Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part V - Wash & Highlight

In case you missed some:
Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part I - Intro
Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part II - Preperation
Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part III - Airbrushing
Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part IV - Detailing

Doing a wash seems to be the most popular but most obscure technique in all of painting miniatures.  Its so hard to find an exact formula of what a wash actually is.  It always "some" of this, or a "few drops" of this.  Never an exact formula.  And if I did ever find an exact formula I couldn't get it to work. 

The closest I found to the "Magic Wash" formula was 1 part future, 4 parts water, and "a few drops of your favorite pigment".  A few could be anything from 2 to 7.  In testing wash formulas I've found 1 drop makes a huge difference in how dark your wash is.  Just saying "a few"  doesn't cut it.

I always use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of EXACT formulas for anything I do in painting.  On this little project I'm actually finding there needs to be different formula for different jobs.  I also tried something new.  I did a pre-mix of future and water.  Usually I just did straight Future.  I tried the 1:4 future to water, but found it was to watery.  So, I tried 1:1.  This is now my "Magic Wash".

To get my "parts" I use droppers.  I use this when airbrushing as well, to mix my 3:2 paint to windex formula. 

For a black wash I use games workshop black ink.  I tried to Vallego black shade, but found it wasn't dark enough for what I like.  For tanks I used a 1:20 mix of ink to magic wash.  For infantry I used a mix of 1:40.  I also tried giving 2 coats of wash.  I never wanted to try this before because I figured it would make things too dark.  It seemed to work really well.

For flesh I use about a 1:2 or 1:3 W&N peat brown to magic wash.

If anyone else would like to share some EXACT wash formulas I'd be super interested.

















After all the wash, I do a dry-brush highlight of everything.  Usually a 3:2 base coat to white.  I keep finding I have to do it lighter highlight then I would think, because my matte varnish really lightens things up, and the highlight disappears there isn't enough contrast between the base coat.  


Up next will be my decal tutorial.