 Hello everybody, and welcome to another hobby-cheating video. Today we're going to talk about varnishing through your airbrush, and just varnishing in general, when, how, and how you make it fast, efficient, and easy. Let's get into it. The airbrush is a powerful tool, and right away when you get it, even without a lot of practice, it can be used for things like base coating and priming without much issue. One of my favorite uses for it, though, is varnishing. Now varnish, of course, can come in rattle cans. Many of us have probably used things like tester's dull coat, and various other rattle can varnishes to protect our models. Nothing wrong with all that. The challenge is, when you have that aerosol, it can sometimes limit when you can spray. Different temperatures, different humidities, different effects out of rattle can varnishes means you sometimes don't always get the finish you want. If you've ever tried to varnish a miniature, and had it come out a little fuzzy or frosty, well, that's an unfortunate day to be sure. The reason that's happening out of the rattle can is generally because of one of two purposes, or two reasons. Either the rattle can, the varnishing, has some kind of chunks or something like that, and maybe it got frozen, or you're holding the varnish too far away with the rattle can, and it dries either in midair, or it broke up inside the rattle can, and now you're getting that physical texture on the miniature. The most common reason you get fuzz, or that kind of whiteness on it, is because it trapped humidity. Effectively, some kind of humidity in the air got caught in between the layer of varnish in the miniature, and as it dries, it creates that fuzzy effect. Certainly not optimal if we want our miniature to look good. Enter airbrush varnishing. Now, varnishing with your airbrush generally not only can you do it a lot closer up and control the flow of air a lot better, but also you're just at much less risk to have anything fuzz or act in an unusual way. So in this video, we're going to talk a little bit about the various and different kinds of varnishes that are out there you can put through your airbrush, how to put it through your airbrush, and when you should use it. All right, first, let's talk about types of varnish, and this is really important. Acrylic varnishes that go through your airbrush, which is the most common available on the market, are a mix of your standard acrylic medium and usually some kind of polyurethane or something like that for durability. Now, you'll notice that they generally come in about four different categories. Gloss, satin, matte, and then ultra matte. There are some variations, but for most vendors that are out there, this is the kind of spread you will see. What makes a varnish matte versus gloss versus whatever is a it has to do at the molecular level. Effectively, the more smooth at the molecular level, the varnish dries, the more flat, the more light it's reflecting back up. So gloss varnishes dry, extremely smooth, create a very flat molecular surface, allowing the paint to run over top of it. This means you gloss varnish if you want to do something like an oil wash. That can be great because then it'll help the paint, like oil washes, which have a very low capillary action flow into the recesses. However, it will be very hard to put normal paint on top of because there's no teeth, there's no broken up space for it to adhere to. Now, as we go down from gloss into satin into matte and into ultra matte, the surface of the the miniature, again, at that micro level is becoming more and more and more rough. And as a point of fact, on the complete opposite side of the spectrum, ultra matte varnishes available from people like AK Interactive and Ammo by MIG, those are quite rough and broken up, meaning that when the light hits the miniature, it doesn't have a single place to reflect back to. It scatters in all directions, making it look very matte. But it also means it's very easy to paint over the top of those varnishes because there's a very uneven surface. There's a lot of tooth for the paint to grab onto. Ironically, you don't want a completely smooth surface when you're painting, at least not at the molecular level, because in your paint, we'll be able to adhere. Now, the other part of this discussion has to do with durability. Things like gloss varnish is the most durable. It provides the thickest, smoothest, toughest surface and will protect your miniatures the most. However, gloss varnish alone also really makes your miniatures look like crap because if you've done any kind of highlighting and then you gloss varnish everything, your highlights will be in two different places. The miniature won't make sense. It just looks bad. Please do not gloss varnish your miniatures as a final step. It really, really makes them look horrible. Now, as we go down from there into satin, matte and then ultra matte, each of those finishes can have different purposes and you may or may not want your miniature to be in that particular finish. In general, you don't want the whole miniature to be satin because we don't walk around glistening. And again, you don't have any control over the light as you turn the miniature, if it's completely satin, then the light will reflect in the shadows and it will look weird and bad. And that's an easy way to make your miniature just look amateurish and unprofessional, frankly, it won't look credible. So most of the time, what we want is a matte finish. However, how do we get the durability of the sort of glossier satin varnishes but the finish of the matte or the ultra matte? Don't worry, we'll talk about that in just a moment. All right, let's talk about actual airbrush application. When we're applying the varnish through our airbrush, the key here is we always start with thinner and this is going to be a bit unusual for a lot of people who might be used to applying varnish straight. Now, the reason we always use just a few drops of thinner in our airbrush first is because we don't want that varnish to get down into the nozzle area and start drying in advance and gum up the works. This is something that a lot of people are very concerned about. A lot of people are like, I hear this question so many times. Can I use varnish in my airbrush? Won't it just gum everything up? And the answer is really no, it won't. Yes, it is more durable. Yes, it can cause that if you just put it in your airbrush and leave it sit for 20 minutes, but don't do that. You shouldn't do that with paint. You shouldn't do that with primer. You certainly shouldn't do it with varnish. Regular varnish can go through your airbrush without causing any long-term damage or issues whatsoever. I do it all the time, almost every day. I've done it for years and years. The key is those few drops of thinner going down first into the cup. That way, the nozzle area is