Splat

So here is a question for you Reaper Paint Production folks. Are there any plans to perhaps create a Flat (i.e. Anti-Shine, Gloss and/or Satin figure coatings to go with the sealer that is out there. Don't get me wrong, the Army Painter Anti-Shine is great and Vallejo makes some handy ones too. But. I'd like to have all these things from my favorite paint manufacturer as opposed to having to dip into other folks lines. Thanks.

Thanks for that idea. I was using the Slate (which I've been told Military Blue is quite close to ) as a component for lacquered armor on some Confrontation figs. On stonework having a mismatch of shades doesn't bother me so much. Natural wear and weathering varies, so no problem. On a unit's armor, that's a different story. I just like consistency on my units. All the same it's the Stone Grey (which might come close to Soiled Grey) that I grieve for as well. For light colored rock it (ummmm) rocks. Thanks for the hint about the Slate color though. It is appreciated !

Being one of the folks who loved Slate I'm bummed about it's disappearance, along with Stone Grey (a great stonework base color) , Griffin Hide and Buckskin (Lions of Alahan armor colors), Hawkwood (great barbarian flesh), Slime and Emerald Green Ink (Slime washed with EG Ink and drybrushed back on makes for a nice easy orc skin ala GW), and a few others, like Bloodstone. But at least the line is still around. I'll just have to adjust, sell off the armies that I painted with the old colors and do new ones so the colors all match across the board.

A lot of wargamers paint in this method, and if you have a chance to look at something like an old White Dwarf or a rulebook from the late 80s and early 90s that had color pictures in it - you will see this style of painting. The biggest benefit is that with the one coat coverage, you can work a lot faster. RMS and Vallejo paints are a bit on the thin side - and many of them do not provide one coat coverage unthinned. The added time spent waiting for paint to dry and applying a second coat doesn't sit well with the concept. For example 3 weeks ago I painted up 217 members of the 7th Cavalry using these methods in a single weekend (Custer's Last Stand). Although I modify things a good bit...the principles remain the same. As a way to paint up units for wargames, or even paint for games where you just want to cruise through the figures and put nicely painted miniatures on the board - old school is the only school. The other way to look at the style is realize it is optimized for the 'two foot' rule. Since you will tend to see the miniatures on the table at an average of two feet, the 'artistic' method of blending and shading is bypassed and simple contrast shading and washing is used. The end effect is very similar when viewed at normal wargaming distances - and the effort is much reduced. For making display pieces there is nothing that beats the subtle shading and effects you can get with the mixing/blending/etc. of the current mode of painting. For decent looking miniatures in a lot less time - old school paint/glaze/wash/highlight works out quite nicely. IMHO at least.

I can tell you that for a fact we have an equal split of Reaper paint users between MSP and RPPs. Personally I like the RPPs. Not only because dropper bottles have conspired to hate me, but because my style of painting makes use of the qualities of the RPPs more useful to me than the MSPs. I'm not a 'one color, wash and drybrush' painter by any stretch of the imagination, but my work is respectable. It's just not award winning professional artist quality on the average. I can say this for a fact - If I'm looking to paint a single highly detailed, display sort of miniature - the MSPs are nice. Being able to more easily duplicate mixed shades, the thinner formula to layer and what not makes them shine. But if I'm painting up a unit for a wargame the RPPs are much better. The better coverage and predictable wash and drybrush characteristics make them far better suited to that sort of application. If you want to pain the unit with any sort of speed at least. Not to mention I find it easier to teach someone to paint when they can simply dip into the jar and paint as opposed to dollop a drop out of a bottle, burp it, clean the tip before moving on. I'm not saying that droppers or high quality paint are bad - but there most certainly is a market for the RPPs... at least at my shop. RPPs have about 2/3's the sales rate of the MSPs - but they are still a consistent seller. I am glad to see the line will remain. I can't wait to see what the new paints look/act like so we can get restocked with colors that will (hopefully) remain around forever and my customers won't be in limbo about this any longer...

I've experienced the 'moldy' or 'rotten' RPPs and even Ral Partha paints. It tended to happen with the greys and whites and smelled... well moldy and rotten . They stunk in an earthy way. In fact I just ditched a Dragon White, Stone Grey and Truesilver just a few days ago. If I find some more - I'll let you know, and if you want it for testing... it's all yours I like the RPPs better than the MSPs. Personally I have issues with dropper bottles. We hates them (he says in his best Gollum voice). Regardless of the number of taps, bumps, dabs, etc. I can never get them not to 'burp' and leave a gob of paint at the top, or worse, have the gob of paint solidify and clog the darn thing. And I grew up with the thicker paints (started with PlooyS Floquil and then Ral Partha) - and they suit my style and the way I learned, as a humble hobby painter, to crank out figures. I do like the triads idea and some of the MSPs, but overall I am glad beyond words that the RPP won't go away.

