hey guys jay here welcome to eons of battle and i need your help what do i do about model varnishes
i have been varnishing all of my minis since forever i used
to use a product called tester's dull coat which is a half size rattle can
and that gave a really really good albeit really really thick matte varnish but once i got my
airbrush i wanted to use the airbrush and so i've been using some vallejo polyurethane matte varnish
and i thought this was working wonders for me but recently i've been painting some brighter colored
more vibrant miniatures and i've been noticing that this really really desaturates my colors
look at this rebel tank i worked really really hard to get the colors exactly how i wanted them
and then i put on a matte varnish and it super desaturated the colors when i rub on a little
bit of water it reveals the true colors underneath and i couldn't tell because there was nothing to
compare it to once the matte varnish had gone on but it completely kind of ruined it now varnish
is important it protects my miniatures from my greasy cheeto hands but more importantly to me
i paint with a lot of different brands and types of paint that all have different finishes
and so a varnish is really really good at the end to bring it all together and make it uniform
so i have these five black templar space marines that i recently finished and they will be the
perfect subject for a test i'm gonna leave one unvarnished as a control and then i'm gonna try
out four varnishes to see which one i like the best first up i applied some green stuff world max
matte ultra matte varnish this one was the most convenient because right out of this dropper it's
airbrush ready but i don't know if i love it it is truly ultra matte but i feel like maybe ultra
matte is not actually what i'm after i definitely want a matte finish but this is so matte that even
though it doesn't look like it has frosted like my vallejo polyurethane did i feel like it's it's
uh it's dulled down my metallics and my skin tone so much and it makes it look really really chalky
it is a really really nice finish and i think if i ever want things to be really really matte like
perhaps vehicles this would be a great choice but i don't know if it's going to be a great
choice for infantry because some things shouldn't be super matte metallics shouldn't be super matte
cloth shouldn't be super matte skin shouldn't be super matte and i think this is just a little bit
too matte so i don't know if going forward this is gonna be my pick next up some vallejo polyurethane
matte varnish i applied this because i wanted to see what it looked like next to a control and i
totally see what was happening it was hard to tell with because once you varnish the model you can't
really go back to what it looked like before but i can totally see that it's a little bit frosty
it's like there's an ever so slight white film over the entire model
it is definitely mattes but i don't like it especially on my black templars i feel like
my black time players are gray templars i do that just so that there's a little bit more
visual interest but i feel like the one that has the varnish on it is a little bit grayer
still and i definitely definitely don't prefer it it also has dulled down my metallics quite a bit
and it definitely dulled the colors a lot the reds really look chalky
no good the next model i did was a 5050 mix of vallejo polyurethane
varnish and vallejo polyurethane satin varnish i was hoping that the satin would add a little
bit of a glossy sheen and bring back the colors and get rid of that frostiness i don't know if it
got rid of the frostiness but it definitely helped the colors a lot i think this one is
definitely the most acceptable the metallics still look nice and metallicy they're not too too matte
the colors are still there i think that this is definitely not bad it has
saved it for the most part but i still see just a little bit of frosting on everything really
and i don't know if i love it but it's so subtle adding in adding in the satin really helped a lot
and last but not least a little bit of a wild card i decided to thin down some liquitex matte medium
the thing that i'm constantly painting with on my palettes and just run this through the airbrush
and see what happens and i kinda dig it a lot it's definitely the least matte out of any of these but
maybe that's for the best maybe i actually don't want as matte of finish as i think it's a little
tiny bit glossy but it's not so glossy that i'm getting spots of white from the lights around
me which is always my worry when i varnish a mini sometimes it can be really annoying when
lighting around you is taking away from your actual paint job and that's why you want things
to be very matte but i feel like this is just matte enough where my colors are still vibrant
my metallics are still shiny but everything looks really good i'm sure this isn't quite as hardy
a coat as some of the other products i used but i think this might be giving me the finish i want
really surprised so what do you guys think i'm sure it doesn't look like much on camera
and i'm sure most of you are thinking jay those differences are almost imperceptibly small how
on earth is that bothering you but it is i think my favorite was actually the liquitex professional
medium which i'm very surprised about but this did everything i wanted it to
and hopefully i can use this going forward because this stuff is very cheap compared to these other
products so i'm going to try out this but we make tutorials like these every single week and if you
find them helpful you might consider supporting us over on patreon over there you can get
access to some behind the scenes hobby hangouts terrain stls and more exclusive contents please
please give me some ideas on what other varnish products i should try out and let me know what
do you guys use on your models put that in the comments below but as always thanks for watching