Varnish hates me...

So today in Oregon was the first nice day in a long time, first time it actually felt like Spring was in the area, so I figured I would take advantage of it and get my Heavy Gear Blitz minis that I have completed all varnished up and flagged as *DONE*...

It did not turn out that way for me at all unfortunately.

Started off normally with me shaking the varnish for a few minutes just to make sure it was mixed well, but almost as soon as the varnish hit the minis I felt like something wasn't right. At the time I couldn't really explain it, but something simply didn't look right but eventually I figured it out.

I got done doing a light coat of varnish using the Armory matte varnish, and after I was done I noticed that all the dark grey areas on my PRDF minis were nearly pure white from the varnish. The reds, golds, and silvers were fine, only the dark grey appeared to have some chemical reaction. Of course I immediately said some rather unflattering words and went inside to cool down while trying to figure out what I could do to fix everything. After some looking around I found most people saying just re-varnish/dip the mini again and it should help. Deciding not to trust the varnish I had previously used, I went to the local shop and picked up some Army Painter Strong Tone dip to try out. I figured that at this point I had nothing really to lose.

The infantry went through the dip and shake process fine, but my gears actually caused me much more grief. while shaking off the excess dip from the Strike Squad Chieftain IV the base slid out of the pliers and the model went flying across the ground; his rocket pod going in one direction, the v-engine pack in another. As you can imagine this didn't help my frustrations lessen any. The v-engine was just to damaged for me to put back on, so I am going to have to go ahead and paint up a replacement from one of the Warrior gears I had as spares.

In the end the minis all look decent with the dip applied, but much darker then when I first showed pics of them. Tonight I figure I will plan on burning through a couple more minis and get the pack replacement done. I'll get more pics up of the damage once everything is said and done. Today sure didn't help my dislike of painting at all though.