Secret Weapon washes in-depth review + tutorial

Hi all James here, today I will be reviewing the Secret Weapon Miniatures line of washes that can be purchased from the Secret Weapon website here: http://www.secretweaponminiatures.co...index&cPath=54




Alright, before I go really in-depth and tear apart the chemical formula of these washes (only kidding) I will cover some of the basics that I am sure many of you will be worried about.


Presentation




First of all the SW washes are presented in dropper bottles, this (depending on your personal preferences) may or may not be a good thing, (I will not be descending in to the whole “pots or dropper bottles” debate here) however I will say that I have never had one of these clog on me (probably because they are so fluid) and hey if you don’t like the droppers you can easily transfer these in to an old empty paint pot.


The SW washes come with nice stylish labels that credit the original inventor (Les from AwesomePaintJob.com) and also give you basic information about the washes (they are water based acrylic washes) and great tips like “Shake well” as well as the amount of product you get in each bottle “approximately 20ml”.


Colour Selection



This is an area the SW washes clearly shine in, with a current range of 30 different colours there are a ton of options, and you can be almost certain that no matter what your project is there will be a wash to suit your needs.


Value


Again this is another area the SW washes excel in. In each bottle you receive “approximately 20ml” of wash and each bottle costs $4.00 in Australian currency.


I have assembled a table comparing the cost of varies companies washes in money per milliliter. The results clearly speak for themselves, SW washes (out of the major paint brands I used as comparisons) are clearly by far the best value.





This being said costs do vary depending on what currency you are using and where you buy your products, I just used the standard retail value in Australian currency to figure out the cost per milliliter, so yes I am sure you could get some of the products at some sort of discount store, however I am just trying to illustrate what good value the SW washes are.





Alright I have now covered the basics of presentation and value etc now I will give you my personal opinion on the quality and the usability of these washes.


At first I was a little startled by the SW washes and the results I was getting with them was less than desirable however after I got over my initial lack of understanding on how they worked I was able to get some really nice results.


The first thing you have to understand about these washes is that they are not like the “classic” GW washes. You can’t just dump tons of it on the mini and expect decent results it requires a bit of fines or subtly in the application, however if you can get this down pat the results can be quite nice.


I will now go over the specific characteristics we painters look for in our washes and discuss how the SW washes do in these specific areas of concern.


Consistency


The SW washes are very fluid and flow very nicely in to the recesses of the mini. Unlike the GW and Vallejo washes these don’t have that thicker almost ink-like consistency, they are distinctly watery and with this comes separation issues, (that I will discuss later) however because of this nice thin constancy and the flow capabilities of this wash, application is dead easy making it a blast to coat the minis in this stuff without having to battle against the wash when trying to make it go where you want it to go.


Opacity


These washes vary in opacity some (like Heavy body black) are very opaque and really darken any areas they touch were as others (like Soft body black) have much less opacity. This flexibility in the line makes for great versatility as again depending on the desired effect there is almost certainly a wash out there for you however as a general rule the SW washes seem to be rather opaque so for more fine or subtle blending and glazing I generally thin them out with a little water.


Separation


Probably the main and pretty much only downside I have seen to these washes is the separation issues. While they don’t separate too quickly on a pallet (unlike thinned out Vallejo paint that requires stirring every few seconds) they do separate in the bottle pretty quickly (overnight) and require some pretty major shaking to get them working again. A quick solution is simply to add a few small ball bearings, stones or pieces of plastic sprue to the bottle as this makes mixing much quicker.


Pigment quality/size


The pigment in the SW washes is from high quality artists ink containing super fine pigments. This results in a wash that can easy be used for fine or subtle applications without the fear of getting unevenness or chalkiness. I have always been able to get smooth gradients in colour with these washes without having the concern of unevenness because of pigment fineness so overall 10/10 in this regard.

