Thoughts on Citadel Contrast Paint

[hobbyhubParticipant 4169xp 0]

@mkultra99 It also doesn’t work on large flat surfaces, like tanks, also via Kris Belleau.

The brush strokes show up, even when he did a second coat at 90 degrees to the first coat.

 

[limburger 21685xp 1]

It’s not a silver bullet that will make everyone capable of winning painting competitions 😉

Definitely going to try this on my minion themed grotz (Yellow hats, blue bodies and probably purple squigs).

Griphound Orange looks like exactly the type of orange I want my spacemarines to be.

[woldenspoonsParticipant 3557xp 0]

Looking forward to these for getting board game figures done in a good time to a good standard. They are perfect for that. I’m more interested price wise to see what they charge for the spray cans.

[timchubbKeymaster 3166xp 0]

@woldenspoons the only “contrast” sprays will be the primers, so expect to pay usual £12.50 or their abouts a can, im guessing the price of the shades to be about £4.80 RRP, so assume a 10-20% discount at the usual online retailers, should be about £3.95-4.30 after discount, not to bad, in terms of price.

Brush marks will always be a problem on smooth armored mini’s the space marine i showed in the opening post of this thread looks terrible upclose, mainly because it works by staining so the first contact with the brush creates a visible drop outline, which you cant really paint over, just makes it more pronounced, so strategic placement of the initital touch of the brush will be needed to avoid this, probably starting between the legs is a good place to loose the initial drop marks, its also quite telling in the vids on the citadel colour site, they make mention of using contrast medium to help prevent this, so they pretty much tell you to glaze it on smooth surfaces.

[noyjatatParticipant 16155xp 1]

This one is quite a good video, it seems key to use the right base colour.

[torros 23816xp 0]

Nice video. Not totally convinced with the blood angels red look

From what I’ve seen the lighter colours seem to work better than the dark blues,reds and greens

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 3]

From the original post, looking at the Cons:

Price isn’t an issue when you consider a standard pot is ~£3 but you generally need 3 or 4 of them (Base, Wash and either drybrush or two layers) – so around £9-£12 per “colour”. £5 per pot for something needing only a single coat is probably a net saving.

I don’t see how it behaving like airbrush paint mixed with flow aid is a “con”. It’s possible to mix your own washes and glazes but buying pre-mixed is both convenient and, for most people, more reliable.

Some shades work better than others in nearly every single paint range out there, including citadel’s regular layer paints

When I use colour primers I never paint areas of different colours over the top of the colour primer. I always re-undercoat the area.

Pots aren’t necessarily a bad thing, just GW’s pots. For everything except washes, glazes and airbrush I would rather have a pot, I would also rather have a better designed pot than GW’s current offering.

Looking at the Gotcha’s, GW’s main spray varnish has been satin for many years so this isn’t necessarily a surprise. However you should always varnish gaming pieces and so the finish you ultimately end up with will be dictated by your choice of varnish irrespective of the finish of the actual paint.

Big Brushes are hardly a gotcha. You choose the brush size appropriate to the task. This is true for all paint.

All paint has a primer Colour over which it works best. This is just another piece of knowledge painters need to learn.

Are they doing metallics? I didn’t think they were.

[limburger 21685xp 0]

I’ve seen local prices at 5,40 Euro for 1 pot of 18 mm Contrast paint.
The new GW air paints are 24mm …
Whether that ‘extra’ compared to the standard paints is effective paint or necessary is something we’ll have to see. It probably will depend on colour and technique (as with anything really).

34 colours, no metallics.
However it looks like you can use a metallic undercoat to create interesting effects :

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I have seen Stormcast Eternal painted Yellow and White in lieu of Gold and Silver and they actually looked ok

[torros 23816xp 0]

This is an interesting little vid

[osbad 4279xp 2]

Having played with it yesterday at a GeeDub store I feel it does what it offers.  Anyonexwill be able to get their models painted up to a “boardgame” standard with them.

The issue is whether that is enough for you or not.

I’m happy to play against.  I’m happy to have it myself in certain contexts (boardgames for instance).

For those of us who are practiced at rattling off armies to a “tabletop” standard or better, with the existing shortcuts and techniqes then it is less useful.  But that’s ok, it wasn’t designed for us!

There are elements we will be able to utilize – I liked the flesh colours for faces, and the black worked well for weapons.  I always find cloaks a pain unless I take a lot of time over them so some shades may work there too.

Horses for courses.

Of course the price is an issue, particularly for n00bs for whom the paints are designed, but that’s GW’s problem.

I welcome them as another string to my bow.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I don’t think the price is an issue, look at an Ultramarine for example.  To paint it using the current range you would need, as a minimum:

Guilliman Blue primer

Drakenhof Nightshade

Chronos Blue drybrush

Retributor Armour Gold

Reikland Flesh

Auric armour gold

Abaddon Black

Dawnstone

Leadbelcher

Nuln oil

 

Using Contrast you need:

Wrathbone Primer

Wrathbone Base Coat

Ultramarines Blue

Black Templar

Iyanden Yellow

Leadbelcher

It’s probably cheaper to paint with Contrast if you’re just starting out

[limburger 21685xp 0]

You probably want an additional paint for edge highlighting/dry brushing and a flesh colour (assuming ‘reikland flesh’ is for skin).

Contrast would still appear to be cheaper (traditional : 9 colours + primer vs contrast 7 + primer).
In theory you’d also want the specialist thinning/mixing medium, but water appears to be good enough.

However we don’t really know if the paint allows for a similar amount of miniatures to be painted.
That would be an interesting test. Although I’m sure initially you’d ‘waste’ a lot of (contrast) paint until you learn the minimum amount.

Once you start painting multiple factions then total cost would be more or less equal, but you’d be committed to a single paint system.

Question :

given that we know that contrast = paint + medium … is it possible to estimate the amount of effective paint there is in a single pot ?
12mm standard vs 18 mm contrast would assume 6 mm of the medium, but I doubt the ratio is quite that basic.

btw : air paint is in 24 mm pots …
I assume GW are using different pot size to make price comparisons difficult.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

All paint is pigmemt + medium so the amount of paint in the pot is whatever the pot says there is.

[limburger 21685xp 0]

but does it paint the same amount of miniatures (assuming identical models and enough layers to cover it) ?

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