First off, it is still available on Wal-Mart (water-based and oil-based), for delivery to your local store, or to your home.
Never been a fan of Tudor (black). I am, however, a dyed-in-the-wool fan of Royal Walnut, and similar colors of dark brown. They give a down and dirty look to figures, as if they've been in battle, knocked down, etc.
Examples: Hill Dwarves [shorter, smaller stature than Mountain Dwarves (LOL!)], Gnomes, Cyclops, Draco-Lich-factory, and finished with Royal Walnut, after dressing it up. My favorite example is this 54mm Cave Man figure: paint only applied to the non-skin bits, then the flesh-colored plastic, et al, were covered with Minwax Polyshades Royal Walnut; when that fully cured, i matte coated it.
For the Future Floor Shine replacement for making custom washes, AKA Magic Wash, you can use this product, from Wal-Mart: Quick Shine.
I recommend brushing both the Minwax, and the Magic Wash, onto the figures, using disposable school paint brushes, as opposed to dunking the figures into the mixture: faster; more effective; reduced pooling; easier to control; uses less Minwax/Magic Wash solutions.
Best mixing method is to use a spin mixer, attached to your electric drill -- best, easiest mixing method, as the results are far better than shaking the can, manually. The tint is completely diffused within the polyurethane suspension! Make sure to start with a fresh can of Minwax, as manually shaking the can leads to the tint building up, in the can, over time, as it never really gets properly suspended, and it thickens… Cheers!
PS: Bonus Content!
If you are impatient, like me, and you do not want to wait for the oil-based washes to dry, over a period of days… You can buy a Slow Cooker/Crockpot: set your color-washed figures into it, put the lid on, and set it to Low Heat (170 F/77 C), and bake them for 30 minutes. This will fully cure the oil-based washes, and you can proceed with the matte clear coat, immediately.
I bought a very large capacity Slow Cooker, at an Estate Sale, for around $10. USD I only use it for baking/curing my miniatures. I set its dial temperature gauge to 200 F, with an oven thermometer inside, to verify the temperature. Works amazingly well, for little money.
Most thermal plastics, used for injection molding figures, melt at 300 F/149 C and above (some types of plastic fully melt at 400 F/204 C and above). I've bake-cured, literally, hundreds of plastic figures, including toys such as lions and Cave Men: they get soft, but they do not melt, in the Slow Cooker, on Low Heat -- they do NOT deform! Double-Cheers!
