When to Use WHICH WASHES WHERE? 

Who remembers the old days of dunking models in floor stain then attaching them to a power drill??

I love using agrax earthshade but I use it really sparingly. A super thin layer tends to brown stuff up and age skulls just right but without applying so much that they end up brown

I use never use dedicated washes or shades that companies sell. These days, I just thin a corresponding contrast paint with water or medium, then paint/push it into the recesses I want rather than just "slapping it on and letting it settle." I find that the ability to choose orange as a wash sometimes for metal, or magenta for skin, or purple for dinosaurs is very flexible and enjoyable.

I just watched a EonsofBattle video on this and he recommended brushing a small amount of water where you want the wash to go and then using the tip of the brush dropping the wash in and it automatically fills the area's and moves around the recesses on its own. Might take a bit longer but no staining of anything but the recesses.

Great video, thanks! When I started painting back in the early 80s, the switch from Humbrol enamels to the new Citadel acrylics was amazing. But washes weren't something I'd ever heard of back then, so adding depth was basically painstakingly painting in darker areas individually - I wasn't then (and nor am I now) a competition standard painter, I just wanted models on the table quick, so most of the time a dry brush would be enough, leave the shadows the original colour and move on. When I came back to painting after a long break, washes were available and totally changed the look of my models compared to everything I'd painted 35 years ago. I think I've learned a bit about my own preferences with washes - less is more (however tempting it is to dunk the figure in Agrax Earthshade, matching wash colour to the base colour is better), and to paint with a lighter base coat initially to achieve the colour you want after the wash has shaded everything. But I still then dry brush everything to within an inch of its life because it makes the model look great from 3 feet away, which is exactly what I want.

Something new I been experimenting with that happy with results so far, is using airbrush flow improver as a wash medium so put a drop of airbrush flow in prover onto my palate additional amount of regular acrylic model paint in my brush a mixup and washing any colour I want. So far I have been mostly using this to make fast plasma coils, start with base coat of Vallejo how electric blue, and use a wash of airbrush flow improver mixed with Citadel kantor blue.

I have been having a lot of fun mixing army painter speed paints to get some really custom color schemes on the table and a big part of that is thinning them down to a wash or glaze like consistency to give metallic layers a unique shine. Sometimes, often when I am batch painting, instead of using the standard black or brown washes I like to use mixes of deeper shades of blues, purples, burgundies, etc, as a quick way to get more color on the model. This both reduces the number of steps to get them finished and also makes them visually more interesting, imo.

'Colours not exactly touching"- washes become the "decorators caulk" of mini painting. Thanks as always for the great video 🥼

Since your variables were 'how mixed-in additional media changed consistency/color/result in the final product', calling straight up Agrax your 'control' is wholly appropriate (and good science!). I've recently started learning to paint, and besides beginning with terrain (because it pains me less to try out an approach and then just say "okay, that's what it looks like!"), there's a lot of your 'try a lot of different approaches over white' in my method. I've also got a highlight-before-wash/highlight-after-wash pairing that really illustrates the point you were making about those differences, so from recent experience I can definitely see how sometimes highlight-before will have its place, but highlight-after gives (for me) better results in a couple different ways.

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of mixing washes directly into the paints I'm going to use. Especially lighter color paints like yellows. somewhere in the 2:1 paint to wash ratio. Thins the paints nicely while also adding the worn color I'm generally going for. It doesnt work with every color (obvs) but its a very nice trick for a lot of others.

I almost always only use oil or enamel washes these days. They just work so well and I don't mind the drying time. Shame to see Agrax is so bad now!

I listened more because you were wearing a lab coat

I've been using inks (like, for calligraphy or printing) and mixing them with matte mediums and flow improver. The results aren't always great, but a lot of the time, they are, and I've been able to add a whole bunch of variations of colors that I would need to spend A LOT more to buy individually from GW (etc.) It's worth investing $25 or $30 in inks and art supplies to play around and see what gets the results you want. Great video - thanks!

Army Painter Speedpaints are a great start to washes. Thin them, mix them (even with other paint lines), experiment in a lot of different ways. I'm not claiming they are better, but they are very versatile and play well with others. Good video! Not a rattle can in sight!

It's been fun messing around with washes as I've gotten back into mini painting, so much more variety and different things now. I've really enjoyed the look of army painters red wash over my gold speed paints, especially loot. Thanks for the vid and mayhaps consider selling lab coats with minions patches on them in the merch shop ;)

I like to paint a base layer that is lighter than the final color I'm going for, then use a shade to darken it to the color I want. I particularly like using this over flat areas like shoulder pads. I use this with the old citadel wash formula so your mileage may vary.

One thing that I've heard said is to use black washes over cool colors (blues, purples, etc), and brown washes over warm colors (reds, yellows, etc). Probably has something to do with most "black" paints (and thus most black washes) being actually dark, dark blue. By contrast, most browns have a lot of orange in them. So a black wash over yellow makes it look sickly green, whereas a brown wash over purple just looks muddy (and not in a good way).

