Quickshade Test

Posted by gbprime on 15. July 2010 10:13

A few months back, I acquired a can of Quickshade (product link here).  The store owner was raving about how good a product it was and how much better it was than poly stain for dipping miniatures.  I'd done a dipped army before and was comfortable with it's use, so I dropped 30 bucks on a can and decided to give it a try.

A squad of my marines volunteered.  I had painted these guys up in 1999 for the Chicago GT, and they were an all-drybrush job, so they seemed like good candidates to try a varnish wash treatment on.  Here they are before the treatment.

Using the medium strength color, I brushed the entire miniature and dabbed off the excess.  I let the varnish dry for 36 hours and then sprayed the minis with dullcoat to remove the gloss effect of the varnish.  The result was a noticable yet subtle shade-and-ink of the miniatures.  It doesn't subtract from the look of the miniatures and darkens the colors only slightly, but it does fill in the joints nicely, giving them the depth they were missing in my haste to get them done for the GT years ago.

The Quickshade product is indeed superior to poly stain varnishes.  It is quite brushable (unlike the poly stain), does not bubble, flows like an ink, and is thick enough to stick in all the places it needs to go in a single coat. 

Unlike an ink, however, the quickshade requires a dullcoat afterward if any additional work is to be done to the miniature.  that breaks up the paint surface and makes blending look funny.  the quickshade also sticks to flat surfaces unlike inks, resulting in certain surfaces having a pool of darkness that really needs to be retouched.  (only because of the dullcoat requirement, that's kind of difficult)  The 30 dollar price tag is a bit of a bummer too.

In summation, Quickshade is a great product to do an entire army quickly and have a force that looks great from 3 feet away.  It's up close you'll notice the shortcomings of the shortcut, so you won't be winning any painting awards by relying on this product.  For that, stick to regular inks.