full of your thinner liquid. By the way, I use a standard mix of 80 percent thinner and 20 percent flow improver. That's my standard ratio for everything. I just tend to use two or three drops just to get everything in there lubricated and to prevent that varnish from drying in that nozzle area where it would cause problems. Now, my varnish of choice is a three to one mix of satin and ultramat. I should have said those in the reverse order. So it's one drop of satin varnish for every three drops of ultramat. What I find is two consistent applications of that will provide you protection while also keeping the surface incredibly matte. Now, I'm generally going for a more display finish. I want my miniatures to be quite matte because I've already painted on the highlights. I've already told you the viewer where the highlight is. So there's really no need for me to rely on varnish to do it. I want the varnish to just be there as a protective layer, and that's it. When you're applying the varnish, you want to try to apply it over the whole miniature in a consistent, thin application. If you start to see any buildup or puddling or pooling, stop spraying, use the air, push that varnish around to make sure it's nice and thinned out. You do not want those puddles or pools to build up because that's what can cause us problems being texture or trapping humidity or lots of other things later down the line. Apply that varnish, let it dry. How long it takes to dry will depend. It will vary based on your particular humidity in your area. My basement is bone dry, so as a result of that, mine is generally dry in about 10 to 20 minutes. If you have a more humid situation, you may want to let it go just a little longer, maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Then apply a second coat. Now, what that does is it seals in all of your work, makes it completely safe and gives you some protection while also providing you a consistent finish across the miniature where you want it. If you have particular areas that you want to have a slightly different finish, maybe the cloak should be just slightly satin or something like that, you could always go back in afterward and apply that satin varnish alone on top of that particular area. Because there's enough Ultraman in the mix, there will be enough teeth for future layers of paint to grab onto. That actually leads me to my next point, which is I varnish often during the process of painting my miniatures. Because airbrush varnishing is so quick and simple, I'll usually just, if I want to create a quote unquote save point, in other words, if I've been working with a lot of very thin paints and I want to make sure that future paint doesn't disturb it, or if I make a mist brush stroke, I can flood the area with water without reactivating any of those lower, extremely thin glaze layers. I'll varnish it a couple of times, just as I described, and then let that cure. And that will mean that as I then put on future layers, I can go in and if I miss an airbrush stroke, I can flood the area with water and just erase that out real quick. Now, I also varnish before I apply any metallics. Airbrush varnishes mean not only can you apply it multiple times throughout the process to increase the overall durability of the paint job and your ease of life. That way, when you make a mistake, it's very easy to correct or erase. But what it also will do is kill out the shine of any metals. So I apply all the matte paints, varnish the miniature, then apply all my metal paints. Do I varnish metal paints? No. No, I do not. I never varnish metal paints. There is no need to. They are perfectly durable on plastic figures, especially stuff like the Lejo metal color or AK interactive third gen metallics or scale 75 metallics are quite tough. Those are generally the three brands I would ever recommend you touch as metal paints. Most others are garbage. That's a whole other video. But the with with varnishes, I always only apply them to matte paints. If I apply metallic paints to the miniature, it's the last thing I do. And then I do not varnish it afterward once that's been applied. Even with my gaming figures, even things that get played quite regularly, it's no problem. I've never had an issue. I do not scratch off paint. I've used these figures quite regularly and for years. So I don't know what people are doing with theirs that would cause any issue. Sometimes people say, I can scratch the paint off with my fingernail. Why in the world are you scratching your miniatures with your fingernail? Stop that. Don't don't do that. That's like, gee, when I rub this exactly over my miniature, it all the paint came off. Yeah. Yeah, don't don't do that. OK, so application is very simple. Remember your summary, couple drops of thinner first and then you can find your mix. As I said, my preferred mix is three drops of Ultramat to one drop of satin to provide a mix of both durability and the matte nature of the varnish. But you might find your own mix, experiment around with it and see what works for you. Lastly, let's talk a little bit about cleaning your airbrush after you varnish, because I know this is a big concern, as I mentioned earlier. After I varnish through the airbrush, I rinse it out as normal. You can see my video on cleaning my airbrush that's linked up in the top. But I also make sure to always use a drop or two in there of 99% isopropyl alcohol. Now, you don't need to get the 99% if that's not available around you or hard to get. You can just use something like 91%, but you generally want a 90% plus isopropyl alcohol. I put a few drops of that in there, work it around the cup, backflow it a little or whatever, and then add water, dump it and clean. Those few drops of alcohol will break up any of that varnish that you've got that's still hiding inside there, really, really break it apart so it can't ever dry and form that varnish bond. And then it's just rinsing out your airbrush as per normal and you're good to go. No long term damage, no muss, no fuss. So there you go. That's varnishing through your airbrush. I hope this was very helpful. I hope this gave you some ideas about how you can utilize varnish through your airbrush quickly and efficiently to both make your life easier when you're painting, using it as safe points, how to mix the ratios and how to keep your airbrush humming while you're putting varnish through it. If you liked this, give it a like, subscribe for additional hobby cheating in the future. If you've got any questions, drop those down in the comments below. Don't forget, if you're interested in taking your next step on your hobby journey, we have a Patreon down below where you can support the channel and also join an awesome discord community full of just truly amazing and helpful, positive hobbyists. As always, though, I thank you for watching this one and we'll see you next time.