I suppose the first question one might have is "why" use the sip method. If that's not it, then the first question would be "what is it?"

As to the why, just take a look at what the arsenal of democracy turned out a few weeks ago in a frenzy of assembling and priming!

My goal was to put together a playable force that could be modified in a number of ways. What I ended up with was a HQ section of 7 men, three rifle squads of 12 men with a packed .30 caliber MG in each squad, an engineer squad of 5 men containing a bazooka and a flamethrower, an HMG team, another independent bazooka team, and three Comanches, each armed differently. Part of what I ended up with was driven by the way West Wind packages their miniatures as at the time they did not have bazookas or flamethrowers and so I had to cobble my own together.My other drive was to put togethyer a large force and see how long it would actually take to get it painted to wargame table standards.

As to the "what," dipping is a quick way of shading a miniature or miniatures by immersing the entire figure in a can of shade - be that varnish, acrylic, or some other medium What I chose to use for mine was some stain I had purchased from a local DIY store that was a petroleum based product tinted with a dark brown stain. I had used this when making some Egyptian terrain using Hirst Arts products and felt like it was a good shade with which to start.

I took a couple of simple figures and painted them in a block style (basic colors, no shading or lining). I used a pallette of only a few colors, mainly browns and olive drabs. Then I took a pair of needle nose pliers and dipped both figures into the stain one at a time as shown below.

I did not do the base of one miniature before I dipped it as I was not sure how much of the stain would run down onto the textured resin gel I had used. I shook the miniatures vigorously to get the excess stain off and then set them aside to dry. The drying process took almost two days to complete as the basement was cold and I did not bring the miniature into my heated painting area. (I have a rough room I use as a workspace and it has no vents in it.)

Once the figures were dry, I sprayed them with a matte varnish (it was either the Citadel version or DullCote - I'm pretty sure the former as not all of the sheen came off.) I have been told by painters that are much better than I that DullCote yellows over time. I can look back at some of the figures I painted 25-30 years ago and see that this is the case, as many have a light yellow tint on the whites. But hey, they are veterans and don't have the newest equipment and certainly have aged better than I have! The picture on the right shows the post-dip miniatures, the one the same figures after the matte spray.

The figures looked better before I sprayed them and I haven't been able to figure out how the shading was lost. Here are a couple of pictures of the radioman alone before I sprayed him and after:

My best guess on why this happened is that I shook the figure *too* much after dipping it. You can also see how much of the stain puddled in the bottom of the base even though I did shake it. I then did the machine gun team and did not shake them quite as vigorously, instead just shaking each miniature a few timers before putting them down to dry. You can see how much stain stayed in place. This seems like one of the big advantages to the dipping process to me. Unlike acrylic washes, the dip does not puddle up in odd places like water based paints.

Note that I painted the base separately for these miniatures and then added them after the varnish had dried. You can see that the stain did better on the figures.

I then took two more of the block painted figures and dipped them. After they had dried, I took some GW brown wash (one of the newer ones - Ogryn Flesh) and some of the Kel's Magic Sauce (Now Didi's and sold through The Warstore) and added the brown to the tunic and the black to the backpack. Results are, again, shown below. The modified figure is on the right.

The results are far more noticable on the back pack than on the tunic, but the wash did add more brown shades to the right hand figure.

While I pondered how to proceed, I turned to the conversions of my flamethrower and bazooka teams. I decided that I wanted easy conversions, not wholesale replacements of weapons, so I pulled out bits of sprues to make the bazookas and had the gunners sling them over one shoulder. Easy, straightforward, and they can be identified easily on the game board. The flamethrower was a little more difficult. I had to snip off a backpack on one miniature and then trimmed down the rifle to look more like a flame projector. Then I shaped some wire for a frame and the tube out of the flamethrower and used green stuff to make the tanks. The tip of the flamethrower is a sanded down piece of sprue glued on to the end of the rifle.

While out Christmas shopping, I came across an Ebony Minwax gel shade. Hmm, thought I... maybe that would work. I bought the small but expensive can and brought it home. I took one of the squad members I had already dipped and gave him a second bath. Gack... how dark WAS that stuff! After pulling the miniature out, I literally couldn't see the paint through the dip! Practicing breathing techniques I learned in Lamaze classes some 30 years ago (we never finished them as our son decided to come early!) I calmed down and came to the conclusion that acetone would strip the figure just fine. I took a paper towel and wiped the high points on the miniature. Much to my joy, the figure did not look too bad. The dark areas benefitted from the darker shade, and the tunic looked... different. The first squad in its final glory is shown below. The darker figure is the fourth from the right. His presence makes the others appear to be rookies, so *maybe* I'll go back and do the others. But first, I plan to finish painting the other miniatures and dipping them with only a light amount of shaking to see how they turn out.

Here's a picture of the squad with augmentation:

The dip technique was quicker, all said and done, than the traditional washes. As I pointed out above, the stain did not seem to pool in odd places on the figures like washes sometimes do. Another possible benefit from this method is that I think the paint jobs will hold up to handling much better than washing and varnish alone as the stain seems to be pretty tough. My conclusion is that this is a good technique and worth trying to refine.