Varnish

ManicMan

ManicMan

Lord
Can anyone recommend a nice matt varnish? I use a Vallejo Acrylic-polyurethane Surface primer as a base coat to prime my figures (both metal and plastic), normally leave it till the next day to start to paint on top of that, and while it do my best not to put too thick a coat on top of that, I probably put it a bit thick. anyway.. on mostly my metals, I get very annoyed with the amount of chipping I get.

I do have an acrylic matt varnish i got some time back, which.. well, the bottom of the glass jar is kinda.. playdough like now and often when I use it, it does protect but can either still bit a tiny bit tacky or most likely, more of a gloss when i kinda prefer the varnish not to be noticeable.
 
I use the Vallejo Matt Polyurethane Varnish myself. I switched pretty much exclusively to that some years ago (from Vallejo's plain acrylic matt) and have been happy with it for terrain, metal, plastic and resin models. That said I'm quite precious about my models so it's not like they get thrown around in games... I tend to paint it on for metals (in the hope of getting a thicker more protective coat) and airbrush it on for everything else (couple of coats). When painting it on it does take a bit of working I find to knock out the bubbles and get a decent coat.

I'd always read that for ultimate protection a layer of gloss first then when fully dry a layer of matt to take off the shine.

I use the same surface primers as you, but I'll airbrush it on. I do find it takes a decent while to fully cure however and seems to work best when applied in several thin layers. I've never really gotten on that well using a brush to prime with it - it just never seems to go on that smoothly. If not that I'll tend to use a grey etch-primer rattlecan on anything that looks like it might be a bit stubborn to get paint on.
 
I'm not sure about matt over gloss, though might work fine..

I don't airbrush so normally paint on. I'm not too precious though do get a bit annoyed at times when I'm happy with a paint job, and bits just chip as I'm painting some more or with use.

My local has that one in stock and.. Ultra Matt as well?... Ultra Matt? is this like Virgin and Extra Virgin where they kinda did a bad name job in the first place?
 
No idea about the ultra matt, I noticed that when I went to find the product URL. Can't say I've noticed the normal matt to be anything but dull. Not as good as oldTestors Dullcoat before it became all safe, but perfectly acceptable I think! Nice thing is you can buy decent sized bottles at least of the Vallejo stuff which makes it a tad less hard on the wallet.
 
I use Army Painter Aegis Suit Satin Varnish. Never had any issues with it, doesn’t change the finish on the models etc
 
i use whatever's cheap and available relatively locally. currently paint factory matt varnish clear, £2.99 for 400 ml.
 
Just a quick update.. I got a 18ml bottle of Vallejo Ultra Matt Polyurethane varnish cause I didn't want too big a bottle (that large one I've had for YEARS now and like I said, got a bit tacky blob in it..). I got the Ultra Matt cause that's the one i saw on the shelve and didn't see normal Matt. Not too bad a price (can't remember what) but not fantastically cheap.. but fair enough.. when it says 'quick dry' boy, they mean it.. Debating a second coat when it's been given a bit of time (probebly over night) to cure and all.. just on the safe size, but seams okay and hardly tell it's on there. so.. seams good so far ^_^
 
W&N Matt Varnish is fantastic ( Bought all three to see difference ), really make colours flat but rich at the same time. I don't use it as I like little bit of sheen ( so I use W&N Satin ) on minis and W&N Gloss is really wet effect that I did like before. One bloke here mention it here and on his blog ( really nice Empire like army he's got ) so I did try it as I had difficulties with Liquitex ( that was nice until it's got all gummy from shelfing and I didn't want to apply varnish with the brush anymore ). These W&N are all spray varnishes.
 
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