Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Oh Washes, How I Love Thee. . .

I've been a fan of washes ever since I discovered how slapping on a basecoat and then following with a wash of Devlan Mud can give you decent tabletop-quality minis in just two steps. I have become an even greater fan of washes after seeing what a wash of Thrakka Green could do as a final layer on my Hammerer's cloaks.


Here is the unit champ's cloak before the final wash.

Not too shabby from a few feet away (i.e. when on a table), but closer up you can see that there are big jumps of color in some places, and my unsteady hand strayed into a fold of the cloak and ruined some of the shadows. So I hit it with a single, straight-up Thrakka Green wash. . .

Note how the recesses are darkened, and those jumps of color are nicely smoothed out. True, I lost a tiny bit of the highlights, but the overall look it, in my opinion, much nicer.

So this got me thinking, maybe I should hold off on doing the washes first, and leave them for last. I've been told that washes can destroy subtle highlights, but as my highlights tend to not be so subtle, it shouldn't be a problem. I have nine Hammerers left, all with cloaks, that I'm currently working on. Unfortunately, I was feeling under the weather last night, and didn't feel much like painting after a two hour nap, so I probably won't get around to painting until tomorrow. Tonight I have two 40k battles scheduled. . .but more on that later.

I'm taking step-by-step pictures of the remaining nine hammerers, so hopefully I can get my lazy man's guide up soon.

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