Speedpainter Bleed – Varnish?

[nigel Tullett]

I have recently got carried away with the Speedpainter range by The Army Painter. At first I was impressed with the results on some 28mm ECW figures. All was fine until I applied a varnish, I noticed that the paint was bleeding into the varnish and as I brushed the paint would come off exposed edges. Does anyone else have any experience of this and as the critical issue is varnish any suggestions- I am looking at a non water based one.

[Mike]

That’s a bit sucky. 🙁

[Nathaniel Weber]

Mediocre advice, but how long a dry time did you wait? A couple painters on Youtube suggested a longer-than-normal dry time before using other paints (acrylics, other washes, etc) on the speedpaints, like 24-48 hours to avoid the problem you’re describing.

I have a model I used speedpaints on 2 days ago. I’ll give a varnish and see what happens.

[nigel Tullett]

It was left to dry a couple of weeks, there seems to be some references on line in that it gets reactivated with water.  So what happens in my experience is that a water based varnish reactivates the speed paint and as I brush rather than a clear varnish I get a very thing stain spread around the figure, so it’s totally dulled down any highlights and runs along edges -example arm and top of buff coat and the edges of the bonnets. It’s not apparent at first, only once dry. There is suggestion on line to varnish after each colour!  So what I thought was a great product can’t be highlighted or painted over or can’t tidy up with normal paints. I have ordered some non water based spray varnish to test to see if that fixes the speed paint without it running or bleeding.

[deephorse]

I don’t use Army Painter paints, but I do use their washes.  I found that if I used Vallejo varnish on top of a wash it caused the wash to ‘bleed’.  Varnishing first, and then using the wash stopped that issue.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Steven Francis]

I picked up two speed paints the other week to try out, used brush on white undercoat and didn’t have much reactivation with white on top after a few days drying. Found a slight issues with Windsor and Newton brush on varnish but then I am a slow painter and while it tinged the varnish ever so slightly it was not noticeable. I do think they have some notable limits but have started to use them to paint up my Bardsung minis and will carry on with the brush on varnish but may look to get some spray at some point. Gues it is about learning how to use them but did think the reactivity was a poor designed

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