Matt varnish frosting

[Sky Potato]

Any ideas for removing the frosting from Matt varnish?

 

I’ve recently moved house, and the airbrush and my normal Vallejo Polyurethane Matt varnish, which has never given me any dramas, is properly inaccessible. So I snagged an Army Painter Matt spray from my FLGS to get the Tyranid half of Leviathan varnished.

 

Test model came out fine. Every other model came out frosted 

 

Any ideas on getting rid of the frosting? I’ve heard olive oil, has anyone tried that?

[Beaky Brigade]

Sorry about the dreaded frosting striking your minis, I've heard mixed things about the AP sprays.

In terms of fixing it I have heard that brushing Citadel Lahmian medium straight on the models can counter it a bit, though try on an inconspicuous area first :)

[andes]

I would NOT go the olive oil route. I'd go with lightly re-varnishing with gloss varnish, then again with matte once the gloss has fully dried.

Edited July 29, 2023 by andes

[Sky Potato]

Cheers, I’ll give both a go tomorrow.

 

I’m so annoyed, the test model came out absolutely fine. Serves me right for not digging out the airbrush I guess.

[Karhedron]

As a rule of thumb, don't spray varnish in cold or damp conditions. Frosting is caused when moisture in the air gets trapped in the spray. Try to spray in warm,  dry weather (which here in the UK normally means about 3 days per year ).

[Orion]

7 hours ago, Sky Potato said:

 

I’ve recently moved house, and the airbrush and my normal Vallejo Polyurethane Matt varnish, which has never given me any dramas, is properly inaccessible.

Online order? For any non GW paints and stuff I always just get stuff delivered. Warhammer stuff I try to buy from my local GW

Best of luck with the current frosting though! Sounds rough! Like Andes said I'd try a gloss or satin.

[Firedrake Cordova]

My understanding is that "frosting" is the varnish going on with slightly too rough a surface (matte varnish is matte because it has a microscopically rough surface which scatters the light).

 

As @andes said, a light application of gloss varnish (e.g. thinned down Ardcoat) would give you a flat surface, and you could then re-apply the matte varnish.

[Sky Potato]

Thanks everyone for your advice. In this particular case, I’ve tried the following steps - all applied by brush, because like I said, the airbrush is packed away:

 

Lahmian medium

Stormshield thinned with water

Stormshield straight from the pot

Ardcoat

Vallejo premium airbrush acrylic polyurethane

- Matt (62.062)

- Satin (62.063)

- Gloss (62.064)

 

Lahmian medium looked like it did the trick, until it dried - then there was zero effect.

 

Stormshield - slight improvement, still significant frosting.

 

Ardcoat - small patches where the frosting had been knocked back and replaced with a gloss finish, but these areas were small. Overall frosting lessened but still significant.

 

Vallejo Matt - barely touched the frosting, almost no change.

 

Vallejo Satin - slight improvement, still highly noticeable.

 

Vallejo Gloss - the most effective at about 50% of the frosting gone. And the unfrosted areas of the model are now gloss which is the finish I didn’t want .

 

The worst affected areas are the leviathan purple carapace, the flesh tearers red claws and the volupus pink fleshy parts. The skin tones don’t really look too bad with the frosting. I’m going to try a quick 50/50 mix of contrast medium and the relevant colour over the affected areas.

 

Luckily, I was matt varnishing everything before applying layers then gloss varnish to the carapace, so I’m only really relayering the claws and limited recessed flesh areas.

 

So much extra work because the airbrush is still packed away and I tried to take a shortcut…

[Oxydo]

You should cover all the affected areas with gloss varnish so you don't have any frosting left, then you reapply your matt varnish again to get the matt finish you want.

 

Vallejo's acrylic spray varnishes are good alternatives if you can't get the polyutherane anymore.

[Aarik]

FWIW, I've had better luck with AK Interactive varnishes than the Vallejo ones.

[spessmarine]

Not much help to offer, but I've got a fear about ruining a miniature's paintjob with the varnish. Feels like it is such a risk to use sprays

[Sky Potato]

Yeah, massively - I’ll never use a spray can varnish again. All this happened because I was in too much of a rush to get the bugs finished and I couldn’t find my airbrush and compressor.

 

I’ve had great results with the Vallejo polyurethane stuff through the airbrush, but I’ll check out the AK interactive stuff as well.

[Arkhanist]

With the very high humidity lately due to the rain, I'm not surprised the army painter spray went badly - one of the main reasons I switched to airbrushing myself!

 

Matt or satin varnish over frosting will do basically nothing as you've discovered. Frosting is caused by an excessively rough surface; usually the matting agent clumps up due to not being shaken enough, sprayed from too far away and it dries mid-air (with AP sprays you do want to be pretty close and fast, light coat passes), or, most likely in this case, high humidity caused it to clump mid-air.

 

The goal is to fill in around the excessively rough surface to get a smooth, glossy one again, so you can then start-over to get the final finish you want. This is the idea behind olive oil, it acts as a gloss oil finish, though obviously not the durability of varnish! I find gloss varnish more effective.

 

I'd double down on the vallejo gloss by hairy stick you've already done. 'ardcoat is okish, but it's not a very glossy varnish, so not ideal for this and you'd need a bunch of layers. Apply the vallejo gloss in thin layers and let fully dry each time (several hours min), on each area that is still frosted - may take several if the frosting is particularly bad. Once the frosting is all gone (or as much as you can) and you've got a full glossy dried mini, you can then do a thin layer or two of matt or satin to get the final look, hopefully without frosting this time!

 

For this final finish coat, either get the airbrush out and do it properly :) or a thin coat of the same vallejo matt by hairy stick will also work, just slower. I'd avoid the rattlecans until the weather improves, and humidity in particular is much lower.

 

[sarabando]

honestly buying a cheap airbrush and compressor has been the greatest single investment for mini painting for me, even if i only ever use it for varnishing again.