Sealer help needed

[BetterOffShred]

I have been painting for a while, and have used various types of "sealers" to coat my models once I have all the colors on them I like, but they either end up being a Gloss which looks terrible (except on stuff like Nurgle where its supposed to be all Juicy) or a Flat which I've found to diminish some of the vibrancy of the colors. 

 

So I'm looking for some advice or tips on how you all seal your models to keep your finger acids etc from removing paint.   Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

 

-Brett

 

[Kaedes Nex]

What you want is a "satin" varnish. What you used were "gloss" and "matte".

 

Citadel Purity Seal if GW still makes it is satin, but it has a very spotty reputation. I don't know how much of this is based on user error or how much of it is because GW simply doesn't focus that much attention on the quality of their spray products, but given the fact that I have used products that are 100% amazing and nearly foolproof and STILL see two or three people complain about them online, I'm going to say a good portion of bad reputation can be attributed to stupid or careless users. I would recommend you to try it and see for yourself, but for how expensive one can is from GW, I can't recommend them.

 

Unfortunately, I don't know of any actual brand for satin varnishes other than GW and Vallejo, and Vallejo's is some type of urethane silicone base which makes for a great primer and super matte varnish, but it doesn't come in spray can form and also has extremely long curing (even after it feels dry) times due to the resin and can cause problems if you don't spray it through an airbrush or keep messing with it before it's fully cured.

 

Testors Dullcote is the gold standard but is very expensive and comes in small cans, and I don't think they make a satin alternative. Army Painter is the budget acrylic variant that's basically a cheaper, inferior Testors, but unfortunately, these two brands only seem to make matte or gloss. You may have to try a more generic brand like Krylon, as they do make all sorts of varnishes including satin.

[abadizzle]

"Floquil figure flat" is my recommendation. But be warned- it has a tendency to blend colors in that altdorf guard blue and macragge blue share no discernable difference after spraying. Sure keeps your minis "flat" and sealed though... So paint vibrantly! Also krylon makes a "color master crystal clear covermax flat spray" which is great... But takes forever and a day to cure.

[BetterOffShred]

Cool cool.  I'll go invest in a can of Satin and see how it goes.  I have a couple of bogus models I can test it on to see if it yields the desired effect.   Thank  both of you very much for the replies.  I ran out of likes sorry Abadizzle :( 

 

-Brett

[Gurth]

Any regular store that sells car paints will have spraying cans with gloss and satin varnish, which will work just fine on gaming models. It’s matt varnish that you need a modelling-/gaming-specific paint brand for.

[BetterOffShred]

Small update: I went out and bought some of this http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61Y1J32D8IL._SY355_.jpg

and tried it out on a couple of different things.. the good news it doesn't change the colors very much at all.  In fact I could only notice a tiny bit on the really bright areas.  But.. it does something weird to "Blood for the blood God" and made it turn pink.. which I mitigated by just touching up the affected areas with a little more BftBG :)

 

Thanks fellas.  I would recommend this can to anyone looking for a good sealer.

 

-Brett