Initial Contrast Experiments (from us all)

[Gederas]

I'd be really interested to see any Deathwing painted using Contrasts. I've always struggled painting bone colour consistently, but unsure how I'd go about it with the Contrasts - Skeleton Horde and Medium 50-50 mix over Wraithbone?

From what I've been told and seen, Skeleton Horde is VERY dark brown bone. As in, there'd be no difference in using Zandri Dust + Seraphim Sepia/Agrax Earthshade levels of dark.

[Arkhanist]

I'd be really interested to see any Deathwing painted using Contrasts. I've always struggled painting bone colour consistently, but unsure how I'd go about it with the Contrasts - Skeleton Horde and Medium 50-50 mix over Wraithbone?

 

Skeleton horde is really quite dark - you can see it neat over wraithbone in the new citadel colour app in the 'bone' guide; it's heading towards zandri dust base colour! So the 'parade ready' section cleans it up with a conventional layer of ushabti over the top, and edge of screaming skull. So doable, but a fair bit of work.

 

I'd try wraithbone primer, with seraphim sepia heavily thinned with contrast medium; if it works like thinned nuln oil in the video chazzmos linked above, it should go on almost like a pin wash and barely tint the armour. For a more shaded look, you could do a zenithal prime of wraithbone over zandri dust before the sepia wash.

[CaptainMarsh]

Gonna buy some new Intercessors, assemble them, Grey Seer basecoat, and hit them with a color or two of Contrast and see how they turn out.

[CaptainMarsh]

Anyone else having issues with Apothecary White? I mixed it to high heaven and I got a very grey, greyer than Grey Seer, color. Not at all like the colors I've seen from other models online with Apothecary White.

[Sabadin]

Anyone else having issues with Apothecary White? I mixed it to high heaven and I got a very grey, greyer than Grey Seer, color. Not at all like the colors I've seen from other models online with Apothecary White.

This was not my experience at all, using wraithbone as the base, outside of the recesses and pooling could barely tell it was even applied.

[Arkhanist]

Anyone else having issues with Apothecary White? I mixed it to high heaven and I got a very grey, greyer than Grey Seer, color. Not at all like the colors I've seen from other models online with Apothecary White.

 

It's supposed to be darker, so it can shade grey seer primed crevices. The official method is to then clean up flat surfaces with a layer of grey seer and/or normal white paint. You can also thin it with Contrast medium so it leaves less cleanup work.

[Kinstryfe]

Anyone else having issues with Apothecary White? I mixed it to high heaven and I got a very grey, greyer than Grey Seer, color. Not at all like the colors I've seen from other models online with Apothecary White.

My pot is exactly like you're describing, despite shaking the heck out of it. It's almost doing nothing to whatever I tested applying it to.

[Lord_Ikka]

Question- How well does contrast work with other primers? I use Rustoleum 2X statin black right now to prime because it works great and is a third of the cost of GW stuff. Would the white Rustoleum primer work decently?

 

If so, this could save me a lot of time painting my new Harlequin army.

[Spacecow]

I read / heard somewhere that they added gloss varnish into their primer. Which should help make the contrast paint go where it needs to go. (Similar to a pinwash)

 

So technically you could use the primer brand that you want. Go over it with gloss varnish before attacking it with contrast paints.

[Ciler]

The "official" primers have a very, very smooth finish, so I guess you'll want something that does not come out grainy.

[CaptainMarsh]

 

Anyone else having issues with Apothecary White? I mixed it to high heaven and I got a very grey, greyer than Grey Seer, color. Not at all like the colors I've seen from other models online with Apothecary White.

My pot is exactly like you're describing, despite shaking the heck out of it. It's almost doing nothing to whatever I tested applying it to.

 

We've sold seven pots of Apothecary White, people of various skill levels, and people of varying attention paid to the Contrast requirements. Alllll have had this experience. Other paints are coming out nice.

[Chazzmos]

I had a bit of a play around today with some marines and the Contrast Medium.  I wanted to see how the medium would work mixed with inks and used over airbrushed colours.