I normally use the Army Painter washes, so I’m interested in trying these methods out with those

After some experimentation/research, I found two products that not only enhance the control of GW shades and contrast paints but can also be used to improve the performance of the layer and base paints. Product 1: Flow Medium from Master's Touch Fine Art Studio found at Hobby Lobby. Pretty sure you can use any flow medium, but for the price/ounce this one has been my go-to for a couple years now. Product B: Matte Fluid Medium from Liquitex Basics Acrylic line. This turns any paint into a nice glaze and is pretty good as a brush on varnish. You could thin it down with airbrush medium for a spray varnish. Mixed 1:1 with the Flow Medium I found it performs very close to Contrast Medium. There is a gloss version but I prefer to control my lighting on a model surface. Again, others exist, yadda yadda, I'm a cheap old man, etc... Enjoy

OK that was super useful. I've been using washes in the order you mentioned for ages but I was never quite sure if I was doing things back to front. The ideas about playing around with wash intensities was great too.

I've been using Runic Gray by army painted (the old speed paints, not 2.0) as a wash for silver metals. Gives them a darker shade and th slightest blue tinge without loosing much of the metallic sheen. I like it anyway. Thanks for the advice!

Thank you for making these kind of videos!

I see a lot of folk using oil-based washes recently. The Agrax looks like a dispersion issue between the medium and pigment, perhaps a little surfactant (dish soap?) might help? I used inks for washing before Citadel included washes in their range, but their products haven't been great since they took the production in-house/to China.

Before I started customizing action figures (I've learned most of my techniques from miniature painters) I did custom paint jobs on rifles and pistols, and distressing was of course one of the most aesthetically pleasing techniques for guns. Likewise, I do most of my washes by first sealing my paint with varnish, then applying a very thinned out glossy acrylic such as Vallejo Game Color or decent canvas acrylics, then distressing the paint by immediately wiping the wet paint off at the high points with a damp towel, basically hitting the same places one would while dry brushing for highlights. If I wipe off more paint than preferred in any place, I can simply reapply the wash and do it again - it always blends perfectly with the rest of the wash.

vallejo game wash pack is just perfect !

Great video. For several minutes I was thinking your coat was CGI. 😅

What's the best way of making a grey wash for white hair?

Washes have been some of my great triumphs and tragedies. Somewhere there are a couple of dwarves still sitting years later after the underlying paints just had too much tooth and retained most of the wash...everywhere. When I calm down, I'll try to fix them up.

Opportunity Missed: A 10-second B-roll/montage of "suiting up" into the lab coat. Sleeve, sleeve, collar set, pocket protector (?), brushes therein, and so on. Maybe next science-time?

Fresh trim man. loved the vid as per.

Great video and while I'm working on a methiod that does not use highlights but still look good... Which means I don't use washes this was the best video on the topic by far thanks!

Personally I use washes over the entire model and don't necessarily reapply the base colours because I like the darker muted look. I do try to match shade colours tho so like yeah carroburg crimson if shading a red thing, drakenhof nightshade for blue etc etc It will be interesting to see your suggestions in this video, I look forward to watching it

"He blinded me with science!" I want a TTM lab coat. (Smells a merch opportunity)👃

Very nice video! Definitely helpful

For those real nostalgic 90s style paintjobs I find that I get the best effect when mixing a little Crystal Pepsi into my washes...

Excellent video

I think the washes over metallic paint give a very interesting "oily" look. Would be great in those places you expect to be oily, such as the moving parts of vehicles

I like FW inks with plenty of glazing medium and a little flow improver. It seems to work for me.

Hello there, I’m sorry to say I don’t play or paint tabletop games figures, please forgive me if I’m totally wrong in describing your hobby. So, right, I use agrax earthshade to paint my scale models, ie Planes, tanks and the odd u-boat. It really makes the hard to see detail pop. Landing gear looks used, running gear on tanks look oily and used and decking on u-boats, you can see the minute detail. Washes are really great and I think Games workshop has awesome colours. All so the sales rep in the store in Liverpool says he’s father uses earthshade to help make chrome wheels, just to look better. Thank you for the video, and I’m going to try some of your suggestions on my models. Hope that gets extra credit from you guys.

Midwinter Minis has a video on dip wash I use that on terrain you can mix up a massive batch of it at once.

"Transparent" colours contain pigments with much lower tinting strength than other colours but still maintain a high pigment load, artist paint manufacturers will often label their paint tubes with an icon or a letter to denote the opacity or transparency of the pigment(s) used in each paint. This makes them ideal for glazing as they require less thinning for a subtle effect and also good for mixing into other colours with shifting their hue as drastically. A very good example of the difference between an opaque and a transparent pigment is seeing how Titanium white and Zinc white effect colours they are mixed with, and how much more pastel and chalky colours with titanium white in them go compared to zinc white which lightens without looking quite so chalky. Bright red and yellows pigments are both famously transparent and fugitive (fade in sunlight more quickly). A good test of a colours transparency is to paint an undiluted line of that colour over a patch of a much darker colour and see how much you can see how much of the darker colour you can see through it.

Nice hair cut. Great video.

