Citadel Contrast paints

[izzylobo]

Citadel has just released (to pre-order - they're coming out next week) a new line of Contrast paints which behave rather differently than conventional minis paints in a number of respects. 

 

I recently got a chance to play around with them at my local Warhammer store, and wrote down some initial impressions. 

 

Has anyone else gotten a chance to mess around with these, and if so, what was your thoughts on them? 

(my favorite result down below) 

 

[joshuaslater]

I liked your write up.  I will try them out eventually.

[Pingo]

Sounds like a sort of two-tone transparent paint used for glazing color while simultaneously taking advantage of the three dimensionality of the figures for effect. Also playing with undertone and different color primers.

 

On a guess.

[JackMann]

I think it'll be best for quick tabletop jobs, which is mostly what they're marketing it for. Though, I can't wait to see if some of the more technically skilled painters can get more interesting effects. 

 

One caution: They will not go on over bare Bones. They're too thinned to be able to find purchase. You will need to prime the Bones first. The good news is that you don't need to use their included primer. Any white or near-white primer will work well enough. It flows a little better over their contrast primers due to the satin finish, but they'll still get decent results with, say, Vallejo white primer.

[Edsterdoom]

I tried some. I don’t think I put it on thick enough.  But it will speed up finishing my Blood Angles. 

[JackMann]

Amen to that. I'm about twenty boyz into an ork army. I need about a hundred more. I'm really hoping the contrast paints can speed things up a touch.

[WhiteWulfe]

I'm curious about them and I like your writeup on them.  They're somewhat pricy though, wow. O_o

[izzylobo]

7 hours ago, WhiteWulfe said:

I'm curious about them and I like your writeup on them.  They're somewhat pricy though, wow. O_o

 

Yeah, they aren't cheap - although they are 18ml pots, rather than the smaller ones.

[ced1106]

Great writeup! Please repost on Dakka. Seems everyone there's an expert on the paint without actually using it. 

[Kormydigar]

17 hours ago, izzylobo said:

 

Yeah, they aren't cheap - although they are 18ml pots, rather than the smaller ones.

Oh ok. So they are the same size pots that they use for their textured basing mixes. I might try out a couple colors then. No way would I buy a little pot for that price. 

[cmorse]

Guerrilla Miniature Games has done a fair number of videos testing different things with the paints. Nothing too fancy, but covering a lot of the basic how does it work over this and that.

[Nunae]

Ok, I like to speedpaint, but my problem with the concept is, that the washing part was never the problem in terms of time-consumption. 

From what I've seen, the nicest resulst were on organic stuff like fur or hair, and I paint a lot of beasts and people with fur cloaks. But the problem in painting 10 wolves or goblins wasn't the part where I have to apply a wash, but the part where I had to paint 10 faces and eyes. Detailing is what's killing me with speedpainting and from my experience, it's also the biggest source of frustration and anxiety for new painters. And the contrast paints don't help with that.

 

The really nice examples of this paint being used were far away from "one coat and done" btw. Some people on youtube have amazing results, but they worked with thinners and glazes and wetblending and all kinds of techniques to get there.

 

I'll still be curious to see where this goes.

[Fencig]

if it's more "talent in a bottle " then I'm totally on-board being almost entirely devoid of talent myself . Layering, wet-brusing, dry-brushing, etc , yeah it happens for me, but i never really know why it did or didn't and  not 100% sure  i could go back and reproduce any of my "successes" a second time.

     

AFA cost, i see they're offering at 7.  each = about the same as they're normal   price for washes  no?

   

[JackMann]

8 hours ago, Nunae said:

Ok, I like to speedpaint, but my problem with the concept is, that the washing part was never the problem in terms of time-consumption. 

From what I've seen, the nicest resulst were on organic stuff like fur or hair, and I paint a lot of beasts and people with fur cloaks. But the problem in painting 10 wolves or goblins wasn't the part where I have to apply a wash, but the part where I had to paint 10 faces and eyes. Detailing is what's killing me with speedpainting and from my experience, it's also the biggest source of frustration and anxiety for new painters. And the contrast paints don't help with that.

See, I'm the opposite. The small details never take me all that long, but the bigger parts of the model always take me much longer. I think because I enjoy doing the small details, but the bigger parts are much more tedious.

[Wren]

I've seen a few experiments people have been doing on Facebook and YouTube, both tabletop style and a few who are trying to push the paints to more artistic uses. One of the things that is interesting about it is it seems more analogous to the approach used by watercolour painters - you have to preserve the pale colours and build up additional layers where you want things darker. (If you go beyond the 'one thick coat' approach.) That can be challenging and require more brush control than people slapping around washes to do quick painting might expect.