Matt Varnish

[Kekso]

Do you use matt varnish on your figures as final layer?
If yes, what type (enamel or acrylic) and which brand?
Thanks

[zzed]

hi Dalibor,

technically you should use enamel varnish on acrylic painted figures and vice versa.
I used acrylic matt varnish on my enamel painted figures, thinned with a bit of water, and applied in a minimum amount to avoid visible protection layer. While this was in order to protect them when handling, I stopped with that practice.
Varnish will much darken and literally 'kill' the colours.
If you have a wargaming in mind, I think it is better practice to base them onto the coins to ease handling.

[deon]

I have used PVA Glue ( neat- no water ) to varnish soft plastic figures as it remains flexible and prevents paint flaking off. On metal wargaming figures, I use a good gloss varnish either Windsor and Newton, Testors Enamel or Tamiya Acrylic . All these do not yellow and the Tamiya stuff dries like glass.

All are followed by a semi matt acrylic spray. The gloss provides protection and the semi matt evens the tones. If I need to show any polished surfaces i reapply another gloss coat where necessary. Because the varnishes do darken the colours, I paint lighter colours than I need in the end.

Hope this helps
Deon

[Kekso]

Thank you both mates!

I do not need it for wargaming purposes. I need it, as Deon said, to try to even tones.
Also, I paint figures with acrylics (mostly Vallejo). After that I put wash made from oil color
thinned with white spirit. Result is good but leaves glossy surface. I need something
to "kill" this gloss. Tried with Marabu's Dekormatt varnish but didn't loose glossy surface.

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=11575&hilit=jaeger

Now I ordered Humbrol's (enamel) but must wait it for some time to be shipped.

[zzed]

I stumbled upon the same problem when using combination of oil colours + white spirit. I tried to fix it by using only a small amount of pigments isolated of oily medium as much as possible and a lot of white spirit, but that didn't help much. I thought it was because of the low quality of oil colours, although I paid for them dearly, but now I think it is shiny due to this combination.
Perhaps you can try with an ordinary enamel colour plus Revell thinner for washing, maybe it will be less shiny. Also try to wash only crevices, not the whole figure. After that you can fix the flat areas with some highlighting.

Also some people are using inks, like games workshop/citadel, I never tried it myself though.
There is a huge amount of info about washes at the local OMF, involving a mixes of window cleaner or wooden floor cleaner, a drop of liquid soap and black ink. I think that will work best for you.