Washing (Shade Paints)
Apply a wash over basecoated areas to create instant shadows in recesses and add depth.
A wash is thin, dark paint that flows into the recesses of the model on its own and settles there, painting your shadows for you. The physics does the work — capillary action pulls the pigment into every crease and around every rivet, darkening the low points while the raised surfaces shrug most of it off. It's the single highest-return minute in miniature painting: one wash takes a flat basecoat to genuine depth. Our job is simply to put the wash where the shadows should live and keep it from drying in puddles where they shouldn't.
Best For
Recommended Paint Types
Step-by-Step
Check the basecoat is bone dry — a wash over wet paint lifts and muddies it.
Shake the pot well and load your size 2 round (it holds more wash) with your shade (Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil cover almost everything) at skim-milk, straight from the pot (shades come pre-thinned).
Flow it over the whole area you're shading, creases and recesses first generously but deliberately, letting it run into the deepest creases and recesses; steer it with the brush tip rather than scrubbing.
Where it puddles on a flat or raised surface, touch a clean, damp brush to the puddle — it wicks the excess up like a sponge.
Let it dry completely, 10–15 minutes — longer than normal paint, and worth every second.
If It Goes Wrong
If the wash pools on a flat surface, lift it with a clean damp brush tip before it dries; if it already dried into a tide mark, reapply the basecoat over just the stained raised area and leave the recesses dark — that clean-up pass is standard practice, not a failure.
Variations
A pin wash places the shadow ONLY where it belongs: instead of flooding the whole surface, we touch a loaded brush tip to each recess and let capillary action pull the wash along the line — crisp definition with none of the all-over dulling.
Pro Tips
Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil are the two most versatile washes — they work on almost everything.
For a cleaner result, apply the wash only into the recesses (recess shading) instead of all over.
Shake your wash pot well before use.
Apply washes with the model tilted so gravity helps the wash flow where you want it.
Common Mistakes
Applying wash over a coat that hasn't dried — this ruins the basecoat.
Letting wash pool on flat surfaces (tide marks).
Using too many different wash colors on one model — stick to 1-2.
Not cleaning up the raised areas afterward.