"New GW “Contrast” paints?" Topic

At Warhammer fest UK, GW finally announced what they had been teasing through parody videos and such—a new paint range called "Contrast" which is supposed to be a paint-wash-shade all in one, so that you can prime, paint one coat of Contrast, then paint any details as normal, and you are done. The test shots seems to show a paint job equivalent to a few different layers of their shading and highlighting process. It all has something to do with the viscosity of the paint with pigments.

Opinions? I am a complete novice painter and have most of mine done by a painting service or buy painted, so I have no informed opinion myself other than using the "dip" method a few times. Is this a product already readily available from others?

Ah, the shades of Duke Seifried! When acrylics were new, he used to do just that at painting demonstrations and competitions. Used a white primer, a thick acrylic paint and a very wet brush if I remember correctly--so maybe 50-50 acrylic paint and water. Of course, he had to be careful about how much light there was in the area, but if the light was a little dim, it was very quick and looked OK from a distance, especially on robes and such.

Now, maybe GW has invented something entirely new and better. But I'd buy one bottle first, and compare the results with a regular acrylic and the technique I just described before I invested heavily.

Cynical? ME?? Just because I've seen every new idea in wargaming invented three times or more?

Duke was doing Stain painting. It was like a heavy wash. It worked ok. I used it for years.

Another nod to those who correctly pointed out that Duke called it stain painting.

One further note is that the miniature needs to be designed for stain painting, i.e. deeper cuts and exaggerated detail. Dukes Fantastiques worked because of the deep incisions in them.

Contemporary 1970's Ral Partha and Grenadier sculpts, not so much.

Modern miniatures are almost self-painting, so stain painting works well on them.

Useless video from GW: YouTube link More than half of it sings of benefits with no illustration of the results followed by improbably arrived at finished models.

It does remind me of those picture galleries where they do these banal instructions "apply the appropriate color", "then use a lighter color" illustrated by exactly what you'd expect. And then the third and final picture is a Golden Demon quality entry with obviously many, many steps omitted.

All sizzle, no steak.
All hat, no cattle.

I have used the stain method for sometime and it is great if you have the correct type of model.

I just wish Citadel would use different bottles for their paints. A screw-on top like Tamiya of AK interactive is just so much better.

As someone who's been painting with clear and transparent paints (vallejo, and badger mostly) over grey and metallic "preshading", these paints look very promising to me indeed.

And GW does have plenty of step by step painting videos. Antifans are just not in the know.

Not familiar with the technique. Do you have some links to those videos alpha3six for those of us wishing to see this technique in action? I for one would appreciate them.

Big picture, it behooves GW to introduce a way for customers/gamers to get more models painted. Players who paint their models are far more likely to stay in the hobby and buy more stuff than a customer who buys and assembles an army but never paints it. If they Market this new paint the correct way, they keep and even increase the sales of their paints range—which as someone above pointed out, is a money maker for them.

+1 YogiBearMinis

I am in for a couple of bottles to see how it turns out.

GW has a youtube channel called Warhammer TV, and they frequently post painting tutorials. There aren't any tutorials for the new Contrast paints yet (they haven't even been released yet), but there will be, and soon.

Here's a link to one video – one about painting eye lenses. I've seen people complain about how they are impossible to paint. They are not.

YouTube link

If it's a base coat, then the Army Painter spray paints in the GW colors would seem to be just as good, and faster.

Wyatt

I use the undershading method as well,
so hoping the premixed paints will be helpful
(I still have trouble getting the correct consistency with me mixing the base paint and medium…)

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Dip'er, and Magic Wash'er. Spent nearly $800 USD on painting by a professional, for my entry into collecting armies for fantasy wargaming, back in 1996?… Then I woke up, and I realized I could fill the trunk of my car with high quality miniatures paints and brushes, for the amount of money I had paid!

I welcome any new paint, or technique, which will speed up painting. All I want is a Good Enough to Game With (GEtGW) quality paint job, at arm's length. If some new formulation of paint will help me achieve that, for a reasonable price, I would welcome it. Otherwise, I will continue with The Dip and Magic Wash techniques.

