Initial Contrast Experiments (from us all)

[Kinstryfe]

So I've had the chance to play with a few colors and the medium and here's what I've found.

 

The contrast medium is nice and useful. I've tried it with several acrilic inks and being able to adjust the pigment is nice. I haven't tried the browns or Black Templar and I doubt I will with how nice this is working. I've also found it pretty much essential to using the paints at all, and highly recommended putting it in a dropper bottle to avoid pot contamination.

 

My first focus was on the lighter colors. Apothecary white is meh, basically acting like a very light grey targeted wash. I guess the nice thing is not having to be as controlled as traditional methods? Vulpus Pink is...I don't know why this exists, honestly, as no matter what I do it keeps coming out deep magenta. I'm hoping I find a way to make it work as heard other people say they've had better results. There turquoise is ridiculously dark, and I guess it works ok if that's the shade you want. Iyanden yellow seems to want to pool into deep orange recesses, and my only good results have been using it more like a stain and less like a wash. Apply, then wick most of it off, seems to give me the best results. The one potential saving grace to these though is that they wet blend like a champ, so I'm sure I'll find some applications for them down the road.

 

On the other end of the results was testing Talassar Blue and Blood Angels and Flesh Tearers reds. I made sure to pre-shade and highlight a couple of Marines, and predictably this gave much better results than just using a single flat undercoat. I also found that the results can be greatly enhanced by working with two color shades and wet blending them together. The reds in particular gave a very nice red gradient between the preshading and blending. I was also able to go back after it dried and target shade some spots lightly which was nice. The end results were fairly nice blue and red power armour. The blue I could have probably accomplished easier with traditional methods, but the red was nice enough that I will probably use it in the future. Note that due to the preshading and the drying time of contrast paints it still took about 4 hours to pull off so wasn't really a time saver.

 

Overall verdict: the medium is fun stuff, wet blending is super easy, but the amount of time needed to make it look truly good makes it another method to use, not a massive time saver. Not that that's a terrible thing, it'll just be (as has been said a thousand times by now) another tool to use.

[Boyadventurer]

Oh that OOE is an oldie, long before contrast! Here's a few pics of what I've done over a wraithbone base

 

 

And the colours actually look a little more vibrant in the pics than real life. The colour is pretty dull in person tbh. The Tervigon was spread around like a wash. The gaunt was a more delicate stroke since I was doing several colours there, and the stealer was done with around a 2:1 mix of contrast medium and aggaros dunes (wyldwood for the carapace which was way too thin).

The stealer isn't bad, but it's really not what I had in mind since it's getting plugged as "one thick coat". I could have done a similar enough job with just seraphim sepia.

[N1SB]

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

 

 

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

 

 

I edited that post, but just for your convenience, my bud Aaron shared his insight from hindsight on how he painted that ASAP on WhatsApp:

 

 

Slightly thinned (Skeletal 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.

 

Brother Kinstryfe also mentioned the medium for mixing, and it really relates to Contrast in particular because the way it works does involve its consistency, how the shading is supposed to separate out, etc.  Very interesting points I found.

 

My mate Aaron also mentioned the lack of a touch-up paint.  He is being neither a cheerleader nor naysayer here, he's a realist and it's really good point.  I totally relate because I had to fix my Militarum Green Marine, and by chance my Vallejo Russian Uniform was a very close match, and I have experience fixing "happy (painting) accidents" (i.e. I succeed only because I have so much experience failing lol).  It's a dealbreaker, just something to keep in mind and perhaps further investigate.

 

 

And the colours actually look a little more vibrant in the pics than real life. The colour is pretty dull in person tbh. The Tervigon was spread around like a wash. The gaunt was a more delicate stroke since I was doing several colours there, and the stealer was done with around a 2:1 mix of contrast medium and aggaros dunes (wyldwood for the carapace which was way too thin).

The stealer isn't bad, but it's really not what I had in mind since it's getting plugged as "one thick coat". I could have done a similar enough job with just seraphim sepia.

 

 

Great insight.  I was zooming in your photos in sequence and I thought the Tervigon and Gaunt looked good, then I saw the Genestealer which does look even nicer, and I really see your point.  Like if we're painting Contrast the same way we're already painting with traditional paints, then what's the point?  We want new tools but the reason is we want to do new things or do old things in a new way, etc.

