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So, what do we think of the new Contrast paints?


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3 hours ago, Overread said:

I think people worried about others missing out on developing "key skills" forget that many model painters will rarely develop those key skills to start with. Or even if they start too they won't take them as far. For many painting is just another step, heck look at how many people are quite happy to game with models which have mould lines all over them. 

 

Plus lets face it when you're 1ft away playing the game the fine detailing doesn't always stand out on the models anyway. 

I'm painting some plague monks and had to just give up removing mold lines at a point. I'm fairly serious about trying to get good paint jobs but ****** with some of the older kits. I don't have the patience to spend 40 hours trying to remove every bloody line from every little area.

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I think contrast are a few things. 

I think contrast is a great place for people who aren't interested in painting and generally just base coat out a few colors and call it a day. This lets them do basicly that same thing with a better result.

I also think contrast make a really great base coat, and start for a pretty great paint scheme. You can do all your layering, dry brushing, edge high lighting over the top of this. You can do your fancy smancy zenathal highlighting under it.  It's a tool in the tool box. 

Lastly, its great for quickly painted tournament armies that you might want to spend lots of time to refine later. 

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17 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

The more I see contrast paint in action, the less I'm sold for them on armor plates (SM, primaris, tanks etc...).

But for the organic/fabric it is another story. Too bad most of the videos are one a primaris...

Methinks Bell of Lost Souls hit the nail on the head with their recent article on good army matches for contrast paints, basically anything with lots of skin/organics, 'alien' colors, and/or grime like sylvaneth or chaos daemons.

 
edit: does this website automatically link articles? Or am I finally losing my mind? I don't remember inserting that link!  🤓
Edited by kenshin620
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The other thing is that the pooling on flat areas actually creates an interesting texture effect for things like natural scale plate armour on beasties. So I can see that being something people will research into, perhaps working it a little like the red/blue/green gemstone paint with the pooling. Certainly the paints natural ability to create those pools of deeper colour is far quicker and easier for people than doing it via traditional layering over many scales. 

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Now that my local flgs is hosting a try-out night tonight with the contrast paints I’m starting to get excited 😆 

(It helped that I dug out the 20+ gnoblars I still have to do. Green and brown contrasts for the win... hopefully)

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A couple of people have pointed out that wraithbone and greyseer are designed to be smoother than corax white, and are much preferred for contrast. 

Are the other colored sprays smooth enough for contrast, say mechanicus standard grey or zandri dust for the purpose of zenithal?   I am kind of thinking the new sprays are deisgned to be closer to the existing colors and just get away from the trouble of "pure white" but maybe there is something special too them that makes using other colors for zenithal a tradeoff worth considering. 

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17 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

A couple of people have pointed out that wraithbone and greyseer are designed to be smoother than corax white, and are much preferred for contrast. 

Are the other colored sprays smooth enough for contrast, say mechanicus standard grey or zandri dust for the purpose of zenithal?   I am kind of thinking the new sprays are deisgned to be closer to the existing colors and just get away from the trouble of "pure white" but maybe there is something special too them that makes using other colors for zenithal a tradeoff worth considering. 

From what i've read the coarse spray is the downside of trying to get a pure white, since its a product of the chemical used to get that colour.  The reason the texture is finer with the new greys is because they're not using a white pigment. This seems to imply that the coloured sprays should be finer already, although I guess it would depend on precisely which chemical is being used at the pigment in each.

 

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another question (trying to come up with my shopping list for saturday)

Stormshield (pot) or Munitorum (spray) varnish? Or will you not bother with varnish?  Note I have not found a need for varnish so far with my more traditional citadel paints, but they seem to really be pushing it now... 

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33 minutes ago, sorokyl said:

another question (trying to come up with my shopping list for saturday)

Stormshield (pot) or Munitorum (spray) varnish? Or will you not bother with varnish?  Note I have not found a need for varnish so far with my more traditional citadel paints, but they seem to really be pushing it now... 

The contrast paints do need varnishing; there's more than a few reports of people having paint wear down from the early preview events. Whilst many of those minis were not transported in the best of ways, the contrast paint is more prone to rub off a properly primed model, than regular paints will. 

Treat it like the special texture paints in so much as the varnish is simply the final step. 

 

Personally I would say a matt varnish spray and pot of gloss varnish would be best. The matt you can spray over all the models and then touch up the shiny areas on the model with some gloss if you like 

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So like I promised a small review from a mediocre painter. 

My flgs has a test painting night. And either he’s not willing to waste precious stock or the precious testers stole a bunch because the selection was quite limited. 

To sum up my experience great for some things... horrible for others. 

