These acrylic washes — or glazes, if you prefer — are a relatively recent appearance on the miniatures painting scene, though the idea has been around for a very long time indeed. The various "magic wash" recipes using acrylic floor polishes like Klear or Future have taken off enormously in recent years, and this product from Games Workshop is simply filling a niche that up until now has been a strictly DIY affair.
The washes come in GW's familiar little flip-top tubs, each of which holds a tiny amount — about 10ml I think. They're not as expensive as printer ink, but you don't get a lot for your dollars.
The consistency is thin and slightly viscous; they have sufficient body to stay where they're painted if you want to use them for spot effects like oil streaking and so forth, or they can be painted all over a model, in which case they pool in nooks and crevices and create tonal shadowing effects thereby. The finish is smooth and matte. I don't know how hard-earing they'd be, unprotected.
On the 15mm PzIV shown here I've used them in both fashions, as an all-over shading wash, and as a weathering medium for streaking, clearly visible on the hull front. For all-over work, I've found it best to dilute the wash about 50:50 with water; this reduces the likelihood of ending up with unwanted pools of colour in broad flat areas and also allows the wash to run more freely into crevices.
A couple of coats may be neccessary when using diluted washes, but they dry quickly, and in my opinion the effects are much beter than when using a single undiluted wash. Also, it's a lot safer to build up effects gradually than to rely on a one-hit solution.
Washes and glazes are a real boon when it comes to speed-painting wargames figures.
This little 15mm turcopole (Minifigs I think, though I'm not 100% sure of that) was block-painted very simply. There are only four or five separate colours applied before the wash, and no pre-shading or dry-brusing has been done at all. Once the base colours have dried, a couple of undiluted coats of Devlan Mud go over the top and it's done.
This method won't give you gems of the mini-painter's art to be admired individually as little masterpieces, but en masse at arm's length (as they're normally viewed on a wargames table) they look really good.
This is essentially the same technique as that which has come to be known as "dipping", and has been used for a while with Cabots Varnish Stain and similar. I haven't tried that yet, but I have seen the excellent results online and if you have a lot of figures to do, the varnish method will probably end up being cheaper, as well as giving you a more protective coating — important when figures have to stand a lot of handling.
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| Badab Black | Gryphonne Sepia | Ogrynn Flesh | Devlan Mud | Thraka Green |
On this plaque I've textured some PVA glue with a couple of grades of ballast and sand, and left some bits and blobs smooth. It was undercoated with a white acrylic spray, and then painted (undiluted) with each of the colours of Citadel Washes that I own. The lower half has had two coats applied.
Note that, in common with standard Games Workshop practice, the names of the colours give you very little idea of what the colour is actually likely to be. At least Thraka Green does have the word "green" in the title, and Badab Black is actually black(ish), but the others require a bit of guessing.
Gryphonne Sepia isn't actually sepia at all; it's closer to a raw ochre tone. Ogrynn Flesh is roughly burnt sienna, and Devlan Mud is most like raw umber.
Of them all, I've found Devlan Mud to be the most useful general-purpose wash, and Thraka Green to be the most limited in usefulness.
Overall, even taking into account the relatively high price per millilitre, I like these washes a lot. Their effects can be reasonably easily duplicated with transparent watercolours and varnishes, but the convenience and predictability of these have won me over. I don't tend to work on large numbers of figures at a time, so the high cost isn't a critical factor for me, but if you're looking at building entire armies at a time, it might pay you to investigate some of the cheaper options.