 

I got a couple of marines and primed them black, then airbrushed Vallejo Dark Sea Blue (45 degrees) > Vallejo French Mirage Blue (top down) > Pale Grey Blue (highlights).  I then put a coat of gloss varnish on one of them.  This is what they looked like:

 

I then mixed 1ml Contrast Medium with 1 drop of Liquitex Carbon Black ink and 1 drop of Liquitex Burnt Umber, and applied it liberally over both models, wicked it away where it was pooling,  and waited for them to dry:

 

I'm pretty happy with the results overall, using it as a full miniature wash.  It would be interesting to darken it a bit more with more ink and see how it goes.  I've never used it, but it seems to act very similar to the Army Painter Wash Medium.  Jack of Clubs and Next Level Painting on YouTube use Army Painter washes and medium a lot and swear by them, and when I was painting with my mix it seemed to act as that does in their videos.

 

The gloss varnish didn't seem necessary.  It maybe added a bit of cleanliness and definition, but not a whole lot.

 

On to more testing and mixing!

Edited June 16, 2019 by Chazzmos

[Sabadin]

As promised earlier here's a quick test on an old predator side plate, not just globbing it on out of the pot and pushing it around. You can see brushstrokes are not an issue, there's some pooling on the housing for the Hunter Killer, but that's just because I wasn't being attentive enough. Overall these hold promise for vehicles, I'll likely give a better test on something like a full drop pod in the coming days.

[Marshal Rohr]

If your apothecary White is separating add a bead to the pot.

[CaptainMarsh]

If your apothecary White is separating add a bead to the pot.

We have.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

If your apothecary White is separating add a bead to the pot.

We have.

What are you priming with? I have used it over grey seer and white, and over grey seer you get the blue-grey coloration but over white if you use a 50/50 Apothecary White to Contrast Medium it gives you the blended white to blue gradient seen on the GW showcases. I suspected this would be the case when I saw the first pics (needing pure white primer) and have confirmed it myself this morning. If you’re not getting any kind of light blue at all but a darker grey then there’s a chance the pot was mislabeled (most likely actually being gryph-charger or basilcanum). There’s been several reports of that happening from IG and Twitter.

[Arkhanist]

Quick test of one thick coat of black templar over different greys I had to hand - wanted to see if putting it on over a darker base would make it closer to black than pictured. All brushed on without primer, so didn't basecoat absolutely smooth - which does show up through the contrast. With hindsight, I'd have done them through the airbrush.

 

From top left clockwise, pre-Contrast:

GW grey seer base x2, Vallejo model air medium sea grey x2 (71.049), badger stynylrez gray primer, vallejo game air stonewall grey, (72.749) and GW mechanicus standard grey base.

 

 

And after a single coat of heavy black templar, plus a couple done with space wolves grey where I moved it off the 'dome' that didn't come out like I'd hoped.

 

 

The biggest surprise was all the black templars looked pretty black, particularly in 'normal' light, and in need of edge highlighting. Probably my favourite is Black Templar over stonewall grey - it doesn't look that different beforehand, but adds a nice bluetone to the after result, and is set up for a simple edge highlight for a 'near black'.

 

Grey seer didn't cover that well, and surprisingly for a base paint needed 3 coats. Badger stynlyrez gray produced a very similar result and was simpler to apply and dried very level, being a primer.

 

Unshown is Army Painter 'Ash Grey' which dried to an indistinguishable colour from Grey Seer (so I ended up painting over). Ash Grey may well become my much cheaper version for zenithal highlighting via airbrush.

 

Stonewall grey is going to be my undercoat for the effect I'm after, but when time allows I'll strip these and retry with airbrushed versions over primer, and a slightly thinned version of Black Templar that may bring up it's edge highlighting a bit better - going on heavy, it's too close at a distance to just, well, black.

Edited June 16, 2019 by Arkhanist

[N1SB]

Brothers, great data points, thanks for contributing your learnings to the collective. Another Warhammer mate and I are actually holding off our bundle purchase as we take your insights into account, to choose the right Contrast paints, because the bundle deal goes on until June 30th apparently. So all this is much appreciated.

