Things Get Painted: GW Contrast Paints
Everyone in the painting community has heard about Contrast Paints by now, so I'm not going to talk about what they are or how they work too much.
Basically, they were released this weekend, and one of my friends (Numbat) picked up a few, and brought some along to our Sunday night painting for me to try. A few hours before he arrived, I realised that I would need a few models to try these out on, and went to my usual go to emergency miniatures: Reaper Bones.
Basically, they were released this weekend, and one of my friends (Numbat) picked up a few, and brought some along to our Sunday night painting for me to try. A few hours before he arrived, I realised that I would need a few models to try these out on, and went to my usual go to emergency miniatures: Reaper Bones.
Look at them gathered there, slightly out of focus, judging me...
I'd heard that people were using standard sprays on the models as well as the new Wraithbone and Grey Seer undercoats, and that the pre-existing undercoats work fine. So I glued a few Lizardmen to bases, and did three versions of undercoat:
From left to right, Corax White, Mechanicus Standard Grey with Corax White sprayed from the stop, and then plain Mechanicus Standard Grey.
One thing to note here is that Mechanicus Standard Grey is a mid-to-dark grey colour, and pretty neutral. From what I have seen, Wraithbone and Grey Seer fit as warmer and cooler colours which fit between Corax and Mechanicus on the colour range. I wasn't hopeful about Mechanicus Standard Grey, however I had about 20 different lizardfolk models from the Bones 3 Kickstarter, and it wouldn't hurt to try out an extra one.
I had no intention of fully painting the models in the first go, but wanted to get some colours blocked in a little bit to see what they did. The lizards gave me a good chance to test out how they handled some flatter surfaces (The shell shields) as well as textures (Their skin is full of scales and wrinkles, which makes them pretty interesting once they are painted). So I grabbed Plaguebearer Flesh, Skeleton Horde, and Gor-Grunta Fur. Time to slap some paint on these scaly things...
Paint slapped, and waiting to dry...
I painted the body Plaguebearer Flesh, dabbed some Skeleton Horde on the front belly and under the chin, and Goregrunta Fur onto the shield and club. All in all, these 3 models took maybe ten minutes to get to this stage. I wasn't waiting for one area to fully dry, especially as I wanted to see how the green and bone interacted together, as I heard they might blend well together. While I did use the 'one thick coat' GW has been referring to, I did dab away excess areas of pooling. The green covered thinly, but the brown was quite opaque. Having said that, it wasn't opaque enough to seem like a basecoat, and the green wasn't thin enought to make me think it wouldn't work. I left them aside for an hour or so, and came back to check them out:
The 'finished' products!
So I had some pretty quick observations on these based on the undercoats:
White - The green was bright but seemed a bit washed out. Not terrible, but not as strong as some people might like. Having said that, some kind of bone colour as a base would still make the colours bright, but a bit stronger.
Zenithal - My favourite of the results - Fast shading that works well in tandem with the intent of Contrast Paints, and a nice tone to the colours. The bone belly seemed to fade in a bit more, but only to the point where it becomes a point of difference when you look at the model, not a glaring issue. I also like the natural colours compared to the white.
Grey - While everything does seem darker, I really like what it did to the green - the muddy olive colour is really nice in my opinion, and the darker effect was fun.
So after all of that, I had a few observations from the initial test:
Undercoat matters - I suspect that as more people get used to these, colour choice and theory is going to come into play more when seeing how effective these are. The other interesting thing will be that it is possible to get the same colours to look drastically different based on the undercoat, so using one undercoat for standard troops and another for leaders could be a quick and easy way for them to stand out.
It's a good start - I don't think these will replace the way I paint, but I can certainly see them augmenting how I paint. I'm keen to try the black and white variants for instance to paint up some Sedition Wars troops. There are also a few colours (yellow, purple, black, white) that can really help people not be scared to try adding them to their army, so I think these will be a confidence boost for painters just starting.
Zenithal for the win - These paints are meant to force contrast, so anything you do before the paint touches them to aid this seems to help them more. I was really happy with how the zenithal spray stood out, however Matt DiPietro's sketch style of underpainting could have some great impact on the effect of these paints. I look forward to trying that on some models in the future.
They are like tofu - In that, they take on elements of the surrounding paints to get the end results. See how much the undercoat influences them? And Zenithal? I can't wait to see how people use these for things like quick light sourcing, different times of day, adding focus and avoiding focus for diorama or large models. There are a lot of potential applications for them!
You don't have to stop there - I've stopped with these models as I tested what I wanted to in the first session. But I'm looking forward to getting back to them in the future and adding to them - drybrushing, layering, picking out details. I think it's great that there is a stage some people will get to and be happy, where others might take it as just the beginning.
They do what they intended to do - Let's face it, the main thing these paints are fighting is the grey horde of unpainted minis - and they will do just that. I really hope that this means there are fewer unpainted armies knocking around, or at the very least, more armies with some paint, and people more willing to try painting.
Another final thing worth noting is that I have seen a few reference to these products being similar to Secret Weapon Washes. I have the range of these, and judging by the consistency, that may be correct. I have used a few techniques with them and GW Washes in the past which is similar to how these work. I'm definitely going to try the Secret Weapon Washes for a few projects in the near future to see what they can do in comparison. One thing I think that Secret Weapon would have an advantage is that they have a few more unique colours - bright pink and two different blacks, for example. Now that I have had this part of painting reminded to me, I'm keen to get to a few other projects I have knocking around in my head to see what I can do.
All in all, I like not only the intent of these paints, but the feel of them, and look forward to what they do for the hobby.
If you are interested in other opinions and examples of these paints in use, here are a few videos I have seen lately about them:
What are your thoughts on the new GW Paints? Are you for or against them? Any projects you want to try with them, or things you are looking forward to with them? Or are you planning on avoiding them all together?
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