Airbrush capabilities


These washes work really well through an airbrush and I have used them for many different applications. They are fantastic for basic shading work (both pre and post base coat shading). They also make great ‘filters’ and with a little dilution they can easily act as an airbrushed glaze to tie layers of highlight’s together or to generally harmonize the colours on a piece.


The formula of these washes really lends itself to airbrushing, (more so than many other brands) because of how fluid it is in consistency and the high level of flow aid really helps to prevent clogs and dry tip making airbrushing much easier.


Finish


Some people in other reviews I have read have complained about these washes claiming they have a slightly satin or gloss finish. This is something I have never had a problem with in any of my paint jobs. In all of my experience the SW washes leave a nice flat matt finish which is generally what we painters are after, that being said if you do put down this stuff in several super thick layers you will get a sort of plastic/gloss finish as you would with any acrylic paint when applied too thickly (as acrylic paint is really just a sort of plastic).




So with the fundamental characteristics of the product out of the way I will now give a couple of demonstrations of SW washes in action, maybe giving you lot a few ideas of the varied uses these washes can have.


To begin with I wanted to give an example of these washes in action on a basic tabletop mini just so you “army painters” out there can get an idea of the basic capabilities of these washes.


As an example I have used a Skaven mini from the Island of Blood starter box set by Games workshop.


I started out by simply base coating the entire mini and just blocking out some basic highlights on the flesh the cloth and the eyes.



I then liberally applied undiluted Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Washto the entire mini.


Here is the result after the wash dried. As you can see it has really defined the mini outlining details and darkening everything down. The finish is fantastic (super matt) and there are no areas of blotchiness or unevenness that sometimes occur when using washes. Overall top marks here, the wash works great and can be quickly used to get decent minis on the tabletop in a short amount of time.



As a second demonstration I have used a space marine helmet, here I used a bit of a finer application and messed around with some OSL just to demonstrate the sort of results you can get with just a little time and effort.


I began by priming the helmet using white spray primer.




I then base coated the helmet with a mix of 2:1Secret WeaponYellow Snow Wash to Secret Weapon Sunshine Wash. As the wash mixture is relatively transparent it took around 5 coats before full opacity was achieved.




I began shading the helmet with a 1:1 mix of Secret WeaponYellow Snow Wash to Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Wash. This was thinned 1:1 with water and applied as a general wash over the entire helmet simply to establish the shadows.




I then applied the second shading, this time using pure Secret Weapon Dark Sepia Wash. This was thinned 1:1 with water and applied selectively in to the recesses to increase contrast.




I then applied my first layer of highlights with pure Secret Weapon Sunshine Wash mixed with a dot of diluted white paint (I used P3 Morrow white).




The Final highlights were achieved with thin glazes of pure white built up with several brush strokes to achieve a smooth gradient.




I then base coated all of the black areas with Vallejo Model Air black paint.





I then finished up the helmet with some metallic paint on some of the details and some OSL I did using the SW blue washes as well as some of the P3 blue paints.

As you can see the end results are pretty decent, I certainly could have spent a little more time on it and done a better job on the metallics and the OSL, maybe adding some paint chips as well as pushing the highlights a little further, (thought they are much brighter in person than they are in the pictures). However I think you can get the general idea and hopefully see the potential these washes have to be used when painting something of a much higher standard.







Conclusion


In my opinion the Secret Weapon line of washes is fantastic, they are great value for money, they have a huge array of colours to choose from and they get a smooth matt finish. They are also very versatile being excellent for both speed painting troops and also doing more advanced techniques as well as being excellent for glazes and airbrushing. I would definitely recommend these washes, and I think picking up even just a couple of colours to experiment with would be worth your while. A good 9.5 out of 10 from me, big thumbs up to the Guys over at Secret Weapon miniatures for what is in my opinion a high quality product.



This is the first article I have written guys so if you see anything wrong with it or just want to give some constructive critique throw it in the comments section I would love to hear about how I can improve.




Hope The review was informative.

Thanks for following along (even is it was only for a fraction of the 1800+ word monstrosity)

James