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Secret Weapon Minis washes?


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The Secret Weapon washes are great for some obscure colors. They are an acrylic wash, and have a tendency to settle to the bottom of the bottle… So, make sure you shake them really well!  There are several that I tend to use more often than others… Although if I had Emperor's Children or other Slanneshi marines, I'd have more of a use for Cotton Candy pink. My favorites are Concrete, Blue-Black, Algae… and ya just gotta love a color named "Baby Poop." Sometimes I thin them down a little with water/Future mix, but you could just as easily use GW's Lahmian Medium for that, too.

 

The Secret Weapon washes are great for some obscure colors. They are an acrylic wash, and have a tendency to settle to the bottom of the bottle… So, make sure you shake them really well!  There are several that I tend to use more often than others… Although if I had Emperor's Children or other Slanneshi marines, I'd have more of a use for Cotton Candy pink. My favorites are Concrete, Blue-Black, Algae… and ya just gotta love a color named "Baby Poop." Sometimes I thin them down a little with water/Future mix, but you could just as easily use GW's Lahmian Medium for that, too.

 

 

Fallout is another great one and the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear Secret Weapon washes. That and baby poop.

Don't shake them - this is not James Bond's martini.  Stir the wash with a stick or brush.  Shaking introduces a ton of air bubbles and causes the wash to foam, whereas stirring will more effectively mix the sediment into the solution.

 

I saw one review that suggested they work better if you don't shake or stir them at all - that the suspension goes on too heavily otherwise.  So you might want to try that if you don't like the usual results.

 

Personally, the only one I've tried is the one that's the same blue-grey as Space Wolves colors - but I use it rarely, unlike Army Painter tones that are a universal go-to for all my models.

Ditto what everyone has said: great products.  They do settle, and I do often thin them a bit with a H20/Liquitex mix (haven't tried it with Lahmian medium, though).

 

I love Armor Wash and use it on most all my vehicles.  Their Heavy Black is as described and I've over-applied it before, so tread lightly.  Also like their Purple (or Violet?) wash.

Don't shake them - this is not James Bond's martini.  Stir the wash with a stick or brush.  Shaking introduces a ton of air bubbles and causes the wash to foam, whereas stirring will more effectively mix the sediment into the solution.

 

I know there is the whole debate on "shaken vs. stirred" paint, washes, etc.; but with the dropper bottles (like those Secret Weapon washes are contained within), I'm more likely to just shake the bejeezus out of the bottle. In my experience, the foam you describe is minimal and goes away in a few seconds, but also tends to rise to the top, so when you turn the dropper upside-down to squeeze out a drop or two of wash, that foam is at the opposite end of the bottle.  If I were to stir each bottle, I would be removing the dropper each time, and that's just kinda tedious to me. On a few of my SW washes, I have added a glass agitator bead to help distribute the sediment whilst I shake the bottle. It seems to help a little bit.

I think when people stir their wash or paint (and some brands really do require stirring and not shaking, oil or putty mixes for instance) they pour them onto a small plastic container like a blister or a small clear plastic dome lid and then use a toothpick to stir it.

 

It'd be really hard to stir inside the dropper, I can't even imagine how you would go about doing that without fumbling around with full bottles spilling all over the nozzle and fiddling with a thin and long enough rod to insert into the dropper.

 

Lol that last sentence.

 

with the dropper bottles (like those Secret Weapon washes are contained within), I'm more likely to just shake the bejeezus out of the bottle. In my experience, the foam you describe is minimal and goes away in a few seconds, but also tends to rise to the top, so when you turn the dropper upside-down to squeeze out a drop or two of wash, that foam is at the opposite end of the bottle.  If I were to stir each bottle, I would be removing the dropper each time, and that's just kinda tedious to me.

 

I'm using the somewhat larger bottle (not the 15ml size) and it's easy enough to screw off the cap.  In my experience with this size, shaking it sufficiently suffuses the entire suspension with foam (because it's, well... a suspension) and it takes less time to stir it than it does to wait for the bubbles to settle (I never fully invert a dropper bottle, bad things can happen that way!).  Glad to hear that not everyone has had those issues.

 

With the smaller bottles, an agitator bead is a good idea for any paint.

 

I'm using the somewhat larger bottle (not the 15ml size) and it's easy enough to screw off the cap.  

 

 

With the smaller bottles, an agitator bead is a good idea for any paint.

 

 

I didn't know that Secret Weapon made bottles of washes larger than the 15ml size… I may need to check that out! :)

 

And yes, I've found that I appreciated the agitator in Reaper's Master Series paints, so I kept adding one in when I transferred GW paints to Reaper's dropper bottles. I've even added it to a few bottles of Vallejo Game Color, too. 

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