My Ultra marine vehicles look a little flat and I thought I could try giving them a wash. I've bought some blue ink and was wondering what people do with the ink for best results?

I tried using it neat, but it turned the rhino dark blue. How much should I water down the ink?

Furgie

Is it actually ink or a wash you used (there's actual differences)?

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When using inks and washes, the base colour is very important and usually works best if it's several shades lighter than you want your final colour to be, a dark blue wash over an ultramarine type shade will just end up really dark

For my imperial fists I prime them yellow with army painter spray, then give them a devlan mud wash, then I go back and layer yellow over the flat areas leaving the wash in the cracks, which helps delineate the model and (I think at least) it looks pretty good, I then finely edge the armour plates with a white/yellow mix to further bring up the contrast, edging in a harsh almost-white tone at the edge of a dark shaded recess can really help keep the model looking bright

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I used a home made black wash on my Ultramarines that worked really well to give them some more detail without really changing the shade of blue drastically. Google future floor wax wash for the base I use. I make that base and use inks to tint that. Great results in every scale I paint.

I've bought a bottle of blue ink rather than ready made washes - would I be better off buying a ready made wash? Do they need watering down?

Inks are the highest pigment, water them down to make a wash, water a wash down to make a glaze

(That is quite a simplification, you really need to find what works best for you, there are lots of great youtube videos about painting technique which might be a good place to start)

Good luck!

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Kyuss nailed where I was going with it.

Also accentuate all your high lights and edging at 6mm above and beyond what you'd do at say 28mm.

One thing full strength inks are good is to do lining with direct application in the recesses but that requires steadier hands than I have. I tend to use oils now almost exclusively for washes as, unlike acrylics, if you don't like it you can wash it off with white spirit (built in Oh-Sh!t safety valve).

Another approach I've seen is to actually base them white and use washes to color them which keeps the colors bright and vibrant. Vaaish does his Blood Ravens that way IIRC. Do check them out and no matter what, keep on painting!

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What do you mean by accentuate your highlights and edging? Do you mean greater differences between the base colour and the highlight colour?

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Check out my youtube channel for Tutorials, Battle reports and other stuff in both 6mm and 28mm

www.youtube.com/user/ManticMoments

Basically yes, ott highlighting works at 6mm

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