Need help with a wash

[DeltaVee]

I've painted the model in Floquil Old Silver and polished. I tried a wash of Tamiya steel with Windex and a drop of dish soap. The over-spill was hard to get up with Windex on Q tips, and it took the wash out of the panel lines to boot.
Can someone tweak this and give me a recommendation? I don't want to go buy oils, don't want to shave pastels for a sludge. Just want a paint and a thinner I can turn into a wash and that will clean up well.

[Kylwell]

Then be prepared to deal with just those issues.

The reason people use oil & pastel washes is because they're easy to deal with, plain and simple.

[DeltaVee]

Well, I've had better luck with enamels and mineral spirits as a wash, but I'm afraid it will pull up the paint. How do you ever shave off enough pastel to make a decent wash? What's a relatively inexpensive route to the oil wash - like a brand and thin it with what, linseed oil or something?

[Rocketeer]

I thin oil washes with odorless turpentine. If you use linseed oil you don't really get a wash, you get a glaze.

I don't usually even mix up a "batch" of wash; I put a blob of oil paint (usually either Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna) on a file card, then dip a brush in thinner, then dab at the blob of paint until I've got a little side puddle of thinned paint. Apply to model, dunk brush in thinner again, repeat. Kind of mixing the wash on the fly, as it were.

[DeltaVee]

Thanks, Rocketeer,
And then you use turpentine to wipe off the excess?

[tonyG2]

Is the wash intended to add a level of toning to the areas of silver or just to pick out the panel lines?

If you are just going for the panel lines, I regularly use a Gundam Fine Line marker (black or grey depending on the base colour) and simply run the pen along the inside of the panel lines. When that is done and the marker has had some time to dry, I use a q tip with a drop of isoprpyl alcohol, wick away the excess on a piece of kitchen paper so the q tip is nearly dry and then use it to remove any excess paint from the marker that has gone outside the lines.

[DeltaVee]

Thanks, Tony. I had a black pen. It was too dark. I'm just picking out panel lines. I didn't know they had gray. I'll look for that, too.

[Rocketeer]

Thanks, Rocketeer,
And then you use turpentine to wipe off the excess?

There's not much excess; I do it more as a "pin wash" with wash applied only exactly where I want it. If there's too much, I pull it off (before it's dry) with a brush dampened with thinner.

[DeltaVee]

So oil, the kind that comes in a tube? thinned with turpentine can be used over bare Floquil enamel as a pin wash and dab up the excess with a rag, etc. moistened with turpentine?

[TER-OR]

There's a whole sticky topic dedicated to washes. I prefer transparent watercolors. Depending on the subject and texture etc. a glaze of india ink in Future can yeild stunning effects. It's much different than most standard washes.

[DeltaVee]

Thanks. Can I find "transparent water colors" at the big box craft stores? Yes, I should read the sticky, but I was working toward a contest deadline and was too busy to do it right as always. No matter now. My Tamiya wash discolored the Floquil enamel somehow. So I get to spend the next week, re-polishing out blemishes and repainting. Actually, I didn't notice till I started working on the panel lines that they kind of vary in depth. Some are so shallow I doubt they hold any kind of a wash, so I ordered a gray Gundam marker to see how that will do. I definitely need something that doesn't etch into my base coat. A friend speaks well of tempra paints.

[TER-OR]

yeah, you will find the watercolors at Michaels or a similar store. They're in little tiny tubes. Look for Neutral Tint, I find the watercolor Payne's Gray is too blue. Other colors will help you blend for your base color. Get some Flow Aid from Liquitex, as well. It's a surfactant which will help the water mixture flow into the recess.

Make sure you do this on a gloss coat for panel lines, as with any wash. A lightly moistened (nearly dry) cotton swab will remove excess after it's dry.

[DeltaVee]

Perfect. Thanks. I'm working with a 'natural metal' finish using Floquil enamels. I thought I'd polished it smooth if it wasn't smooth enough to begin with without a clear coat. Normally I use Future pretty much all the time. On the other hand, I suspect the panel lines are pretty rough. I'm seriously reluctant to re-scribe. Oh well, I'll get to do the whole thing over in the next week or two anyway, so why not, eh? Anyway, I'm going to test the Gundam markers I've got on order first. If that doesn't work, I'll repaint and go the watercolor route.