 

I'm smiling right now because in this reply, I touched on a very typical paradox with new technology in general.  On the one hand, sometimes the new stuff is too different making it hard to retrofit with existing tools (i.e. fixing splotches or just painting "oops" on Skeletal Horde), on the other hand, sometimes the new stuff is not different enough to justify getting/using it.  The eternal dilemma.

[jaxom]

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.

I think a last step of drybrushing with one shade higher bone or even a white would really round this out as a fast way to do Deathwing.

[MithrilForge]

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.

I think a last step of drybrushing with one shade higher bone or even a white would really round this out as a fast way to do Deathwing.

Or simply the fast part is the wash and then a nice edge highlight (not overall,just high points) would make it pop too

it does look good though...

Mithril

[Sabadin]

Playing around with these at home some more, my personal experience is as follows. There's really 2 looks you can aim for, the faster "battle ready" look pushed by GW, and a more involved but cleaner look. The first is just as advertised, take it out of the pot, slap it on and drag it around the mini. You'll get a lot of pooling and splotches, but there will be a nice 'pop' of highlights and shading from the base colour. The second option is the more traditional using a palette to carefully load your brush and a more controlled application. You get a more even base and shading, but a noticeable drop in the 'pop' on the highlights. You'll need to give it another pass with more traditional edge highlights or drybrushing. Still haven't played around with a medium to see if that helps bring a better middle ground.

[Bat33.1]

I've not yet bought any contrast paint and from what I've seen so far it feels like the Kings new Clothes. Does it offer anything that you couldn't achieve by mixing lahmian medium with a layer paint over a lighter undercoat?

I need to try some myself but I'm very reluctant to invest heavily into new paint when it doesn't offer much benefit. I can see how it would work on the AoS spooky ghost models and various other kits with smoke effects or similar but for general base painting I'm not convinced.

 

I know top level painters will be using it for effects and glazes, eta but you can give most of those people children's poster paints and they will still out perform 90% of hobbiests

[Arkhanist]

I'm finding Contrast really useful, it's exactly what I was hoping it was going to be. It's a viscous heavy wash that pulls back from sharp edges and stains surfaces much more evenly than a wash. When using it neat, it most reminds me of brushing on army painter oil-based dip, and I'm sure it's tickling some long forgotten part of my old brain when I first started out painting with enamels. What it isn't is like painting with normal layer/base paints, it's a very different approach - going from light to dark and a very different flow. Picking the right underlayer colour is very important, small changes there can make the final finish quite different.

 

I literally only got my order yesterday, so I've only had a couple of hours to play with it so far. What it isn't good for is painting big flatish surfaces (unless you *want* it blotchy), though it can do that with some effort and thinning, though once you apply it only as a thin layer it's basically a harder to use layer paint IMO, though definitely potential for wet blending with the medium. It's also definitely not a replacement for normal paint, or magic, it's a tool in the box as has been said many times.

 

Bear in mind, my hands wobble a bit, so edge highlighting in the middle of stuff (i.e. not big sharp corners) without getting thick, wobbly lines is really hard for me. Getting glazes and washes to go on how I want is also tricky. Contrast is nicely viscous, so that as long as I'm neat with a decent brush, it doesn't go beyond the area I'm painting, unlike washes which I tend to leak everywhere. If I do accidentally dab it someplace by accident, I've got enough time to wipe it off with a clean brush or a tissue.

 

Areas I've had most success so far:

Blood Angels chest eagle. Apply neat black templar over stonewall grey, and it's a lovely dark grey with auto-highlighted feathers. A little extra line to add a little shading between the two 'columns' of feathers. It's exactly the effect I wanted, and no individual feather highlighting at all, which is a thing I hate and suck at. Works just as well for the ribbed joints.

 

Blood Angels bolter casing. Black templar applied neat (using dry palette to control brush load) over stynylrez gray primer, it's a near black that does all the first stage edge highlights for me. It'll need some light dawnstone or equivalent edge highlighting to make it fully pop, but still a time saver for me, I hate highlighting bolters. Also working nicely with the same approach over blood angels symbol.

 

Purity seals. Skeleton horde over wraithbone, excess wicked off, with a light highlight of pallid wych flesh. Not drastically different than the standard sepia approach, but one less step than I normally do.

