I have been playing with "dip" again to quickly apply shading to my minis. The Army Painter Dark Tone is, essentially, a black stain. The results are too black for my liking: everyone looks like they just emerged from a coal mine. Not wanting to spend another $30 on the Strong Tone I picked up a small can of Minwax Polyshade Antique Walnut. This I like much better. It might also be that for dark age Welsh it is just seems more appropriate. That is, the minis look grubby. There are many tutorials on how to apply these products so I won't go into that here. Instead, I just want to put another plug in for using soda bottle caps and necks.
When using stains you have to remove the excess. Most folks don't actually dip the mini in the stain but instead dab the stain on with a sacrificial brush. Then, as the stain pools, using the same brush to remove the excess. Well, I wanted to try dipping and so I needed a means of removing the excessive excess stain this leaves on the mini. Flicking was not in the cards. Instead, I hot glued a soda bottle neck to a stick, attached the stick to a drill, screwed the bottle cap attached mini on, and gave it a spin!
It does work. However, either my drill does not spin fast enough or I need a more random motion as too much stain remains. And so you need to go back to the mini with a brush and remove the remaining excess. All in all, the dabbing method is the most effective.
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