Nuln Oil - it's a bloody brilliant product!
It may even be the best thing that Games Workshop have ever released in terms of paints. It goes on well, it dries matte, sticks in the recesses and is great for black lining around armour panels.
Now I admit I was skeptical at first, but once I tried it, we were closer than Paris Hilton and a billionaire!
See, as a Beardy, there have been a lot of GW paint products that have come and gone so it's natural to be a bit jaded and not always an early adopter..
My first GW paints were back in the late 80s when there were "inks" as they were called then. They did the job okay (brilliant for thinning paint mind you) but didn't set the world on fire in terms of their purpose. In fact many of us just thinned the paint and that was the wash - it was matte, covered better, was easier to control and dried in under a week. In fact that's where I wanted to concentrate this piece on...
See, in the old days you would create a wash for the specific colour - so a dark drown for bronze, and blue/ black wash for metal and adding more blue for a silver look. It was a bit of trial and error but was great fun and really looked great. I even found this dark grey combination that really dulled down metallics and made armour look like old heavy iron. It was cool!
But Nuln Oil seems to have replaced that idea in many modeller's eyes. I see it used for shading all kinds of metallics and colours - even reds and blues! This would have been thought very strange in the days when mixing the perfect red wash was a combination of a dark red, brown and smallest bit of black thinned to just the right consistency. In fact there was a well loved way using two washes, one not too dark for the recesses and then the darker one for the really dark areas. I'm not saying this was the right way BTW, it was just the convention of the time and produced some lovely subtle shadows.
So I ask you, has Nuln Oil (and to a lesser extent the other current washes range) made us as hobbyists lazy? I know when I did the head to my Imperial Knight (above) I did all the base colours and then just washed it with Nuln Oil and it looks great to my eye.
So, over to you - is it a worrying trend to be lacking those vibrant specific coloured washes in favour of a matte black cure-all? Do you like the black effect or maybe you too miss the specific mixes for each colour. Keen to hear your thoughts...
It may even be the best thing that Games Workshop have ever released in terms of paints. It goes on well, it dries matte, sticks in the recesses and is great for black lining around armour panels.
Now I admit I was skeptical at first, but once I tried it, we were closer than Paris Hilton and a billionaire!
See, as a Beardy, there have been a lot of GW paint products that have come and gone so it's natural to be a bit jaded and not always an early adopter..
My first GW paints were back in the late 80s when there were "inks" as they were called then. They did the job okay (brilliant for thinning paint mind you) but didn't set the world on fire in terms of their purpose. In fact many of us just thinned the paint and that was the wash - it was matte, covered better, was easier to control and dried in under a week. In fact that's where I wanted to concentrate this piece on...
See, in the old days you would create a wash for the specific colour - so a dark drown for bronze, and blue/ black wash for metal and adding more blue for a silver look. It was a bit of trial and error but was great fun and really looked great. I even found this dark grey combination that really dulled down metallics and made armour look like old heavy iron. It was cool!
But Nuln Oil seems to have replaced that idea in many modeller's eyes. I see it used for shading all kinds of metallics and colours - even reds and blues! This would have been thought very strange in the days when mixing the perfect red wash was a combination of a dark red, brown and smallest bit of black thinned to just the right consistency. In fact there was a well loved way using two washes, one not too dark for the recesses and then the darker one for the really dark areas. I'm not saying this was the right way BTW, it was just the convention of the time and produced some lovely subtle shadows.
So I ask you, has Nuln Oil (and to a lesser extent the other current washes range) made us as hobbyists lazy? I know when I did the head to my Imperial Knight (above) I did all the base colours and then just washed it with Nuln Oil and it looks great to my eye.
So, over to you - is it a worrying trend to be lacking those vibrant specific coloured washes in favour of a matte black cure-all? Do you like the black effect or maybe you too miss the specific mixes for each colour. Keen to hear your thoughts...
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