I picked up a new matt varnish, I've been trying a couple of experiments with it. I've painted a base, coated half in gloss varnish, then (after leaving it a full 24 hours to dry of course) brushed on strips of varnish of varying thickness. So far it's looking good. Whether the varnish is thick or very thin it seems to give a nice matt. Watered-down varnish gives a slightly shiny finish that is uniform (it looks the same on both the gloss and bare paint), so I guess I won't be watering it down unless I'm after a satin finish. But hopefully I won't need to since a thick layer does not seem to go shiny the way other varnishes have.
But just to be sure, I've left the base on a window sill that catches the sun on sunny days. When I get back from my holiday in a month's time, I'll see how the varnish has held up. I obviously won't be doing any painting in the meantime.
I haven't done much painting in the last month, partly from being busy and partly from feeling a lack of enthusiasm. The varnish problems are a part of it, and the recent problems with unbalanced codices I'm reading about online is also a factor. Anyway, I tried an acrylic varnish remover on a clouded Crimson Fist model, but it didn't work (it helped a bit but then started taking the paint off the edges while there was still cloudy varnish on the flats - I suspect it's really meant for flat paintings). I also tried olive oil with limited success.
About the only progress I made was to strip the paint from my Harker model that I've been using to experiment with painting skin. Though I have yet to find a method that really works for me, Harker had lost all definition. I'm trying a new method on another model, but it'll have to wait until after I get back. I tried to strip the paint from the glowing Grey Knight, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting it all off.
I did however help my cousin paint a skeleton. It's her first mini, and I think it came out very well - I couldn't do much better myself. She seemed to enjoy it, I tried to show her a balance of techniques - hopefully enough to make it interesting and not so much that it bored her. The design on the shield is a stylised M, by the way.
In other news, work on my game engine has been progressing. Luckily the trouble with my arm turned out to be unrelated to the use of my laptop on the train, so I can keep working. I really want to get to the point where I have visible progress again, but it's looking like that will take a while. So for the forseeable future, I won't have any screenshots. That doesn't mean that I'm not getting anywhere though.