One of my old bosses used to say, "Work Smarter, not harder…" If GW found a way to make painting mini's faster, and easier, and it doesn't cost more, per ounce, than gold (cough inkjet ink cartridges… cough), they will get my money! Cheers!

"One thick coat"

I will give a pot or two a try, but this sounds a lot like an attempt to sell up those paints we used to call defective, with too little pigment to be useful.

Obviously some people's 'google-fu' is very weak.

There are lots of videos on the product up:

YouTube link

YouTube link

YouTube link

I used a modified method similar to this with my Gates of Antares Algoryn. I primed in black then drybrushed the crap out of them in pure white. Then I did the basecoats. The white highlights shone through the dark red paint I used. I still had to hit the highest points with a drybrush of a bright red, but the technique was surprisingly effective. I'm wondering with these GW paints if maybe priming in grey, followed by a black wash & a white highlight before basecoating, might make the effect stronger, especially on figures without such deep details (like 15mm figures, I could see this as a way to bring out really nice paintjobs on such small scale figures!). Might be worth experimenting…

Damon.

Magic Walsh by another name. Make your own

+2 Yogi.

@Garand—the videos I have seen all seem to have a grey primer coat, but it is not clear if that is required or recommended or what

@YogiBearMinis – one of the videos I linked explained why they cannot use white primer.

Magic Wash by another name. Make your own

Possibly. I'm a big user of wash, using the Future floor acrylic as the medium. However, these contrast washes are much, much thicker and stay where you've put them better than any homemade wash. They are worth trying out.

Doesn't look like Magic Wash or the 'Dip' to me, which are basically a single shade added at the end over blocked in base colors.

These things look like they replace the paints used for blocking in colors and provide their own shading.

They will not replicate high skill painting, but for those not into that they should be a good tool. Looks like for slightly more work, one can have a better slightly paint job than simply using the 'dip' method. At least for me, when I dip, it hides a multitude of my painting sins.

BTW, even though I do use the dip method, I will give these a try.

I have gotten a similar effect from using Army Painter stains over a white primer.

I have seen others get a similar effect using craft paints over a white basecoat.

Regardless, I will give them a try when they are out (and if I can remember to bother to look for them).

Yep! Looks like "wash over primer" done right. The wash formulation (ie. the Contrast Paint) is thicker than other washes, such as Army Painter. Personally, I'd also have a line of colored brush-on primers, rather than just a spray can, but only because I find spray paint prep cumbersome, and paint in the evening.

I see they're using larger paint pots, but still with the flip lid. You at least paint directly from the pot, but I remember plenty of complaints about this design. I find they work, but it's not like anyone at GW has heard of craft paint tops, have they.

Sure wish this stuff was out five years ago, when I started painting!

These are specially made paint to use for an old technique… wash over primer, I'm definately going to give them a try.

Hmmm…

It is a nice idea for paints, and one of my top guesses too. As a commission painter I will try some, but have my doubts.

I cannot see this product doing that they suggest, getting people with unpainted armies to paint them. If these people had any inclination to put brush to mini, they would have done so already with the paints available, even with one layer. If they come in pen form it may help a little. People with grey armies will have grey armies, fancy paints or not.

yes nothing new, but ready made, you could do this easily yourself like using water colours and adding acrylic flow medium and matt medium, the darker the colour is – the easier it will work, you can enhance the contrast by the base colour over which you apply this translucent self shading paint, I used this method for shading the blue on these miniatures

url=https://postimages.org/]

Great idea, and there are already many recipes and are going to be more on the way for sure.

Perhaps GW have made a mistake here. C contrast seems like a good paint from what I've seen. However, as I've said before, it won't get (a significant number of) people with grey armies painting. In fact, with the undercoat requirement and its own thinner, it only throws in a further hurdle of time, effort and money. It will be great for painting novices, but is it too much like microwave cooking? Skills may be missed out on. For quick batch painting it will be at its best.

You can mix two different shades or colours.
Use a relatively large particle paint such as Plaka for the darker. Mix acrylic medium and lighter ink.

