Washes

[Solarflare]

Silly question but when would you use one of the more colourful washes? I have the black wash and gryphon sepia (brown) but can't really see a use for some of the other washes that are sold.

[Bonham1963]

Some armies are more colourful than Marines. Eldar and Tyrannids are a couple of examples. 'Nids can be most any colour you can imagine, so purple wash and other bright colours would be used there.

[Orbital]

One thing I've seen is when you use a colored wash on an opposite color to create a darker tone. A Chaos player I know uses Dark Green Ink on his Word Bearers (which are vibrant red). There's no trace of green on them anywhere... only a nice, deep shading.

[m_Janelle]

Other uses for the coloured washes is for things like power weapons (at least, that's something I use them for...). A blue or purple wash on a metallic or white blade makes for a cool power weapon effect (imo)

[TrentL]

I use my purple wash on Plasma guns (The plasma coils??) I paint them blue with a heavy purple wash. Looks pretty cool.

[Chaotic]

I'm no painting expert, but I use multiple colour washes. Some of the uses I can think of are:

Green wash: Great for shading Greenskins (over goblin green) and Nurgle models (over rotting flesh).
Blue wash: Good for magical armour (if kept light), blues or purples.
Red wash: Good to coat anything that's meant to be bloody or just deepen red cloth.
Brown/flesh wash: Good for skin tones and other browns.
Black wash: Best on metallic armour and weapons. Also works on flesh tones to create a 'dirty' look (I used it on my bretonnian peasants that way).

I have never tried the idea of opposite colour washes, but it sounds interesting!

[Orbital]

I'm not challenging or putting down earlier comments, but I do want to ask: Would you really use (for example) a green wash on a green model? Isn't it already green? Wouldn't you want to use a black or brown or even a contrasting color like red? When I've used a color wash over a like color, the results are hardly noticable.

[TrentL]

My wife uses the green wash on her orcs because its a darker green and it highlights the arms nicely.

Examples of her orks:


or

[Solarflare]

Is that green wash on the whole model or just the green parts?

Models look great btw

[TrentL]

Greenwash on green.