"Speed Painting w. all the hacks, video..." Topic

YouTube link

I found this incredibly useful: 75 models primed, painted, and table ready, in 30 minutes… If you want to paint mini's fast (not just fantasy, these techniques can be translated to any genre), to what I consider a very decent table quality, check out the video, linked above. It is by Luke, at Geek Gaming Scenics. He shares six techniques, not all of which are new, or improved, but overall, he presents them in a succinct manner, showing what can be done using these techniques. He employs Army Painter Speed Paints, and his video is making me think I need to buy some to try. Variations on his techniques are possible. Not much more to say. Cheers!

30 minutes was the basing, the whole lot was about three hours. Still very impressive.

Thank you, John Armatys, for correcting me. You are spot on.

FYI on the new Army Painter Speedpaint sets being released: the Starter set, has 10 colors, and it will be released on 19 February; the Mega Set, containing 24 colors, will be released on 26 March. The shipping is steep: $17.99 USD, in the USA. Calculating out the cost per bottle, they come to $6.30 USD/bottle for the Starter Set, and $4.87 USD/bottle, in the Mega Set. After watching several videos of YouTuber's testing pre-release sets of these paints, I've become interested.

If they work as well as the YouTuber's demonstrate, these paints will be phenomenal to work with. If I can use a colored primer paint, followed by Speedpaint, I can get my backlog of mini's in my painting queue knocked out in record time. I am all for that. Cheers!

I'll be getting a megaset – can't wait! Got to speed up the process.

Agreed, Flashman14! Spending $100 USD on Speedpaints is a large pill for me to swallow, but I believe it will get the job done, easier, faster, more efficiently. I have watched around six different review videos on them, and I am convinced enough to drop the money on the Mega Set. Now I must wait for it to be released… Cheers!

Very interesting video, with thanks for posting it. Led me to several other YouTube videos on Speedpaints vs Contrast Paints and related types.

Based on the tutorials, I think I'll be splurging on some Speedpaints also. Especially interested in using them for white uniforms (Saxons, Austrians, etc.).

They should be paying you a percentage, Sgt Slag!! Thanks, again.

Before anyone splurges on sets of Army Painter speedpaints you should be aware that there are numerous reports that they reactivate if you paint over them with normal acrylics and maybe also brush on varnish. That's why I'm sticking to Citadel Contrasts.

Thank you, bong67! As I watched Luke's video, I thought the Speedpaints looked, acted like an acrylic ink wash… It nagged me after the video, just a little.

I experimented with some acrylic inks, on a non-miniatures project (coloring a fantasy map). I tried them, once, on a miniature: I loved the result, until I tried to apply acrylic paint, more than 24 hours later, and the ink pigment re-activated, soaking into my paint brush, and moving around, ruining the effect.

This is truly disappointing. It looked amazing, in the video. Glad I did not pre-order the Mega Set. Acrylic paints, once cured, do not re-activate. Acrylic inks, do reactivate. Acrylic inks are also rather expensive, so that explains the cost of the sets, as well. [Sigh!…] Oh, well, back to block painting, followed by either The Dip Technique, or Magic Wash. Cheers!

The way to defeat the reactivation, if they are inks, is to give them drying time then seal them with a matt varnish rattle can. Then apply additional acrylic. I have several periods that are in various stages of completion so I can allow lots of time while I do assembly line work. Painting large numbers of figures to tabletop standard is less involved then painting all figures for competitions in a Crystal Brush contest. By the way using mat varnish after priming will improve the flow of speed paint from flat surfaces to keep the pooling down. 30+ hours of videos lets me talk the talk but I still need to work on walking the walk. If you are still concerned buy the starter set and experiment.

If you have to spray varnish part-speed painted figs to touch up mistakes or combine speed paints with normal acrylic layering (which you can do very easily with Citadel Contrasts) that's not really offering any time advantage the speed paint might offer because of the drying time of the varnish. If the speed paints are runnier than Contrasts then it will be easier to make mistakes with them which are hard or impossible to correct.
Whether you like GW and it's prices or not, no other company has come close to anything as good or useful as Contrasts because so far only contrast paints give decent contrast effects that can be easily layered or combined with normal acrylic painting.

Does anyone know how they would work on plastic figures?
GW contrast did not work all that well on the plastic smooth areas.

Thanks for sharing this.

Hi,
Everyone interested in using Speedpaint should check out this review. It shows just how bad the reactivation issue is, it's also acknowledged by Army Painter in the comments. They recommend airbrushing varnish (you can't brush on varnish over speedpaint if you want to seal it or over layer as it also causes reactivation). That's just impractical for most people I think. The video is here:

YouTube link

Thank you, bong67 for sharing that video. I hope that Army Painter will come up with a better solution -- one where their SpeedPaints don't need special handling (air brush varnish to seal them against reactivation). Cheers!

Just coming here to post about the reactivation issue. I saw the video in @bong67 post. Funny all the overly enthusiastic influencer videos about SP compared to Contrast and cricket on this issue! I ordered a basic set, could be $40 USD down the drain. My method is to use the contrast paint as a base layer and shade, then apply highlights and even another light wash to tone something down. I had also hoped to combine the use of contrast and Speed paints. Using up cans of AP matt varnish or even the art store ones will push up the cost – one reason to go with AP over GW.

TBF – In the first video they did drybrush a highlight with no problem.