What I did for my Crimson Skies planes , which works fairly well, is to get a lighter shade of the color and highlight so the edges are a shade lighter and it transitions to the color a little way in. Then if you want to add little artifacts you can do the same with colors half a shade lighter or darker in random areas. For me it gave a lot of the flat panels a look that one sees on aircraft , the edges looked to have depth abd a little random wear on the panels themselves. For a large flat area... it might be tougher.

What kind of wash have you used ? If your using black ink it might be an issue. Take some 'magic wash' (10 parts H2O and 1 part future floor wax) and add enough black paint to get a nice wash. Put that on and see what it does. I'm guessing your wash isn't thin enough and doesn't have any surface tension remover - so it's just muddying up everything. My 2 cents. Hopefully it'll help. I would have said it had to do with your primer, but if you've sealed the primer before washing it... the only other thought would be to let the whole thing dry 24 hours after priming and again after sealing.

You should be fine doing that... i.e. adding sand into it (or even gravel) to get a rougher texture. Back before everyone was finding all the spiffy art store mixes (way back in the late 80's & 90's) we used to just toss sand and/or gravel into paint and go from there. Worked fine, held fine, and if you were really, really worried you could always add a bit of white glue to give it more body. Of course the glue might be more important nowadays since paint it going closer and closer to having no body as opposed to the thick stuff we used to have. The stuff you pick up at Home Depot (or other home improvement stores) to toss on to wet paint to make the area non-skid is great. Barring that borrowing a cup of sand out of the beach or from a construction site works well too... you may want to clean it first though.

I thought Elven Green was close to Forest Green - Shamrock (RP) and Emerald are pretty close. I think a little Linen White got it right on... Wasn't Tan one of the Horizon colors line RP did ? I don't recall exactly what I did there - but I know that Hill Giant Brown was a replacement for some of my lighter brown/tans - sometimes with some while, sometimes with Dove Gray added to get them the right shades. Sorry, it's been a while since I needed to be matching those colors against each other. I kinda 'transitioned' the colors across units I was doing and then subsequently sold the figures as the game systems I was playing went under and there were folks willing to pay crazy amounts of cash for the minis... Then I moved on to other games and just used the newer paint line to paint... I wish you luck finding the matches... although IWM does still sell Shamrock - you just need to get it online from them.

Most of them. There are a number of them that don't exist in the master line (Hawkwood, Stone Grey, most of the greens I like among others) that I used in the past and not having them would really, really bum me out... as well as a lot of my customers. We tend to sell an equal number of RPP and RMP right now and it would be a minor tragedy to have them go. If I was forced to pick exact colors I'd have to rattle out a list of about 30 colors I use (and we restock) all the time. I've painted for around 25 years and my style is not that of the current batch award winning painters. The MSP line is nice, but not my cup o' tea, ignoring the technical issues which seems to have plagued it. I love the Pros since they come closest to the old Ral Partha paint line (and subsequently the old Polly S line) from when I started. There you have it - a baised opinion from me.

Sorry to contradict - but I think it depends on the particular store. I say this only because wandering through the Hobby Lobby out by us in search for columns and snow covered trees for scenery I came across some Leow/Cornell synthetics which were in good shape and very inexpensive. Not the best in the world, but nice for one who likes the stiffer sort of brush. Don't be afraid to poke around on your own until you find something that looks good. Just realize that oft times you get what you pay for... so that sale brush may be on clearance for a reason... Grab brushes your comfortable with and have fun !

Drat, darn and Drat. I just went to get more as of last week so I'm betting I'm going to get oldies too. ... now to make lame apologies to my customers for 23 more days until I can order the new ones. Thanks for the update though !

I was doing the drop or two, but a full drop into the small amount of wash I had didn't seem to frost it... it seemed tro just lighten the color - but neither here nor there. Now I know why. About how many drops to a bottle ? Does it vary according to the color ? So far I've got about 36 drops in my Blackened Brown - it hasn't seemed to effect it at all - neither frosting, chalky nor any of the shiney going away at all.

@ Eastman - Thanks. I tried to do a search on antishine additive and the number of results that came up was large enough to preclude skimming.... Chalky is one thing. Last I knew chalky was a _texture_. Changing the _color_ of the paint is what concerned me. Hence my question for everyone - if I got a bottle that had a odd mixture or if I had messed up using it. @Beowulf - I am not worried about the final result being glossy, but if the paint I'm using it shiney/glossy it makes it harder to use layers of washes - as they won't 'stick' very well to the glossy surface. Testors Dullcote usually kills any gloss left on a figure when I'm done without any issues.