Varnish / Sealer; how essential is it?

[BrAiKo]

Quick question, as someone who up until now has rarely gamed with fully painted miniatures, should I be sealing my miniatures with varnish or other product?  Is this 100% essential; how many of you do or don't use it?  

I'm playing games maybe once a month at this stage for a bit of perspective.

 

[Grimnaud]

I've never sealed anything out of fear of messing up all my hard work with a slip of a rattle can, but I've never had any problems with paint chipping either. Wouldn't worry too much about it if I were you.

 

[Payce]

It's personal preference. I've both had the "white dust syndrome" happen and ruin my minis, and I've experienced smudging up at paintjob during a game because of sweaty fingertips.

Personally, I use GW's Purity Seal on everything; once you learn how the finish affects your colours, you learn to paint around it. Similarly, once you learn to properly prepare the can (shake it proper, let it settle to the right temperature) and spray at the correct distance and amount, you reduce the danger of ruining the model, I've not had a problem with the Purity Seal making a mess in the past ~200 models or so.

So no, it's not 100% essential. I recommend it as a player, other do not. Best advice would be to just try for yourself.

[BasetheRuin]

The frosting effect happened to me ages ago using GW purity seal. A five man squad of Space marines was completely ruined. I was so frustrated that I never used spray can primer again.

Since then, I started brushing on Vallejo semi-gloss varnish on most of my mini's. Works perfectly for armored figures. For a matte look, I started using matte varnish with the airbrush.


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[Changer]

I've both varnished and not varnished armies in the past, with mixed results. I never had any trouble with the older cans of purity seal, and used it to varnish a full 3,000 of necrons without any issues.

However, since they changed the style of the can I've only had frosting after frosting incident. I've got a mate who works on the displays at Warhammer World. Apparently they use the Windsor and Newton Genera Purpose Varnish can. I've recently made the switch and not had any issue at all.

Deciding whether or not to varnish comes down to personal preference in my opinion. However, I've always preferred to varnish just to be sure that I don't get any smudging when gaming. It all depends how thick you've ended up putting your paint onto the model. Thin coats are generally more likely to rub off.

[ElectricPaladin]

I feel like if I tried to put my minis into a case without varnishing them, I'd pretty quickly start to lose paint off the spiky bits. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not. I use Testor's gloss and dull in a "bullet coat" method, and I find that it actually makes the mini look better.

[RuneBrush]

I'll never game with a mini that doesn't at least have something applied.  Transporting them in foam and handling them with greasy fingers are a sure fire way to cause an issue.  I'm also a fan of a satin/gloss layer for protection and then matt varnish to sort it out.

I'd avoided GW purity seal for years but went back to it the beginning of the year and was really impressed, finding it a lot less shiney than previous version - until I used it on my Bloodbound.  Messed up a good half a dozen models with white misting (retrieved all bar three) - and that was using 2 different cans in case the first had gone old.  One disclaimer I will make is that spray cans are really susceptible to weather conditions - too dry, windy, cold, wet will change the finish.

My preference now is a layer of Liquitex Satin Spray Varnish (if you apply it too thick it'll go milky but still dry clear) followed by a layer of Daler Rowney Soluable Matt Varnish from an airbrush.  Provides a really good finish, plus with the airbrush you can apply the matt in a more controlled manner and keep your metallics shiny.  Dullcote is very good as a matt varnish too - but it is expensive.

One thing I also do is to apply varnishes mid-way through painting.  I wanted to use a Slaughterpriest in a game the other weekend so I sealed the flesh that I'd painted with some DR varnish through the airbrush.  Works really well.