"Citadel Contrast Paint System, good for Historicals?" Topic

I've been thinking of trying Citadel Contrast Paint System for my ever increasing Renaissance armies is the system any good for historical miniatures.

I've found them to be good for painting my War of Spanish Succession French. They've saved a lot of time and look reasonable. Prior to this they sat in their boxes for years.

I've also painted Napoleonics. They look OK but they are a lot of work, probably because the uniforms are more fiddly.

In summary ECW may be good but Landsknects not so much.

I'm with Chimpy. Dark blue is dark blue, gray is gray, and the Seifried stain--oh, I'm sorry, "Citadel Contrast"--system work reasonably well. But the more different colors you have on a figure, the less well it works.

I have yet to try them but am thinking about them for my SYW Imagination army

Check through past threads—several people have posted about some 15mm Sumerians, WW2, and Lace Wars attempts using contrast paints. The overall verdict has been positive, at least from those who paint to a "wargamer" rather than fancier standard.

I've painted a lot of WW2 plastic FOW with them
Dull colours on well defined webbing and clothing is great
Flesh is very good
I still paint helmets in traditional paint
Then a light wash to pull it together

Work very well on dull ww2 uniforms

Like Chimpy I've gotta lord one to a good standard for less effort!!

While the colour range is somewhat limited, those colours you can use work well. Even if you can only do some things like boots, belts, bags and horses, that will save time and look good.

I love them as a base coat for horses. It saves you at least 2 shading steps.

I painted all my NVA and US Marines for my Vietnam project with them . I rather like them.

it speeds up the process…and works best if you do both contrast and regular paints on the same figure. For instance, painted 3 battls of 28mm Nap Prussians, used contrast for everything except red collars and cuffs, white belting.

Here's my concern: Guys in my group tell me one must use
the company's primer for the colors to "flow" properly.
Is this true?

I quite happily use contrast paints on Halfords primer.

OP: stuff works great for figures, but hard to color match exact historical shades. Works less well for armor above 15mm.

Pan Marek. Any white primer will do. Because touching up can be difficult (one has to apply over the same primer coat color for it to match) it helps to have a pot or dropper of paint the same shade as the white primer you use.

I use them to paint my landsknechts. I use them over both some of their lt cream base(Wraithbone) and vlt grey(grey seer)and my ordinary white undercoat some have a slight difference in tone and vibrancy but not all. It has taken me back to a technique that I used to use 25-30+ years ago.
Buy a couple and experiment,see what works for you.
Good luck
Guy T

Pan Marek,

You need a very smooth surface for the Contrast paints to work properly.

Not only a very smooth primer (like the Wraithbone and Grey Seer) but also a very smooth base.

If you are painting metals, you may want to use Liquid Green Stuff to smooth the surface first. Otherwise the colour will settle into any pits and imperfections in the surface.

Regular automotive primers are too coarse. Can you put Contrast onto them? Yes. Will they work as well? No.

Kind of like putting diesel in a gasoline car ..,

I'm using Contrast for the first time with this unit of Gardes Francaises. I have been delighted with these paints. They flow beautifully, the colours are great, and they really bring up the detail. I used GW Wraithbone spray as an undercoat. The only non-Contrast paints were the metallics, and the green bases. I finished with Vallejo matt varnish. [NB: The blue looks a lot brighter in this photo than it actually is.]

More info: link