An Experiment with Dip

Over the last week or so I have been experimenting with Wood-stain as an alternative to Quickshade as a fast shading medium on miniatures. I've never used the Army Painter Quickshade before so I'm really unsure whether to give it a go or not. At nearly £20 a tin I wan't to make the right choice before parting with my cash. The problem is made harder by the fact that there are three shades to choose from; a wrong choice could prove very costly. So while I decide I have been experimenting with some wood stain as an alternative.

I had a half used tin of rosewood stain (a dark shade) in my shed and decided to play around with it to see if it could be used as a shading medium. This is where the original concept came from, before Army Painter developed the idea with their Quickshade range. Although the stain I was using is oil-based it seems to mix OK with water up to about 50% dilution. Beyond that the mix separates very quickly.

I base coated two 15mm infantry figures as my test subjects and applied the wood-stain to each. The first figure got undiluted stain on it and the second had a 50/50 mix with water. The undiluted shade gave excellent detailing and definition but made the resulting figure look very dark indeed. In fact it was so dark it was hard to tell any difference in colour between the Brown Violet (887) helmet, the Khaki (988) shirt and US Field Drab (873) trousers. The 50% mix gave better results but still resulted in a dark figure even after dry-brushing strong highlights on the model prior to shading.

So will I be using the woodstain or splashing out on the expensive Quickshade product? To be honest I'm still not sure. I'm painting the figures in base coats with the intention of using a shading medium of one kind or another, I just can't make up my mind which to use. I'm hunting round the internet for ideas and advice specific to 15mm miniatures but so far I have found relatively little. Any suggestions folks?