Hey all. New to the forums and returning to the hobby after many years. I assume washes and weathering are asked about a lot, so I've done my best to use the forum's search feature and apologize if any of these questions are redundant.
I've built three kits now since returning to the hobby, two of which were painted with an airbrush set purchased recently and used for the first time. None of these kits have been weathered in any way and I'd like to use the next few kits I work on as experiments for different weathering techniques.
I'm planning on building Revell's Republic Star Destroyer and will be using this video as a rough guide to follow for painting and weathering.
Based on much of what I've read on these forums and elsewhere, I'll be using Pledge Floor Gloss (Future) as the gloss coat before adding enamel based washes and weathering. My question at this point is, should the Floor Gloss coat be used in any sort of ratio? I've read in some places that in prep for a wash coat, Futures should be applied in a roughly 1:1 ratio with acrylic paint thinner. I've read other sources that seemed to imply just using Floor Gloss as the coat, full stop.
At this point, I have no experience with enamel products of any kind, having only pained with Tamiya acrylics. I know this is a broad question but, generally, how often should one leave an enamel wash on before proceeding to wipe it off/remove it? Seems like twenty to thirty minutes is long enough, but I've struggled a bit to see anything definitive.
My final question is regarding some pinwashing this guy utilizes in this video (appropriate time stamp is in the link). He's pinwashing some panel lines with a thinned out acrylic paint, over surface already painted with acrylics. My question is, how does he wipe off the blobs of excess paint if he's pinwashing with acrylics and the coat he's pinwashing over is acrylic as well? Wouldn't a light wipe down with thinner remove both the excess pinwash paint and the base coat?
Thanks for any help you might be able to offer!