Very little odor and clean up is with simple water though an official thinner is available. (But get it before it dries!)

Yep - those shaders are very handy! Used to be sold as washes before the marketing folks reinvented them with new names! I use a combo of the sepia and gentle dry-brushing with the various Games Workshop fleshtones to make figure faces "pop".

Cleanup when still wet is water with dishsoap (a couple drops per pickle-jar of water), or if dry then you need a solvent to shift it. Always rinse the brush in clean water after...

Tom do you have a recommendation for a solvent to use once the acrylic has dried? I got a coffee table I would like to get a few spots off of.

F.Y.I. Sometimes on certain surfaces the shaders will blotch up due to molecular tension in the acrylic medium so I usually add the smallest drop of dishwashing liquid to make the shaders flow out a bit better. However most of the time I don't need to.

Believe it or not, I use liquid poly glue! Just open the jar and dip the brush in for a few moments before wiping it clean on paper towel. Some brushes are ok with this, but others have bristles that curl. As for removing from a table, it might be ok with a wipe of glue on a cloth, but I suspect it would fog or even lift any varnish! Best to try it on a hidden area first...

I find the shaders flow like a good pin wash over gloss coat - Microgloss in my case. I only paint with acrylics, so cannot say how it works on enamels or oils. Beware spreading it on matte surfaces (like airbrushed paints) as it then can tint the whole area like a filter as it wicks its way through the rough texture of the paint.

Thanks for the info.

I was going to get some Vallejo inks, these seem to be similar. Would you happen to know if one is better then the other or it's just what you have?

Ordered!!

Ryan - someone else is going to have to rule on that one.

I am so happy with this brand I am only now looking at some of the others.

Never tried the vallejo inks so couldn't say. I've been known to mix my own washes/filters with a few drops of acrylic paint in a "recycled" paint bottle of "wet" water - water with a drop of fotoflo or similar film wetting agent from the old days of pre-digital photography to break down surface tension so it flows. The risk is that some paints have larger grains of pigment than others, so are less suitable for thinning.

The Vallejo Game Inks are very helpful for bordering and outlining, effects that are hard to achieve using viscous washes.

Shading paint, Game Inks, and Washes/Filters are all very helpful in weathering and painting. That is what separates figures and kits painted as a basecoat from those that really pop and stand out.

For years I ignored investing in weathering paint products. But now that I have them, wow, the results are incredible. I just thought that diluting acrylic paint with water and using it as a wash would be just as effective. That's not true...these toted weathering products really do have a unique purpose and are indeed worth the money spent on them because each one is different in formula. Using them direct from the bottle works very well. They stick whereas paint diluted with water puddles up.

Some modelers still stick with oils and enamels for weathering and that's fine. I discovered that with acrylics that the acrylic weathering paints really do add value and results to an acrylic paint basecoat and make the details pop.

Thanks for the Intel. I got this set but will also try my own filter/wash too.

Tom, I often had the same problem that the pigment particles were too large when simply diluting standard paints to make washes.

Question: being an old B&W darkroom hand; is Photo-Flo still available? I miss it and would rather use that than adding liquid detergent.

Agree wholeheartedly!

Mike, thanks for bringing these products to our attention.

Not sure if Photo-flo is still around - I bought a bottle of Ilfotol (same stuff) nearly two decades ago and am still using it! I know "wet" film developing still exists here in the UK, but I assume it's pretty niche now. Worth trying the world's favourite dustbin - Amazon...

One more recent application of the Citadel shaders:

This time a single lite coating of Nuln Oil (Black) over the standard US WWII Olive Drab on the load box floor gives a nice "used" look to the flooring. Then I used multiple coats of the Agrax Earthshade (Brown) over a base coat of Dark German Yellow for the cab's cloth top.

Anyone else have success stories using these products?

My set showed up last week. I have used a few colors (Nuln Oil (Black), Agrax Earthshade (Brown)and a redish color) on an existing project. I wasn't a fan of the results but I am sure it had more to do with user error then the product itself. I just threw it on more haphazardly, where as looking at the gamesworkshop video they were more direct with the application. Since the project is a figure, ok Chewbacca I think I need to repaint and reapply the wash more carefully to get the results I want.

In addition to the Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade shades, I have been using Citadel's Typhus Corrosion as a base coat for painting "metal" tracks lately. My basic technique is to first paint the tracks with Typhus Corrosion and then applying a wash of Agrax Earthshade. After further weathering with pastels and weathering powders, I go bacr k with a silver colored pencil and highlight the areas of wear.

Citadel's paint clean up with water, so one does not have to worry about pins melting or one-piece tracks splitting as if one uses enamels. The last set, the tracks for a RFM Panther, remained workable after painting with Citadel paints and weathering.

I have found that with little effort, the shades can be removed with a brush and water with couple drops of 91% rubbing alcohol added. For washes along panel lines, weld beads, and similar details, I will apply a pin wash using Nuln Oil, let it dry for around an hour to overnight, and then go back and clean off the access with one of those disposable micro-brushes. I go easy as I don't want to run the risk of damaging the base coat (Vallejo Model Air with no clear coat).

I am not going be replacing all of my paints with Citadel paints anytime soon. However living in a region where "gaming stores" outnumber hobby shops, it helps to have other options available when one wants to experiment with different techniques, paints, etc.

James - You apply the one color and then go over it with a wash of the SAME color? Do understand that correctly??? Perhaps some further explanation on that.

quote
My basic technique is to first paint the tracks with Agrax Earthshade and then applying a wash of Agrax Earthshade.
quote

That is what Games Workshop workflow suggests, but the next paint color has more opacity then the wash. At least that is how I understand what they are trying to do.
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Citadel-Paint-Guide

Something that had not occurred to me: James may be referring to first painting the tracks with the full strength base color and then going back over it when dry with the matching (same name) shader.

Sure, I can explain. My message above was in error and has been corrected. I was multi-tasking, i.e. talking with my son about another hobby that the two of us share, and got the names mixed up when copying & pasting.

To clarify, I start with Typhus Corrosion which is a rusty brown color. Once that is dry, then I give the tracks a wash using Agrax Earthshade which is a little darker to highlight the details.

Sorry for any confusion.

Perfect!

I will be checking out that color - is that a texture paint for doing a mud effect or just a base color?

First, be easy on me. While I have been keeping up with the hobby, I haven't actively built anything for the last 5+ years. This is the second one that I have built since starting over again.



The tank itself [a RFM Panther Ausf.G w/o the interior] isn't finished. I need to put a final coat of weathering on it as well as add the antenna to the back deck. The centers along with around the bolts have been darkened with the Agrax Earthshade. The tracks were painted with Typhus Corrosion. On the spare tracks, I started with a black basecoat so that they would have a slightly different appearance from the other tracks.

The paint is under the technical line, so I guess I have been using Typhus Corrosion wrong on my freight cars (I've been painting the faces of freight car wheels) as well as on my tank model. It has a slight texture but not really enough to hide the details and such.