Review of Secret Weapon Miniatures : Armor Wash

Introduction: You know how you buy a bottle of paint and use it two years later and find out that you could have used it sooner for something you really could have used it before like, say, two years earlier? Yeah. That. Anyway, to keep the tabletop painters who hate painting flat, featureless surfaces such as swords as much as I do, lemme point out the SWM Wash: Armor, which I find far easier to use than shading with metallic paints, though you may still want to use them. And, of course, if you don't have problems painting swords, you may not need this stuff.

If you're new to painting and tried metals, you know that acrylic metallic paints don't behave as smoothly as non-metal acrylics. You may have also been warned not to use your better hobby paint brushes with metallics, which have mica flakes which supposedly can damage the brush. You also have to paint a perfectly straight line with no brush strokes on the surface. Then, you also have to make sure the metal *looks* like it's reflecting the light properly. If you didn't choose or mix the right shade, congratulations! You get to do it all over freakin' again.

With a wash, you have more control, so the wash doesn't overlap into the wrong area of the flat surface. Additionally, if you make a mistake, you can more easily wipe off wash than semi-dried paint. Because the wash is easier to control than paint, it's easier to use multiple layers of wash to adjust the shade on the flat surface. Plus, of course, you can use the wash to blackline (paint black the borders of the metal-colored area to make it stand out).

In this picture, I'm going to repaint the handle of the short sword to bronze, so I only washed the sword blade itself. Otherwise, they were painted the same, first with a shaded metallic, then a lighter colored one. You can see how, from the blade, the light appears to come from an angle, but, from the handle, the light comes directly overhead. Yeah, that's the Armor Wash that's doing all the work none of your non-painting friends will appreciate.

I'm not going to throw out my different shades of metallic paints, but I'm no longer about to do an angry frustrated table flip on my painting desk, either. fyi, The miniature is from SWM's Malice RPG "Dropped Items" accessories set. At the time of this writing, SWM is running a Tablescape Game Tiles KS by the same sculptor as the sword. The Dropped Items set may be available as an add-on through the KS as they unlock higher levels, at a price lower than on the website.

And here's the "Dropped Items" accessories set, with plenty of metal edges to shade. Note that this picture was taken with a flash, so *none* of the shading is natural light.