The Saga of the Minotaur

I'm still clearing off the table of 15mm fantasy to get moving on my 3 & 6mm figures. Don't worry, I will be back working on them soon! I've got a SA-2 missile site I'm working on in 3mm. The missiles and their radar systems are done, but I am working on the site itself. On to my story:

I got this very nice minotaur from Splintered Light Miniatures called Giant Minotaur Warrior.

http://www.splinteredlightminis.com/gimiwa.html

He has a lot of really nice detail on him and I thought he'd add one more extra punch to my bad-guy barbarian army.

I was really proud of my initial paint job, until this happened:

The wash I used turned it into a uniformly brown, goopy mess! It obscured most of the highlights that I added especially on the hair & fur. The culprit:

I am not really sure why it turned out so bad. I've been mixing my own washes since the late 90s. My standard mix is Future liquid acrylic floor wax (or whatever its called now), with ink/another wash/paint/etc. I don't have a standard ratio as each pigment medium has different properties. I mix the two together, run the mixture across the ridges of a bottle cap with a brush, and if I like what I see, I use it; if not, I adjust either floor wax or the pigment. Inks have very fine pigments but are very intense. I thought I had made the right ratio. In addition to being too intense, the floor wax started solidifying very quickly. Again, I've worked with this stuff forever and I know how long I have to work with it before it solidifies.

So, I ended up stripping the whole thing with a combination of oven cleaner and Simple Green. I repainted it, but I feel it is just not as good as my original:

Left: Battle Valor Games, Center: Splintered Light, Right: Ral Partha Europe (Demonworld)

I did use a wash, but very sparingly. It was a mixture of the floor wax and black acrylic paint. No problems this time. I haven't condemned the Vallejo ink to the back of the drawer. I might try it again to see if I get better results on a different figure. Also, I use a Windsor & Newton sepia ink on my 3mm armies, so I might try the Vallejo and see what I get on those.