If you can be bothered.

Pre-shading the entire figure helps. Which itself is both quick and easy.

Here is an example of a figure done only with contrast paints and a few areas of metallic undercoats.

link

I think 'The H Man' hit the nail:

"it only throws in a further hurdle of … money."

That's a nice rat (per Pictor's post) but I'll wait for the results of experimentation without a GW staffer looking over their shoulder.

I looked up some videos of the new paints. Seems like it is still aimed at higher end painting. Nothing wrong with that, but it seems to undermine the idea of helping customers speed up painting in more than just a mild manner. In other words, it seems as if it will shave very little time off of painting.

I am an army painter. I want to spend more time gaming, than painting. This is not something I will use, after doing more research into what it is. I tend to agree that it is another attempt to create a new profit stream, without changing much for the customer's outcome -- it is still higher-end painting techniques, which require a sizable time investment, per figure.

It seems as if GW will always strive for the Golden Demon Award painting end of the spectrum.

Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect that if they eschewed simple block painting, and washes, reducing painting time, their customer base might buy more figures: less intimidating to paint an entire army; would encourage painting by all, even those who have no desire to paint for a painting competition; would allow gamers to field more completely painted armies, as opposed to fielding primed figures. Just my two cent's worth. Cheers!

Wow a new GW product and it's not advertised by pictors studio, incredible

I'm late to this thread, but I'm looking forward to trying this paint to get the bad guys from my board games (Zombicide, etc.) on the table looking halfway decent.

Wow a new GW product and it's not advertised by pictors studio, incredible

So are you saying that's not a good paint job, then?

I'd be shocked if the regulars in this forum actually praised or abstained from reflexively bashing a new GW product.

There are some who will like (or pretend to like) anything GW does. Some are the polar opposite.

Many feel free to like this or dislike that in an honest manner.

Until there is a board called "Not too fussed with this product", people will need to vent frustration here and on other boards. Even so, it may still require crosslinking anyway.

It is good to hear peoples negative views of products (hopefully in a constructive manner where possible) as much as the positive (without them getting all salesman or too fanatical or sounding like a politician at election time).

That's interesting – I started on white undercoat, moved to grey then black and curious about shifting back again

In a thread about GW Contrast Paints, Pictors links to some nice painting using only these Contrasts Paints. And then he gets picked on for that.

I have no interest in Skaven Bombadiers, but the paint job is very good and aptly illustrates what these paints can do.

None of the negativity deals with the shortcomings of the paints.

Because most of us haven't had a chance to use them. We'll see a lot more honest feedback in a couple weeks.

On a similar note, a line in a GW marketing release earlier today has me wondering if I should be stocking up on the parts of their existing line that I want to keep using.

So far it seems only the existing Citadel glazes will be discontinued – not sure if GW believes the Contrast system makes the glazes redundant.

I was mildly interested in trying them to test new techniques, more than for the one thick coat thing.
Then I saw the preorder.thank you, but no,thank you.

They had a demo at a store this past week. Someone did this with them in half an hour.

Same event Alpha Legion with one coat of the new contrast paint over a leadbelcher base:

"Then I saw the preorder.thank you, but no,thank you."

The prices are high, but not much higher than regular GW paints.

They are nearly three times my regular vallejo and over three times my warcolours: definitely not in the range that might make them economically sound. I haven't been using GW paints in several years already for that reason, little quantity, outrageous price and not a significant quality difference to justify the investment (actually I think vallejo and warcolours are quite superior to current GW paints)

I took a few years off from painting models, and when I came back last year, and found most of my paint pots had dried out, I wanted to buy a basic paint set.

Seems like, along with moving from having just paints and inks/washes to having several types of paints, plus inks/washes, GW doesn't do those any more (their paint sets seem to have less paint per pot than the idnividual paint pots).

Any idea if GW is going to sell a basic paint set (10-12 paints/washes that are most commonly used) based around these contrast paints?

It seems to me that that would be a first step in getting a lot of people to paint their minis.