By the way, my airbrush is an Iwata eclipse hp-cs with a 0.35 needle. And i tear it down after using varnishes to clean the gunk, so previous residue doesn’t seem to be the issue. If you are spending many hours painting miniatures then protecting your paint work is part of the painting process. Plastic miniatures hold up well to repeat handling but metal and resin miniatures can often scratch or chip. To counter this unwanted damage many of us coat our figures in a protective layer of varnish. I am going to use Vallejo matt (brush) varnish and Winsor & Newton Gallery series (brush) matt varnish. Is anyone using em for producing serious results ?(I mean not only for tabletop but for display too). Or does somebody knows a better product than them? Edit edit - Another interpretation of what you mean is to paint over the gloss varnish by hand to add more detailing. Yes and no, see the comment above about the spray not getting into all the crvices. You can mitigate that somewhat by very careful spraying, but ultimately you're spraying a clear liquid and estimating ceverage is hard.

I'm new to airbrushing, and new to varnishing. I did models as a kid, just painting from the pot. That was about 30 years ago. I don't know what you mean by using it as a wash, it's a spray can. But I accidentally sprayed my Skyshield Landing pad with high gloss enamel paint. I thought I was utterly screwed, but three coats of properly applied matte spray, followed by another when I was done painting and you wouldn't know there had ever been any gloss paint near it. This provides a smoother layer, which is what you want for the decals to fit on to on curved surfaces; it's less necessary for flat ones. Simply put, matt varnish of the same type as gloss has extra 'stuff' in it (a matting agent) which makes the surface slightly bumpy, which is also what makes it scatter light and thus look matt. Gloss varnish dries smooth, and thus, shiny. I've heard mostly Satin for doing the washes. Now that I think about it a bit more, it seems most of the remarks on applying varnish to facilitate the flow of washes was using a Satin Wash. I've been following Buypainted's tutorials on youtube for the most part, on the Dark Vengeances set(my first 40K minis) and first models since I was a kid. He does satin.... wash.... final highlights, then satin again. I was leaning towards the gloss because I'd read it somewhere, and the fact that my first 5 miniatures frosted pretty bad using my airbrush. I had to use a gloss coat to rescue them from the Simple Green(I'd already started 2 over).FWIW, I wouldn't put lacquer varnish through an airbrush. You can, but you definitely need good ventilation and an organic filter face mask, and you're not going to be popular with anyone else sharing the same space! So acrylic is definitely better under that circumstance! It's just modern water-based PU does it better yet... Well some say it's a good idea to spray a gloss coat on after your base coat, to protect from scrapes. It's supposed to be easier to rub off a mistake without damaging the base coat, and it makes oil washes flow really smooth in all the crevices. Then after you're all done finish up with a Satin or Matte coat. I'd tried the Gloss to Satin technique as I described, but my minis are extremely glossy still.

Essentially the more glossy the varnish the stronger its protective qualities. Matt varnish alone offers almost no additional protection to your models. This is where you must understand the applications of all three varnish products to not just protect your figures but to get the desired results.Now it does take a few coats to make sure that your miniature is well protected. i used to coat the entire model but have found that this varnish is not great for colour distortion so I recommend you only use it on spikes, edges, and other parts that get handled frequently or are likely to chip. Typically I use a single coat on plastics, two on resins and three on metals, you can add more and I have done up to 5 thin coats on some pointy bits I feared would chip, at five coats your miniature is next to bullet proof and will only be damaged if it takes a tumble off a table or gets stood on. There are several guides on the internet about what to use and how to do it already. Problem is that they all reference a product that is no longer available and were written a million years ago by old school modellers. Safety: Mecha Color is not flammable, and does not contain solvents. Please see also certified safety information of the product on the Safety sheet. For a final layer, you usually want a matt finish; though sometimes a satin finish is more suitable for tyranids or the like. This is purely personal preference, and some people even prefer a gloss finish (weirdos!)