 

Mid-tone leather pouches. Wyldwood thinned 2:1 with contrast medium over karak stone. A little dark in the middle of the pouches compared to the edges, so I think I'll try it over tallarn sand or baneblade brown next, for a darker overall leather. As is, it doesn't really need edge highlighting at all, though I might do a tiny bit. A big saver over my usual 5 step approach for small bits of leather, for a similar result. (my pot of wyldwood is really thick compared to several others, dunno if that's normal)

 

Weathering white transfers. Black templar just stippled on, then kinda wiped off with the brush after it's dried a touch.

 

And demo of above, straight off my painting table. The red is still glossy from pin shading (post airbrush), and obviously no gems or metallics done yet - just showing the black templar, skeleton horde and wyldwood effects.

 

 

 

(edit: gloss and my painting light undiffused reflections are throwing my camera a bit on review; the sgt's bolt rifle far right is the best example of what the black templar really looks like, chest eagle is a touch darker IRL, and the purity seal parchment is blown out on all bar the far left guy. Red is much darker IRL. Will try and take a better picture in the lightbox when these guys are done)

 

 

There are some differences between the range, definitely, so each paint needs some practise, but this stuff is going to make doing my genecult and death guard sooo much easier.

 

Downsides? Grey seer and wraithbone in a pot suuuuck. I don't know if they've rushed production, but they're like the worst army painter paints; very thick and claggy, but thin it down with flow aid and/or medium and the coverage goes to hell. Just awful. My wraithbone pot kept dripping onto the hinge and meant I kept getting it on my hands (I close pots after I've transferred some to my palette). Even thinned and decanted into a dropper bottle, I only salvaged half a pot's worth. Soon as I find an equivalent colour replacement, that stuff is going straight in the bin.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Arkhanist

[Kinstryfe]

I've not yet bought any contrast paint and from what I've seen so far it feels like the Kings new Clothes. Does it offer anything that you couldn't achieve by mixing lahmian medium with a layer paint over a lighter undercoat?

Specialist stuff sure. Maybe for wet blending because you can simultaneously blend the recess and highlight colors easily. Other than that I can't think of anything that you couldn't accomplish with conventional methods and paints. I think it'll boil down to preferences and some things being "easier" one way or another. Having the edge highlights partially done with certain dark colors will certainly help people who have trouble edge highlighting, for example. But I see it mostly as a matter of ease with some things versus being a superior method. Honestly in my opinion the only "must have" in your toolkit is the medium, and maybe if you want to play around then pick up a Iyanden Yellow, Talassar Blue, and Blood Angels Red so you can mix and match as needed if you do find that project where you want to play around a little.

[Majkhel]

Thanks for the review Arkhanist! :)

[Mendi Warrior]

Great idea to concentrate the various experiences into one place!

I have no personal experience with contrast paints yet, I'm considering adding some to those I use and hoping to greatly reduce the amount of unpainted models I have (but for that I just need to actually spend more time painting, whether I use contrast paints or other ones).

I stumbled across the following on El Descanso del Escriba, a Spanish language blog http://descansodelescriba.blogspot.com/2019/06/mas-referencias-de-los-colores-de.html

If my understanding is correct, these are basically experiments made by James Martin painting contrast paints on bases undercoated with respectively corax white, grey seer, wraithbone and leadbelcher

[Marshal Rohr]

The biggest success yesterday was the ability to recreate the forge world red for blood angels by using GW mechanicus standard grey and grey seer cans to do a brute force preshade. Following that I did flesh tearers red/contrast medium in a 50/50 mixture and a single controlled coat of undiluted Angron red applied with a brush. The shading will require some refining (I applied a gloss coat that made the contrast layer more difficult and the Angron red has a naturally glossy finish I’ll rely on instead).

 

Most of the negative reviews of contrast aren’t really valid right now, any more than a typical YouTuber trying to make clicks off poopooing every new thing that comes along. Likewise the reviews that ‘contrast solves all problems we’ve ever had’ are too optimistic. The paints themselves are great and everyone should buy some because the more the community experiments as a whole, the more questions will be answered and uses we will find. Definitely ignore anyone who hasn’t actually purchased them yet. That should go without saying.

 

Edit: someone mentioned pot contamination earlier, it’s definitely a big danger. Droppers or a specific ‘medium brush’ To get from pot to palette are practically required.

