This is what one would try with acrylics (and only if it doesn’t kill your metallic effect), but acrylics usually don’t stick on oils, so I’ll need different solutions varnish anyway.
This is the point where I was reading up on I’ll paintings and found out that they are ideally left alone for a year or so before varnishing. ^^
But there are also products for using after ~a month already.
There are two types of varnish in miniature painting, one on an acrylic base (GW, Army Painter, regular Vallejo) and one on a Polyurethane base (Vallejo offers some). The former is a bit weak but generally ok for most purposes. I would however be very surprised if PU varnish doesn’t ‘stick’. That stuff coats everything in a resin layer. Disadvantage: I find applying it by brush a bit frustrating since it likes to foam a lot. People seem to generally apply it using an airbrush and are happy with it.
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Stellar work all around. Just fantastic vision and design and execution!
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I know what you mean, I have Vallejo PU varneshes here, brushed them as well. ^^
Having metallic parts that don’t want any of the varnish on them is another story, even with only acrylic and without any oils. Vallejo has a varnish in their metallic range as well, but I haven’t tried or researched it yet.
Anyway, concerning PU varnish over oils, it might work by chance, but if it is made for acrylics and those don’t stick, I’m afraid it will do bad things. Not necessary fall of – it probably won’t – but I imagine it might detach from the surface, catch air in between and create a frosting effect or something along those lines.
Thank you. ^^
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Fair enough. I do have an oil medium by Schmincke over here called MUSSINI Medium 3 which supposedly accelerates drying time of oil paints although the label also states that it enhances gloss 
Looking at their website, Schmincke also offers several dedicated drying accelerators without this remark (also this and this). Perhaps helpful.
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Yes, and then we don’t know it drying means stopping being fluent, or actually the long-term drying we are speaking of, or both. 
I think, I’ll try to think away the gloss while playing around with the colours, and if after a month it is still glossy, I’ll try one of the intermediate varnishes.
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I have an idea concerning the colour to try first, and bought some pigment, and no I’ll have to try mixing some paint. Wish me luck. ^^
(Artist metallics, even of the better ranges, don’t have the finest figments unfortunately.)
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A bit of a pigment nerd myself. 
The problem with metallics is that they would loose their metallic shine if you would grind them up too much. If you are interested in the details, there is a section on ‘effect pigments’ in this very nice review article on inorganic pigments describing how they are made.
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Oh, a paper! Thx a lot. ^^
In the meantime, I primed another badge of parttime-testdwarfies.
I won’t get rid of the impression that the colour scheme is missing a light colour, or at least that the white/grey has some merits:
But beige (it is pre-highlighting for the redbrown here, but you get the impression) supposedly won’t work at all:
(Even if the models had the space for more colours.)
Also, I made a beard sculpting tool:
It didn’t work at all and I went back to my pin. The first attempt is not quite convincing:
The a curled beard the length is obviously too high, and I’ll use a different technique next time anyway.
The truth is, from the order with the dwarfies shown some posts back, I also got these masked heads with no yet obvious use.
(Thankful for ideas, btw!)
I don’t see much merit in trying to put big hats on top, but with the right beards, maybe they could be useful for machine crew or sth., what do you think?
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I finally did what I planned for days, went to the very deeps beneath the ground and looted from treasures hidden there since long forgotten ages:
There weren’t many, but I took all!
Concept sketches also already exist, which I won’t show b/c no one would be able to recognize anything. I also won’t tell you to expect results soon, because I’ll probably get distracted again, but surely somewhen in the future!
In other news, I’m still trying to find the correct tones for both steel layers of the armour, and it is increasingly annoying to only be able to do so during daylight as it is becoming shorter.
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Get a daylight bulb lamp? Changed my life…well my painting life anyway. I paint in the dark most of the time now
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nice conversions!
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I have, helps with non-metallics, but for metallics you need diffuse lighting to see anything but reflexes.
Are you by any chance the Rozmax from the RA boxes?
Apparently I’m a big fan of your work!
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Back to colour scheme testing, I tried to take a photo of we are at.
(I won’t say “metallics” again, but.)
Trying to distinguish the two layers of metal and make it work with the dark-red-brown of the fabric/leather.
from old left to new right
The most right one is lacking a layer on the metal still.
The second right one is very blue and does nothing with the brown, but stands out from the brownish other metal.
The old ones (on the square bases) have about inverted hue/accents on the two layers of metal. I like them more but will have to adjust adjust a little.
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yep, its me) thanx
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So last week I had someone here with an okay camera and we tried to make some photos.
First of all, for the metallics on the models it still doesn’t do much, they all look the same:
I already increased the saturation a bit during postproduction, and I still couldn’t tell from the photo which is tainted brown and which purple. And I very much can in reality. I guess, during this army blog you’ll have to imagine most of the missing parts. ^^"
Anyway, the main reason was to make a photo of my oil painting for the Artisan’s Contest XXXV.
It also uses metallics, but not catching them on the photo has less impact as with miniatures.
First a few early photos I did during the process.
A rather early one with only the background:
A day later, I mostly redid the columns and changed the cobbles.
Without the details it looked like this:
And the result that entered the contest (in a form…) like this:
(The upper one is more true to the colours, the lower one to the details.)
The title is: tensions
If I had to still change something now, I’d make the face of the person in the front a bit lighter.
The rest of the painting is true to my lacking experience. 
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Look what arrived today!
Thx to you guys on discord for the heads up about the sale. ^^
But this one is for later, I have no idea yet what rider to put on top or even how to design the saddle.
A bit confused, though, about the cracks on the sides (as visible on the photo). Their zombie variant of the bull has them, but this is supposed to be the non-undead one, and is it for most of the parts. @Antenor did your ridden one have those cracks, too, or were they covered by some armour?
Edit: Also, did you measure the base it came with? It looks like a chariot base, but it appeared to be 4 mm too slim and 6 mm too short.
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Yes, they’re there on mine as well! If you look carefully, you’ll see that they have chains inside - the idea being, I think, of those chains holding the bull’s harness together and having been drawn so tight that they cut deep into his flesh. It’s a sophisticated detail and pretty grimdark 
But I admit that I just ignored them while painting mine. Too fiddly for me 
Have fun with yours, I’m looking forward to seeing what you do with it!
Edit: Didn’t measure the base, because I play him on a 75x75 for KoW anyway
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Lovely oil painting! It gives a heavy and foreboding impression.
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