My narcissus shuttle for the miniature magic campaign is almost done. Decals are on and the only thing missing is some weathering and those pesky panel lines. (I tried to pre-shade the panel lines, but I got only the underside right )

The model is painted gloss white, that should be ideal for washes etc, right? Now the problem is this. I've tried washes on an extra part. Acrylics dry so fast that I either wipe away all of the color, or leave ugly smudges. I've tried both Citadell and vallejo acrylics, no succes.
Enamels have that lovely long drying time, but I'm worrying about damaging the white paint job with thinner. The sprayed white has now dried for about two, isn't that supposed to be enough?

Should I try to do a precise wash with minimal wiping, or a generous one followed by wiping off the extra paint?
Or should I just take the long path by masking all the panel lines with masking tape and then just painting the lines on?

Have you tried using the "future" method or "Klear"?

Also, these are pretty good.

http://aircraftresourcecenter.com/tnt1/001-100/TNT043_oil-wash_Johnson/tnt043.htm

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/335

http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/helpdesk.asp#tech_tips

If you put a gloss coat over the paint job the wash will flow better and the wiping wont affect the paint underneth.
Another thought is to use oil washes, they flow well are easy to build up to get darker.

Another idea is to use a thin line artist marker

Thanks for the tips. I bought a tin of satin grey enamel, I plan to use that. Those line markers would be ideal here (the panel lines are quite wide and deep), but I doubt they make grey markers. Straight black would be too dark.

Mix up a grey color with oils and thin it with oderless mineral spirits. Paint this mix into the panel lines and let it dry for 20-30 minutes (allows the thinnner to evaporate). Then take a clean tissue and wipe off the excess, being careful not to remove the paint from the lines...so you can be a bit messy with this. This also makes a nice weathering effect depending on how you do it.

:-)

I came up with an idiotproof way to paint my panel lines. I painted the lines with lifecolor's "oil" (a ready-to-apply black wash). When dry, I wiped off the extra paint with cotton-tipped swabs dipped in johnson floor wax (same stuff as klear, future etc.)

when building a P-47 some time agon, I noticed that floor wax removes this lifecolor wash like magic. My wash failed miserably anb I tried to wipe it off right after applying. It stuck like a plague. I tried washing the color off with warm water and dish washing detergent, no effect. I then realized my defeat and continued to coat the model with floor wax. To my amazement, the wash came right off!
This is how it look's on the model.
Wash applied and dried:

After wiping with future:

Would you guys recommend this same technique for enhancing panel lines on tank models as well?

You mean future wiping + lifecolor wash?
Why not? Although I'm not aware of brown and grey washes, which would be handy. Pure black has to be used with caution.

I use that lifecolor wash on matt surfaces too. I usually apply it pretty much all of my models needing shading. I apply the wash over the whole model or just the details I want to enhance (depending on the model), then drybrush over that.
I haven't tried wiping off lifecolor, try different thinners to find out if they remove it like future.