Contrast Paints have been a game changer for me. They’d made painting minis fun again for a start. My system now is black primer, white zenith, then block in using contrast paints. If anywhere needs darkening down (or needs super-fine details picking out) slap on a bit of Nuln oil if necessary (I rarely use it now). Now use the natural highlights from the contrast paints to identify your “high points” and paint them with a lighter colour.

Here’s Alice (and little Alice) I’m currently painting to demonstrate the technique. I’ve yet to put the brightest (off-white) highlights on some of the very edges, but this is very close to finished.

Contrast is everything (not contrast paints, nitwit, colour contrast). Dark darks and bright highlights.

It’s a crude system and I don’t even bother trying to blend shades (seriously, how long do you think we’ve all got to paint our little tiny bits of plastic?). But the end result can be quite pleasing.

Painting faces makes a massive difference. I never used to, and just relied on some wash in the eye sockets to get the idea across. But getting a line of white inside a ring of black and a well placed dot for a pupil makes such a difference.

And why?

It’s a reasonable “halfway house” for me between the “basic” base-coat, wash and highlight system and the more advanced/impressive  “Eavy Metal” style of cartoon-like painting that pulled me into the hobby in the late 80s. Models can still take 4-5 hours each but I actually quite like most of the minis I complete now (rather than go “meh, it’s alright, I’ll somehow make the next one better”).