Is varnishing worthwhile?

[Aksu]

Hullo,
Always varnish. I paint with Vallejo acrylics. Then brush on the Winsor & Newton Matt Varnish mentioned earlier, and which I have raved about in our blog http://www.the-ancients.com/gemigabok/excellent-matt-varnish/.
I do sometimes use Vallejo Satin varnish for vehicles, horses, helmets, flags and all sorts of not-quite-shiny things.
Cheers,
Aksu

[Ithoriel]

Clearly a man who has never had 6 weeks worth of painting turn to s**t courtesy off a spray can. 5 minutes to spray, including shaking the can, 20 minutes to use a brush - 15 minutes saving weeks of heartache.

Six weeks of painting would be less than a dozen figures

Never had an unfixable problem with spraying. Couple of incidents where the varnish was cloudy were fixed with a second coat and one of them was initially brushed and fixed with a hasty spray coat.

I can spray in a couple of minutes (50% of which is shaking the can) stuff that would take 30 or 40 minutes of frustrating hand varnishing.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

[Terry37]

Yep! Steve J said it all in my opinion, I actually do coats of spray clear - a semi-gloss/gloss (depending if decals are to be applied) and then a nice heavy matte finish coat.

Spent too much time painting them not to protect them!

Terry

[mmcv]

Some great advice here, thanks! I'll brush on my varnish to the ones on the painting sticks at the moment, then attempt to do the same on the units already based. Want to do a PVA soaking in their basing first to hold it in place or I just know I'll end up with a bunch of grass varnished to someone's posterior!

[Noktu]

Do you guys varnish after the grass flock has been applied? To this day I've always applied varnish before adding grass.

[Westmarcher]

I brush the varnish on - that way I can be sure the whole figure is covered and there is no 'pooling' in crevices, etc. I'm currently using Kevin Dallimore's technique, using gloss enamel varnish for the first coat and matt acrylic for the second. Although this seems to protect the figure better, I'm not always happy with the results because sometimes, some sheen from the gloss undercoat shows through in certain parts. Perhaps the brushing is not effective as I think it is but the process is not weather dependent and I don't feel it takes long (this is probably helped by the fact that I only paint figures in small batches). I'm using a Humbrol acrylic varnish so must try the Winsor & Newton to see if this will be better.

I mount the figure(s) on Pendraken painting sticks for painting and always varnish them before basing. Applying flock or static grass is the very last stage in the whole procedure.

[Matt J]

Never use varnish as that would imply its a finished model!

I hear too many horror stories about varnishing going wrong. I spend far too long painting my models to see them buggered up, would rather touch up where required.

Matt

[Womble67]

I always varnish and use either matt or gloss humbrol varnish which i brush on as I feel you get better coverage

Take care

Andy

[Ben Waterhouse]

Clearly a man who has never had 6 weeks worth of painting turn to s**t courtesy off a spray can. 5 minutes to spray, including shaking the can, 20 minutes to use a brush - 15 minutes saving weeks of heartache.

I feel your pain Bru. Been there, done that, binned aerosols (in an ecological way)

[Orcs]

I'm using a Humbrol acrylic varnish so must try the Winsor & Newton to see if this will be better.

I mount the figure(s) on Pendraken painting sticks for painting and always varnish them before basing. Applying flock or static grass is the very last stage in the whole procedure.

I have had several comments about how "matt" my figures are using the Winsor and Newton Galleria Matt acrylic varnish.  I did find that sometimes when painting over gloss varnished figures you needed two coats, but I think that was due to my not making sure of full coverage with the matt varnish.

The Winsor and newton stuff is available from "The Works" see link below, or from Amazon and other art shops.  I always get my kids to buy a bottle for me at Christmas 

https://www.theworks.co.uk/p/artist-supplies/winsor-and-newton-galeria-matt-varnish/094376968736?CAWELAID=720011340002626067&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4cHd7JPu3wIVSsKyCh2ABgKmEAQYASABEgJRTPD_BwE

[jimduncanuk]

I am a previous convert to Winsor & Newton acrylic varnishes.

I use the brush on matt version for most things where it is important to get good coverage to minimise handling wear and tear.

I use the brush on gloss version for the same reasons on my 'old school' collections. It dries quickly and appears to be fairly tough and shiny.

More recently I continue to use the matt version but then top coat with a de luxe spray matt varnish from Minibits. It looks just that bit more matt. I use this combination on commission work.

[fsn]

All of the above.

I spay varnish everything - after basing. Most things are varnished matt, but I have used silk and gloss on tiny aeroplanes and tinier ships.

For some, very selective figures, I will use W&N varnish selectively. For example my Greek Gods are matt for the most part, but the armours are brushed gloss.

I find the easist thing is to make sure I pick things up by the base whenever possible.

[Techno]

I used to use Letracoat, Matt Varnish....Never ever had a duff tin of that !!

Sadly, I'm not sure if that's even available anymore. 
Used to buy it from larger stationery shops.

To make ABSOLUTELY sure I didn't have a rogue tin, I used to spray the paper that the figures were destined to stand on, when they were varnished..... dry the varnish with a hairdryer (Don't tell the better half you're doing this)...and check it was 'as I wanted'.

Like I say...never had a problem with it.

Cheers - Phil

[Leman]

I reckon I was the better half!