation. I guess I’m just a dork who likes to know why things work, and try to share the knowledge.

I normally don’t ever get this caught up in an exchange such as this, but as geeky is it sounds, mixing and using ‘washes’ (or whatever name you prefer) is actually kinda’ close to my heart. For all the years I made the stuff before they became available as a product I would try to share the idea with people, and they always seemed to like it when I did. I love the stuff and there are some misconceptions about it; I’m not trying to be arrogant, but if you make it the right way it really does work far better than just thinning paint with water.

In your first post Gurth, you made two points; you dislike the premade products that are out there being called ‘washes’, and that ‘washes’ are just paint and water. You then described mixing paint and water on a pallet until you get the desired effect.

In my defense, I agreed with you twice. The first in reference to paint, “While you can thin it down and get a reasonably good result it will labour intensive beside proper washes and glazes.” And the second time, “Yes, as a term for a certain effect in painting, you are correct; you can thin down a paint to be used as a wash to create a wash effect.” It very much is an old painting technique and you can do it by thinning paint with water; however is also accurate to say that it has evolved for many years (maybe even close to a decade) into a popular name for a very real product, regardless if you buy or make it.

Now, while I didn’t say as much, I even agree with the confusing naming. I prefer to call what many today call 'washes' Glazes, and I prefer to call they call 'glazes' Stains. This comes more from my fine arts and woodworking background and dabbling with ceramics, where I used stains and glazes. It’s the vernacular I like, but the masses have spoken, so I changed my mind to avoid confusion when I write about my painting. Companies started making product to use as a wash to get a pleasant consistent wash effect and so they called it a wash. Can’t really blame them, even if I still think ‘glaze’ is more accurate.

The beauty of washes/glazes/shades/etc. is that you don’t need to futz with them, they work for the most parts perfectly right out of the bottle. They are not cheating or snake oil, they really do work, but are just a single step in a paint job, not a magic bullet. Purpose mixed washes work so well because they are specifically made with ink pigments which are very different than paint pigments; ink pigments are a solution where paint pigments are a mechanical mixture. (High School science comes back to haunt us!) Inks will produce superior translucent properties because of this.

And while they do use a fair amount of water, the key really is in the acrylic medium, and a Flow-Aid-like product to help with smooth blending and retard nasty ringing as it dries. I was skeptical of Flow-Aid too, at first, but it’s the real thing and works really well; even if it is glorified soap, it’s perfectly mixed ready to use glorified soap. Once you have a nice translucent pigment you want it in a rather thick but runny medium so viscosity and surface tension will help the pigment pool where you want it, and taper out smoothly where you don’t want it. You want it closer to paint thickness, then not. It’s this action mixed with the translucent pigments that makes purpose mixed washes really nice to work with. And to top it off, you can push and pull and manipulate the wash to have even more control, thanks to this consitency.

If you use paint and just water you will generally need to water it so thin to get it translucent that you start to lose the huge advantage that viscosity can give you. Use a soft acrylic medium, even with paint, and you’ll get better results. But you’ll still not get the same control and results as with ink pigments.

Truly, I’m not trying to be a jerk, I just enjoy teaching for some strange reason. While washes/glazes/shades are super easy to make, confusingly named, and vastly overpriced (pigment is the expensive part of paint, and they have virtually none), when done right there really is something a little deeper going on than just water-thinned-paint. You don’t have to like the name, or buy the expensive product, but I suggest you make some and give it a try if you’ve avoided them up to now. People have not been brainwashed into buying something that is bogus, the stuff really works. They’re just paying too much for what they get, or could make themselves. Such is the way with far too many products these days.

To any Mods, I am sorry for this final horse-kicking-wall-of-text, but I really like washes.

I will be quite now.

[AJB2K3]

I use fw acrylic ink+Matt medium+drop of acrylic thinner (yes I'm to lazy to work out what the cheaper alt of medium and thinner is)

Tried just using water before but had a problem with water surface tension not equally spreading out the pigments

[Interrogator Stobz]

+++Hi guys, I appreciate the advice and that there are differences of opinion on some technical points, but please keep the concept of helping the OP in the front of your minds as you post. If you guys want a discussion thread about those technical points then by all means start a new one.+++

 

Cheers and Carry on.

 

Stobz

[Cloud Runner]

For my Heresy Dark Angels I use the following home-brew wash/glaze/knock-back

 

Andrea black set - darkest (also Vallejo air black works) - 1 drop

Vallejo black ink - 1 drop

Vallejo matte varnish - 1-2 drops

water - 2-3 drops

 

Makes a nice smooth coat that knocks back colours nicely, defines the recesses well and doesn't have too much shine when finished

 

 

You can use that combination with other colours to enhance any mini that you're paintitng.

 

Hope that helps :)

[K0rtmer]

I'm using a simple, cheap flow aid from an arts supply shop to great effect. I mix about 2–3 : 1 paint (any Citadel or Vallejo paint) to flow aid, and dilute with as much water as I feel I need to get the pigment density as needed. The flow aid does the trick; it doesn't work without it.