in reading man of kent's thread he discusses how he used dipping to paint his nids. they came out beautifully. so basically i just want to know how this is done. i wasn't sure how long the answer was so i didn't want to get into it on his own thread.
it seemed to be a somewhat quick way to paint an entire army.
can this technique be used on most any army? i have to finish off necrons before i repaint my nids.

HI!

Basically it's some kind of wash-like fluid that you dip your miniatures into. You just have to paint the base colours, and the dip adds the shades and such.

I've never tried it, but seen miniatures (28mm though), and it looked quite good.

here's some additional info: http://www.dysartes.com/model/painting/Dipping1.php

bg,

Essentially it means using polyurethane wood stain, such as Ronseal (uk) or Miniwax (us) as a thick wash over your models, then shaking off the excess. There is a lot of information out there about it.

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and by "painting your base colors" make sure they're brighter than you intentionally want them. I tried it and found all the colors get much darker after dipped. On a 40k scale dipping works incredibly well with Nids and Imperial Guard.

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thanks, that link was perfect.
anybody else have any success w/ it? and if so any tips?
any pictures?

Pre-made dips I hear these guys dips are pretty good.  I haven't tried them yet, but I have used their spray primer and really like them.  I will probably give their dips a go when I tackle my 40K nids.

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Honestly, stay (far, far) away from "premium" dips.  Firstly, they don't perform significantly different than a wood stain-based dip, but they will cost you much more.  Secondly, you don't run a 6mm mini like a 28mm mini.  You don't want the same dip viscosity and can use a much thinner "dip" to better effect on 6mm figs.

Go for a FFP/acrylic medium based wash for your "dip" at 6mm and you are golden.  Paint+ink+FFP+water and you are good to go.  Dullcote or whatever your toluene-impaired country serves up for a matte finish afterward to lose the shine.

While I can, in theory, see someone potentially spinning bases of Miniwax dipped 6mm figs to avoid having them turn into little poly-coated raisins, it just seems a wee bit ridiculous.

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Correct; i used a thined down (with meths) walnut wood dye with a small amount of washing up liqued to break surface tension and allow it to flow.  WHilst this turned out fine on the nids they ARE a little 'flat' in person and i would reccomend giving a poly dye a go too.
WHat are you painting by the way?

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mok- i have an entire necron army to paint before i move on to the nids. as far a they go i have tons of stuff to paint, maybe 8000-10000 pts (not sure since i haven't used them since 2nd addition rules). that is why i was asking about the dipping, it seems to speed things along.
sorry if this is a dumb question, but ghudra what is FFP?

Future Floor Polish.  It can be used as an acrylic paint medium, flow improver (water tension breaker), gloss finish, decal sealant, smoothing/clearing finish for aircraft-kit canopies, superglue-fog-getter-ridder-offer, etc. IIRC.  I don't think it cures snakebite and the common cold but I don't think anyone's tried yet.

This page is pretty informative.

I started making some pretty good washes with Daler-Rowney matt glaze medium and acrylic tension breaker (a bit better than GW's washes, if I say so myself) before I heard about 'magic' washes on mini-painting forums.  Thanks to those I gave Klear (the UK version of Future) a try when I ran out of tension breaker.  It doesn't work quite as well, IMO, and the gloss finish is a bit off-putting if you stick too much in; but overall the difference is negligible and it's a lot cheaper too.  'Course, now I've discovered this useful stuff, it's been discontinued and replaced.

The true joy of FFP, acrylic medium, & like substances for dips is that you aren't melting your brain off a poly-based lacquer and you can actually control your dip color.  Not to mention the whole mess cleans up with water.  Not that I'm for water clean-up...I'd prefer a more manly roofing tar & sandblast regiment for clean-up if I could.  

Most poly dips are on a wood palette and don't always jive with some of the popular colors used for things like nids.  Brown wood dip with Burple Nid colors just looks like you had an accident.

Although my heart desperately wants you to spend $35 on some Army Painter dip, I suspect you could get away with a few well-placed dollars and do far better.  It's like paying for a jar of $35 peanut butter: you know it's better because you paid more.  Damn those fools who are buying the cheap Skippy stuff because they just don't understand...

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Instead of dipping, you can give a try to Woodland scenic liquid pigments. Easy to use, good effects.

Take a look at the Iron Warriors on Onyx's web site, undercoat metallic, add few details and wash with diluted WS pigments -> fast painting, great rendering.

You can find some WS kits on eBay at a low price, I paid mine ~15$+shipping.

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I have also borrowed the woodland scenics trick from Onyx.  I think they are more of a wash/shader.  I've also used them as a foundation color for painting terrain.  I don't know if they will stain the model in the same way that a dip will, but I think I'll give it a try and see.  To find them I would try a place that sells model trains as a good place to find them.  My local hobby train shop has the entire  Woodland Scenics product line (or can order what they don't have.)

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