Making Washes

Greetings,

With the demise of the most recent GW wash line and the rise of their new stuff we, as painters, are once again looking at a change in how they perform. Which is fine if you are starting new, but not so swell if you are picking up on an old army. I'm growing frustrated with this as my DE (and Ork, and IG, and Raven Guard) armies all now have an odd hodge-podge of secondary market paints to replace old GW ones that are no longer made and/or made different over the years.

So, as I am about to embark on a new painting project for a new army - I'd really rather not count on them. I also want to use a colored wash as a main part of my army scheme.

As a result, i am currently leaning towards doing up my own mix so I can have it for the life of the army, and not the life of a paint line.

The wash will, specifically, be going over a white base. Ina perfect world I'd like a wash that is aggressive about crevices but doesn't really do much, at all, to the high points (really, if I could have an infinite supply of the old washes, I'd be happy using either Leviathan purple or maybe Baal red, honestly)

Does anyone have any advice/thoughts/experiences with making their own washes?

After a bit of hunting I am currently leaning towards 'Les Magic Wash' as the best recepie out there for the results I want - but I'd love to hear some input if anyone has some on alternate methods, or experiences doing this for themselves.

I have pretty much switched to Vallejo's Game Colour paints, I am using whatever GW stuff I have left but that's it.  Price and quality aren't up to snuff, and the entire range just keeps growing in size and complexity, I don't think it is sustainable.

I am still using some of their washes - Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil because they seem OK and I figure that these two colours/shades will at least be around long-term.  I also have Druchii Violet and Fuegan Orange, but I find they need plenty of diluting to avoid overpowering my models, and because of that I also haven't ventured further with the rest of GW's new shades/washes.

I haven't come up with any other effective alternative, apart from occasionally mixing some of my existing range, nor have I tried other brands yet.

Les' Magic Wash does seem good, but I would also be very interested in what others are doing.

I've actually put in an order for both some Secret Weapon and Army Painter washes.
I'll report back my thoughts.

I use the current range of GW washes amongst other brands, but still have a soft spot for watered down ink washes. The P3 inks aren't all that bad in my opinion and are a pretty good replacement for the old school GW inks that I used to use all the time.

I do not use very many colored washes. Just purple wash for skin. However when I found out that the Devlan Mud and Badab Black replacements were not the same I nearly died.

However I found out that Army Painter Strong Tone Ink is darn near dead on for Devlan and Army Painter Dark Tone Ink is really really close to Badab. I bought both and found them to be awesome inks.

Lahmian medium is used to make any GW color a wash. I love this stuff and you can choose the consistancy.

Got some of my supplies in and decided to do a bit of testing before I settle on my paint scheme.

First off - I dug out two old warriors that I'll likely never paint and sacrificed them to the paint test gawds. One received a white gloss primer and the other a white matte primer;






Here is what we are testing today.
One is Secret Weapon (aka Les' Magic Wash) Cotton Candy pink.
The other is Army Painters Purple Tone Quickshade.

Also, as mentioned, I do find the quickshades pretty close to the GW washes, so, since I was doing up some purple I decided to dig out one of my few precious remaining pots of GW wash too;




There is pink on the top, and one purple wash to each leg. I won't even tell you which is which right away.


These pictures were taken right after application of the last wash.


And then they dried.




Okay, so for those who would like to know - the GW wash is on the left side of the picture (right leg) and the Army Painter is on the right side of the picture (the left leg).

I actually might even go so far as to say the AP Wash is better than the GW wash simply because it seems to generate a more even coat...of course the GW wash is rather a bit older and might be getting frumpy with age. That said, you can see the effects that both have are pretty near identical.

I *really* like what the Bubblegum wash does, and I think it is the effect I'm going to go for with my daemonette skin.
I think I want to take a bit more time studying the end results, but I currently lean doing the matte finish spray as, though I like the gloss and think it did help the highlights stay more white, I just found the matte to be easier to work with for my spraying technique. I dunno, maybe that's just me, but that's the current call.

Feel free to offer thoughts or make other requests for tests (I also have AP Red and GW red if anyone would like to see them side by side).

I really am a fan of all three washes and, as a limited skill painter who uses washes a lot, I'm very happy with their potential uses to me in the future.