Still Having Trouble With WASHES!!!! :x

I've about had it with trying to get these darn washes to work. Mine look nothing like anyone else's and it's bugging the crap out of me. On other people's models you can distinctly see the cracks and spaces between the scales on the saurus/temple guard shields. I don't know why mine won't do that. Could someone maybe give me a step by step process of how to do this? What I did was paint the shields yellow and once dry I washed it with Thraka Green. Am I supposed to drybrush another layer of yellow over that afterwards or what? Its very frustrating :-(

 

Post a picture of the shield you are working on and we can help you better.

Ps. do you want the shield to come out shaded yellow or light green ?

 

I've heard just adding a small touch of liquid dish soap will have the same effect as adding the varnish.

But really I think the ones you see well defined are those who are doing heavy washes. I've only just started painting myself, and the ones that I've done that look closer to the ones the OP is talking about, are the ones I did a really heavy handed wash (like talking pooling up in crevices). Let it dry till it starts getting tacky, and soak up a little bit of the pools with a cloth if you want... or just leave it if you like the dark effect.

Basically you need to be able to see the wash sitting on their drying to get that effect I think.

 

From your description of what you're doing, I'm very confused on what you're attempting to accomplish. If you paint your shields yellow and then add a Thraka Green wash you're going to get kinda a lime yellow. Not to mention you don't drybrush a wash, its actually phyically impossible, considering you need the brush to be.. Well.. dry to drybrush.

The idea behind a wash is to make the crevasses distinct, to blend two colors together (sort of), or, in the case of dark washes, to lower the overall shade of the mini; IE black washes make the model look darker overall.

So, what are you trying to accomplish? What do you want your Yellow shields to look like? If you want the scales to be brightly yellow with a dark (I assume you want dark green lines since you're using Thraka Green and not Badab Black) defining lines, I would do one of two things.

The first method:
-Paint the whole shield Dheneb Stone (this should be your base coat if you're working with bright colors)
-Apply a medium coat of the wash, enough to essentially make the whole shield kinda pale green and the crevasses defined.
-Then go over the scales with Dheneb Stone again, making sure not to paint the crevasses.
-Then go over with Skull White, followed by your Yellow.

OR

The second method:
-Start again by painting whole shield Dheneb Stone.
-Add a few layers of Skull White
-Add a few layers of Yellow
-Now add the wash in a VERY controlled method, IE, use a fine detail brush and get a little bit of wash and dab it into each crevasse until you're satisfied.


I don't know how it would look, but those are the two methods I would use. Again I am very perplexed by your color choices and if it was me I probly use a Light Sepia wash (GWs Gryphonne Sepia). Which would define the scales, but not significantly alter the yellow.

On a side note, all GW washes I have purchased have been ready to paint right out of the pot, so I don't know about adding anything to them, I probably wouldn't.

 

I suppose once I'm done with this month's painting pledge I shall post on this topic as well to show u guys how the shields look