I usually mix a big bottle of colorless "wash medium" to which I add paints and inks as I need them. It's pretty easy to get light or dark washes by simply varying how much paint or ink I put in. For a 500ml bottle, my recipe is: - 3 parts distilled water (to thin the paint...obviously) - 1 part rubbing alcohol (so it dries faster and helps with surface tension, use the cheap dollarstore stuff) - 20 drops of acrylic flow medium and 1 drop of dish soap (to reduce surface tension and help it pool only in the recesses) A 500ml bottle lasts me well over a year and doesn't go bad. You do need to shake it before use though because it will decant.

I use my trusty GW washes for now, but I've experimented a lot with them To be honest, Agrax never really did it for me, I used my first (small) pot entirely and never went back to it. If I want a dark brown, I always mix some black (either from a transparent paint or another wash) into my Reikland Fleshshade. I find this color way more interesting, its more orange tone makes it all the more vibrant, and it keeps that character even when darkened down, and I never find that in Agrax. Which also means that when the new wash range came up, I bought a bit of extra Reikland Fleshshade, because I love it as it was and am not sure the new version will do it for me. (I mean, it probably would serve relatively well when mixing with other stuff, but I don't like the thing as much from what i've seen online)

Good video thanks lee

2:00 a.m. upload let's go

Brilliant. Thank you 👍

Great video! What are your thoughts on Army Painter or Vallejo washes? I would love to try out the new Pro Acryl washes! Speaking of, what do you think of their wash and glaze medium?

I wish this video had dropped 3 days ago before I spent an hour trying to figure out what washes do use for what

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

Lab coat = science stuff. Thanks enjoyed the info. Have a great day

Extra unpainted minis lying around? Unheard of!

Thanks for the video. I've been using a Humbrol enamel Sand thinned way down with mineral spirits to brush "dust" onto vehicles, particularly tracks, wheels, and sides, as well as infantry boots and lower legs for over 30 years and I like the result. This, I believe, would now be called an oil wash. I need to practice doing panel lines on vehicles and aircraft with black washes over a clear gloss coated model to keep the wash only in the recesses. What technique do you use for these effects?

Not on topic, but that t-shirt is awesome.

If you slather the area you want to wash in water, the wash will draw into the recesses almost like magic.

Such a beautiful haircut! AdeptiCon must be close!

The key is to wash your brush, then beat the devil out of it. Also, letting the miniature take the paint it wants while leaving you with the rest.

Two questions one can you send me a link to that cool brown washroom mentioned? 2nd is there a way to get it to darken the flat planes without creating the pooling effects of the newer GW? I like the color of the cooler brown and the fact that you don't get the uneven this on the flat planes, but I don't like the fact that it doesn't stain them significantly darker.

I think the new GW washes need more work post application, you need a slightly damp brush to move the wash into the areas where you need them and wick off excess from flatter areas. Actually requires more skill than the old fire and forget method with nuln. Thanks for the content.

I usually do 5 drops snake bite leather 3 drops agrax earth shade 2 drops of that death claw brown air paint and 8 drops of medium for my terrain and bases and such

Have you tried to mix monument hobbies glaze and wash medium with their transparents?

Liked for cut to Atom in a lab coat "Now I'm ready for science"

I was just using a wash and wondering exactly this! 😊 Thanks.

It was interesting and useful. 👍

Amazing video! Would a wash mixture make for a good “contrast” skin tone over zenithal? Thanks!

How do you pick between a black or brown wash for a generic, all over shading effect?

I still haven[t gotten how the Transparents work from Monumental Hobbies yet but they are interesting.

If you add highlights before you add a wash, expecting it will be more subtle afterwards, you can add an additional highlight after the wash and get a much better effect than if you only highlight once.

Definitely will be getting that monument brown! That'll really help replace my agrax since it tends to make my black armor too glossy on flats. Thanks for the recommendation!

I'm here to say: Pa-chow, what a good video.

I need a TM lab coat for when i do science at the paint table too

Dear sir, forget pre made expensive washes. Oil paints and some white spirits will create far superior washes. The added advantage of increased control, with the in built ability to edit the results, hours even days later with the application of more white spirits.

Speaking of ProAcryl grandparents, what would you (or anyone) use transparent white for?

Bought some ingredients back in 2021 to make some black wash but never did it...

what mode is used at 3:01 ?

I'm not a fan of what GW has done with their old washes, either. Do you know of any alternatives that have a similar effect and finish?

Now I gotta have a lab coat to paint?!

Is the lab coat with TTM label some new merch?

I struggle to get consistent tones when a recipe says 50/50, especially when I have 21 T-34 tanks that need to be the same colour.

Goooooo science!

Coke Zero would be a more cost effective substitute for contrast medium 😂

Just an fyi, I miss the fez. Still a fan, though, none the less... 😁

Uncle Adam is evolving into Professor Adam

Say THAT 10 times, fast. Lol

Coke zero painted minion when?

WOah first comment! love the content!

You should wash every time you use the toilet.

Ah yes..the glops.

But have you TRIED coke zero?

it's not real science until you do actually thin paints with coke zero...

I mainly use washes for the darkest recesses or on clothing to help sell the folds and creases. never tried GW stuff, thats basically cheating lol.

"right?" Count:. Lost track after 16