I'd be really interested to see any Deathwing painted using Contrasts. I've always struggled painting bone colour consistently, but unsure how I'd go about it with the Contrasts - Skeleton Horde and Medium 50-50 mix over Wraithbone?

Hey Brother. I had to fight through a million people or so to get to the Warhammer Store today (we have this massive protest, NOT talking politics here, just the logistics of how far I had to wade, and then walk 1.5 hours back home because no transports...kinda like an Ad Mech tbh), but I got you a sample! Painted by a cool dude called Aaron:

Not specifically Deathwing, but still that bone armour. Do you consider that too dark? Maybe with a Green Aquila instead of Gold, it'll look brighter by comparison, I dunno.

UPDATE - I shot Aaron a WhatsApp and he kindly replied ASAP for those interested on what he used. It was over a white basecoat:

Slightly thinned (Skeleton Horde) with water and removed excessive pooling. In hindsight prob should have used a medium to thin it, water made it really runny

Only problem i can think of is the lack of a color to touch up the armors' patchy bits, might be good to bring it up people on the forum might come up with something.

+++++

Keen to see how the metallic black works out

When I get a chance, I'll experiment myself, but don't wait up for me and perhaps another Frater can help. But I think this is a very relevant question, I'm seeing a lot of metallic finishes. And I've tried other metallic blacks, like using Tamiya paints, that's still way not good enough for our power armour needs imho. So will get back to you.

Edited June 17, 2019 by N1SB

[GenerationTerrorist]

^That DW example scheme is pretty darn good, mate. Nice one.

[Trench]

That bone coloured marine looks great to me, I might have to go with that scheme on my Death Guard army.

[Boyadventurer]

How have you guys been dealing with the blotchiness of the contrast paint? I've been experimenting with them on my nids over the past two days and I've been really disappointed. Going from the "one thick coat" level WHTV used in their video to a 2:1 contrast medium/paint ratio, it's always super blotchy -- the overall tint gets lighter the thinner I mix it, but it still blotches all the same.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

How are you applying the paint? I have no personal experience the with the Contrast paints yet, but based on a number of videos I've watched with people using them, they need to be applied like a wash and not used like regular paints with individual brush strokes. Larger brushes and faster coverage of an area also seems to help alleviate the tide marks or blotchiness. 

[Boyadventurer]

I'm using a size 3 brush on stealers and gaunts (about the size of the gw med shade brush). I've tried both a more precise, controlled stroke, and more of the dab some on and spread it around style. The dab and spread was a *little* better, but still not very satisfactory.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I dunno what to suggest then. I'm not very impressed with them so far and have no intention of buying any. 

 

Here's one of the more objective (non-GW fanboy, if you will) reviews of the Contrast paints I've seen. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjaAJ0yJI_A

[N1SB]

How have you guys been dealing with the blotchiness of the contrast paint? I've been experimenting with them on my nids over the past two days and I've been really disappointed. Going from the "one thick coat" level WHTV used in their video to a 2:1 contrast medium/paint ratio, it's always super blotchy -- the overall tint gets lighter the thinner I mix it, but it still blotches all the same.

 

I checked out your Old One Eye in your gallery, I thought it looked really good and very clearly heavily inked.  So it might be something with the specific Contrast colour you used because I did notice some are more susceptible to splotching than others.  Were you using the Skeletal Horde colour?

 

I'm using a size 3 brush on stealers and gaunts (about the size of the gw med shade brush). I've tried both a more precise, controlled stroke, and more of the dab some on and spread it around style. The dab and spread was a *little* better, but still not very satisfactory.

 

I don't think I have a solution, but let me just share my notes.  I happened to use a GW shade brush (close to a Vallejo No. 2 I really liked but wore out).  I painted the Contrast like how I'd ink a vehicle, just downstrokes, not so much precise but consistently just 1 direction.  Best example was the robes on the Soritas-looking Stormcast, I'd brush along the sway of her robes and the folds, etc.  That clearly had the smoothest effect of my initial test batch.