Flames: red over yellow. Both one layer. Amazing!!! The red is a gem. And the yellow really solid but it pools into a orange if you are not careful. 

Backpack: it’s snakebite leather. My concerns about it not being dark enough are changing by the minute. It dries really fast (think minute or so) but looking at it I feel it darkens a bit more after an hour. 

Skin: is warpstone green. Not the colour I wanted but the only one available to test. Needed three layers. Mostly because it’s where I started and was to careful the first layer. Third on second layer was a nice experiment in darkening the colour with an extra layer. Which works really well! Which is great because it allows you to shade a bit without a second colour. 

Stick: was an experiment in shading with the black over the bone colour. I’ll happily keep using nuln/ Agrax shade myself but in theory it works. 

99BDA343-EEF7-4B66-A8C2-7A5CBB350375.jpeg.36449d69457675f769a927090434959c.jpeg

but the biggest thing for me is the basecoat. I wanted to OSL this model but I couldn’t (with the limited selection) get the skin and leather dark enough over a white primer. Which means I could potentially do it in a kind of pre shade* with the primer and then an single layer on top of it. 

Definetly cool and the yellow and red is a given, for skin it’s a given but for the leather  and  details I might stick with my current paints. 

* if that doesn’t exist I’m coining it 😂 but I’m convinced it exist with a fancy schmancy name. 

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16 hours ago, flemingmma said:

seeing what blanche can do with it while messing about has me keen to give them a bit of a go

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/11/contrast-testimonies-john-blanchegw-homepage-post-3/

I do enjoy the copious amounts of light brown/burnt orange that John loves in his art! It's like seeing his art in 3D....minus the crazy perspectives.

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17 hours ago, Alexonian said:

I'm intrigued by mordant earth, don't know why really

Looks the same as Agrellan Earth and Martian Ironearth, except it's more sinister looking. Definitely will go great for lava bases. Just paint the base in fire colors and then put the texture over it

Personally I can't wait to try all the new Forgeworld paints like Barak-Nar Burgundy, Word Bearers Red, Blue Horror, Vulkan Green, Iron Hands Steel and Iron Warriors

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On 6/12/2019 at 9:56 AM, Alexonian said:

I'm intrigued by mordant earth, don't know why really

buy a tub of "crackle paste", you'll get 5x the quantity for the same price. put it on the base, then paint it whatever color you want (vs buying a small GW pot for every color you want).  You can mix color and then paint with it, but adding color makes it crackle less think. 

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4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

It's black crackle medium - it gets used in the new White Dwarf when they do their test model with Contrast Paints.  As @Gorks Pokin' Finger says. it's ideal for a lava effect on a base (probably would make a good burnt skin effect too)

yeah Its for burnt skin I'm thinking about it, or possible super evil looking daemonic bases

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ContrastTest.jpg.c609637cf5116f8178a3cc5b4ac62950.jpg

So I went into GW to test some some contrast paints so that I knew what to buy tomorrow (or try to buy, i'll be up early). This is the second time I have used contrast paints and I was eager to try it on some figures that I had based with a zenithal highlight. I was very pleased with the results. The above model was 2 or 3 minutes of messing around. Colors used are shyish purple, inyanden yellow guilliman flesh and black templar black

Some thoughts!

  • As expected the Zenithal worked brilliantly! As with most glazes/washes the purple worked better over a greyscale zenithal than yellow, but even the yellow looks okay, gives it a gritty dark look.
  • I think that its misleading to tout it as a basecoat, wash and highlight all in one. For me its basecoat + wash all in one, and some easy highlights would finish it off. Don't get me wrong, that alone for some paint schemes could represent a HUGE time saving. (I realise that today's Andy Wardle article on warhammer community suggests that it can do the work of highlights though, and he is a million times better than me).
  • I tried Volupus pink and Magos Purple first , and they dried much more transparent with a similar layer of paint. It would have required 2 or 3 layers I think. This is certainly a range where you will have to get used to each paint.
  • When I decided to try a quartered colour scheme, I went from slopping things on to painting more accurately and you can be very accurate as long as you understand the directions things will pool.
  • While I think you can be accurate with it, I think finishing some conjoining areas with conventional paints will allow you to be sloppier and quicker with the base coats. e.g. If I did the boots with normal black and armor with metallics, it would hide almost any sin in the previous stage.
  • While for this model I used black templar for metal, in my eventual plans I will certainly use conventional metallics.
  • I think with metallics and some highlighting I could do this type of model in maybe... 20 minutes? And it probably look better than if I had done it conventionally.

So an early morning for me as I scramble to get into the store at opening time and hopefully pick up the 4 or 5 paints that I want.

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