Edited June 17, 2019 by Marshal Rohr

[Reyner]

I got some of the contrast paints on Friday, pretty chuffed with them to be honest! The yellow looks good over a MK3 marine, the flesh tearers red is decent on my Orlocks but the orange isn't as bright as I wanted on my Van Saar so I'll drybrush that up a bit.

They are both a bit blotchy but these were done really quickly just messing about! Both done over Grey Seer spray, I also have a Death Guard Champion who has been sprayed with Zandri Dust and zenithal sprayed Grey Seer but I don't know what colour that will be yet. As someone who is a crappy painter these colours are really good jumping off points for me.

[jaxom]

Even blotchy, that's a great base for Imperial Fist yellow.

[Trench]

I suspect certain armies will become a lot more common thanks to these paints, Imperial Fists being one. 

[Reyner]

Even blotchy, that's a great base for Imperial Fist yellow.

Yeah I was very impressed with it, all I'll try next is a bit of dry brushing and weathering :)

[Chaoself]

Here is my first try. Made the Squad yesterday in the evening hours.

[Captain Semper]

That is a great thread! 

 

However it is not a WIP thread as such and therefore it will be moved to the General PCA Forum. And because it's an excellent topic and very useful to the frater it will also be pinned. :)

[Bat33.1]

FWIW I've been told that the Eavy Metal team have started using the contrast paints for flesh base coating and recommend it on 'organic' or high detail surfaces but not on flat panels or marine armour due to the random pooling effect. So I will at least pick up some flesh colour to test it soon.

[MegaVolt87]

Having thought about it more, the pooling could be modeled into battle damage/weathering to correct it, instead of re-applying another layer of regular paints to correct it. 

[Spacecow]

I tried some apothecary white yesterday on a lab coat on a Nurgle model. I must say that I fully went for the blotchyness and it looks great. So for that I’m already happy with it.

[RikuEru]

I am eagerly watching what you guys and others online produce with these colours.

 

Guess I will still prime my Primaris Mechanicum Standard Grey - and then use the Contrast colours for shoulders, leather pouches, the bolter casing, lenses, etc. (with Greyseer, Wraithbone or Boltgun underneath, depending on material)

[Ace Debonair]

Sooo I had to try a few Constrast Paints over a silver base, and I'm really happy with the results.

I don't know how much use this will be to anyone, but here's a picture of my findings, paired with Constrast over regular white basecoat for comparison.





A: One coat of Wyldwood over Corax White
B: Two Coats of Blood Angels Red over Corax White (an exact match for the red my nephew uses, this is a great timesaver for him )
C: One coat of Blood Angels Red over Stormhost Silver
D: One coat of Wyldwood over Stormhost Silver
E: One coat of Iyanden Yellow over Corax White (I honestly love how this looks, even if the orange is a bit strong)
F: One coat of Iyanden Yellow over Stormhost Silver (I am honestly planning an entire new army in this colour, right now )
G: One coat of Blood Angels Red over Corax White, for comparison purposes
H: One coat of Warp Lightning over Corax White
I: One coat of Warp Lightning over Stormhost Silver (Again, planning a whole new army just to use this colour more )
J: One coat of Dark Angels Green over Corax White
K: One coat of Dark Angels Green over Stormhost Silver

And the turquoise arm, which wasn't done with contrast paint, is Sotek Green washed with Druchii Violet. I painted one arm too many when originally building my Reivers, and haven't found a use for the spare bit yet.

EDIT: If anyone can test a coat of Apothecary White over some Stormhost Silver for me, I'd much appreciate it - if I can get metallic white armour, I know exactly what next month's wages are getting spent on!

Edited June 18, 2019 by Ace Debonair

[Larkyn]

D!!! That makes a really nice looking bronze. I might have to use that.

[RikuEru]

http://imgur.com/gallery/eKZQOYZ

 

Those are my tryouts so far.

It worked better using Basilicanum grey over a Mechanicus Standard Grey sprayed Basecoat.

 

(The Grey Seer Basecoat was REALLY weird, made the Contrast paint work like oil or a gel - guess it was far too hot)

Generally I started to thin the paints with some Medium. Made them flow far better. Have to try them again once temperatures drop some more...

(...and once I have my Greyseer & Wraithbone in a pot)

 

The Black Marine was my sample in the GW Store a week or so ago.

 

+++Thought of the Day: Contrast will not save you alone, but alongside others, it might!+++

Edited June 18, 2019 by RikuEru