A Comparison of Matte Finishes, and Veteran's Day!

 Welcome back!

  First off, as a retired Vet of 26 Years, 11 Months and 15 days, I want to thank every service man & woman currently serving for their sacrifice and dedication.  I want to honor all those honorably discharged veterans and thank them as well.  And I want to honor all those who fell in service to their country.  All gave some, some gave all!

  I know the image over there is the American flag, but I would like to extend my thanks to all the British, German, Canadian, French, Australian, Swiss, Norwegian, Greek, Turkish and countless other soldiers of nations I have served with (and sometimes drank with!) as well.

  Now, on to our show.... 

  I was working on a lot of stuff this weekend, when I had some home time, and one of those items was to finally seal some of my models with matte finish.  I have three cans of matte finish sitting around here and I didn't know which to use.  So, I decided to compare them in actual use.

  I made three test sticks of models, mostly Necrons, but some trees from the citadel wood kit as well.  The three contenders are;

• GW Purity Seal
• Army Painter "Anti-Shine"
• Krylon Matte Finish

  I used the same area to paint (my back porch) on the same day and time to minimize any differences because of conditions.  Same goes for the photos, all in the same light box, same background and same messed up light placement.  (Yes, I know had the bounce of the lights wrong.. I was committed by then :) At least this way I'm not favoring one brand or the other.

  I'll cover each in turn;

Krylon Matte Finish

  The cheapest of the three, by FAR!  It is also available everywhere.  The only issue I had with it was that it left the citadel Trees a little too glossy for my taste.  The Necron models looked good, however.  The big difference here was that the trees had been liberally painted with Army Painter Quickshade Dark varnish.  That left them VERY shiny, so the Krylon had the hardest road to follow.  Still, even after I hit the models with the Krylon, I had to hit them again with the GW Purity Seal.

  I had to hit this one again, because it was too shiny for me.  Here it is after I hit it with GW Purity Seal...  The effect is more pronounced on the trees though, but I thought the comparison might help.

The Army Painter Anti-Shine

  The middle rung of the cost ladder goes to Army Painter's Anti-Shine.  This turned out to be a nice product, and I think it was even matte-ier than the Krylon by a long shot.  It was dry to the touch the fastest as well.  Still, I did notice a tiny bit of shine here and there under the direct light.  The results are still pretty darned good though.   

Games Workshop's Purity Seal

  And most expensive on the list (go figger) is the Purity Seal from GW.  The can I have is the Purity Seal, I think they have switched now to the Matte Finish spray can, I'm not sure.  I have been told it's the same stuff in a differently labeled can for some copy-right reason.   Anyhow, it seemed to give the matte-est finish of the three, but the difference between the AP Anti-Shine and this is really small.  Is the extra $6.00 a can worth it?  I'm not really sure.  It did do the best job of tonig down the metallics for the dull metal look I like for these guys.

Conclusion?

  The most matte finish came from the GW offering, but there is a price tag for that.  The Krylon did a darn good job at 1/4 of the price, so even if you have to hit things 2 times, you're still ahead.  The Army Painter was smack in middle, as far as I could see.

  For me, I think I will use up all three of these and then go with the Krylon.  It just didn't seem far enough away in the results to warrant not using it...  The effect on the trees was aberrant because they started out with a very high gloss.  The Krylon did a good job on the two Necrons on that paint stick, so it gets my vote!

  See ya guys, and Happy Veterans Day!!