"Any experience with Vallejo's "Immersion Wash" 200ml jars?" Topic

Hello all,

I picked up a jar of Sepia and Black washes from Vallejo in the 200ml big jar, but haven't used them yet. I admit that I'm a lazy painter and I was also looking at The Army Painter's inks (I think I might avoid the Quickshade/Miracle Dip as it seems quite messy and I have an apartment – bad combo!) as well, but their inks are in normal dropper bottles, and this is a large jar. I'm probably going to be painting it on versus just dunking a model in it. These seem to be their attempt at the Army Painter dip only acrylic (or something like GW's old Devlan Mud that I saw used a lot to provide instant tabletop standard)?

Has anyone tried either of these? How do they compare to A) The Army Painter Tone inks (I'd assume Sepia = Soft and Black = Dark) and B) The Miracle Dip/AP Quickshade stain? I know the AP method is supposed to be that you can basecoat in flat colors, then ink/quickshade and the model goes from flat and waxy to instant tabletop standard as the ink/shade seeps into the crevasses and provides shading; will the Vallejo wash do the same thing if I take a figure and slather the wash all over it?

I'm looking more at the Black than the Sepia as I don't want my figures to look too muddy.

Thanks,
Wayne

I'd like to know as well. Wayne, how did the price compare to the tin of army painter dip?

Matthew

The Vallejo wash is like $15 USD for 200ml, the AP Dip is like $30 USD for.. I'm not sure how much. Although they're too different products since the AP dip is woodstain of some variety and the Vallejo wash is an actual acrylic wash.

I have an apartment and use army painter without trashing the place.

Just brush it on. Its varnish not nuclear waste.

Wayne, save your money and use "Magic Wash". Buy a bottle of Future Klear acrylic floor polish ( about 3 pounds sterling).You can customise your washes to suit the base coat colour you want to shade; it's acrylic based so no nasty solvents and it doesn't dry up in the tin when there's still half if it left, which is what happened to my 17 quid tin of Army Painter! Dr Faustus has a YouTube video showing how to do it. It really is magic. One tip that has been offered on TMP pages in the past is to gloss varnish figures first before using a wash- it prevents the wash pigment darkening your paint colours too much.

I've looked at the Magic Wash before, but isn't that something different than the Army Painter tone inks? Or are they basically just preformulated sepia/brown/black magic wash?

I have used the Sepia, Flesh, and Black washes in the small dropper bottles. I didn't know Vallejo sold them in larger sizes! I also use AP and brush it on. I used the Vallejo for smaller applications. Sepia is brownish, good for bases, sails and to dirty up other white/ off white fabrics. I have used the Flesh and Black to give some tone to well flesh!

In general they are thinner than AP and don't give as good of a shading effect on a whole figure. Although they don't dry with a gloss finish like AP and they are acrylic.

I wonder if they are the same thing; they look similar (same color on the label).

I guess there's only one way to find out; I'll have to paint something and use the wash! :D

Takes some pictures please. I went and bought some wood stain and will be giving it a try, but I like the idea of not needing solvents to clean after so I might try the Vallejo washes. I did try magic wash one time. Turned out way to glossy for my tastes.

link

Heres a tutorial for Victrix Naps using the Vallejo dip.

That's actually the video I saw that made me want to try them :P Although he uses the Sepia wash so it seems to muddy everything on the figure.

I read somewhere, not sure where, that you aren't supposed to shake the Vallejo wash before using it.

If it's what I'm thinking of, I've got a tub of the sepia and it acts basically like an ink wash. Mind you I haven't used the dip technique, I've only really used it for basing materials.

They are matt, which I prefer to using gloss. It doesn't 'wick' the same way as dips tend to. My main use of it is to do a wash on horses or ground cover.

45th Div- Magic Wash is glossy, but not glossier that Army Oainter- a quick spay of matte varnish soon sorts it.

The Vallejo wash is indeed a different animal to Army Painter dip. It is more heavily loaded with pigment for one and dead flat. I use it sometimes but in order to get it to act as a 'dipping' wash I mix it about 50/50 with varnish and sometimes add a little airbrush thinner.

If you want to make your own Army Painter style dip it's pretty simple, get a bottle of spirit based varnish such as Humbrol and add a small amount of any Artist Oil paint, shake and your good to go.

I wasn't so concerned about the AP style dip as much as the AP "Tone" inks where you basically wash the entire model with it and it shades everything; I saw a painting blog or two where they showed before/after shots of models that were simply basecoated in flat colors, and then washed with AP Dark Tone Ink, and it took them from like a 2 out of 10 to a 7 out of 10 with no other highlighting or details added; being lazy that's what I'm looking for.

I'm going to experiment on a figure in the next few days with the Vallejo black wash to see how it works compared to the Dark Tone Ink which I also bought a bottle of.

45th Div- Magic Wash is glossy, but not glossier that Army Painter- a quick spay of matte varnish soon sorts it.
Wayniac- never used the Vallejo washes, but I would imagine that they are just an acrylic medium with pigment, so I am not so ending a couple of pounds on a little bottle when I can get lots for MIT much more- it must be the Scottish side of me!

Tried it out on some Warmachine figures I'm painting right now. It seems to be closer to a regular wash and less like the Army Painter shading inks; I did one model with Army Painter Dark Tone Ink, and one with Vallejo Black Shade, and the AP one did a much better job of shading; the Vallejo one just kind of made everything dirty-looking but really didn't enhance the shading. It wasn't a bad effect overall, but it doesn't look nearly as good and the model required a fair bit of more work to make it look decent, while the one with Dark Tone Ink looked average quality immediately afterwards.

I'm really thinking of trying the not-Minwax Quickshade dip next to see how I like that effect, or Minwax itself; I've never found concrete evidence that the AP Quickshade is different than Minwax, and Minwax is a hell of a lot cheaper.

Pics (sorry for quality, using iPhone):

Vallejo Black Wash:

Army Painter Dark Tone Ink:

The AP model basically was just basecoated, then AP ink applied, and then some touch ups. The Vallejo one had to essentially have basecoats reapplied since everything became muddy after applying the wash.

Overall I'd say it's not terrible, but it's clearly not speedy like the AP stuff.

Thanks for the follow up with photos. I think I will skip the vallejo. I did pick up some minwax to try out. I will see how that goes.

Matthew

Yeah, I can't really recommend it. Good in theory, fails in execution. It seems to me that it's not deep enough to really shade in the same way; it might be good for "pre-shading" a miniature that was primed in white but as an actual shading wash it fails at least in my experience. Everything kind of got muddy but it didn't seep into the recesses like I expected. Basically, I expected an effect like Army Painter Dark Tone Ink; apply liberally to the model and it goes into the folds to bring out shading, what I got was that it applied a regular black wash to make everything look darker.

My next experiment is going to be either Minwax or, more likely, the Army Painter Quickshade as doing more research it seems that it's thinner or something than Minwax.