I have ordered 6 of the Contrast paints that I rail against. We'll see how they do.

I like them a lot. They will take a little practice though, and don't work miracles. But they do speed things up. Tip: for white use 50:50 Apothecary white and contrast medium for better results

7 hours ago, Alan Noir said:

I like them a lot. They will take a little practice though, and don't work miracles. But they do speed things up. Tip: for white use 50:50 Apothecary white and contrast medium for better results

I have long said that they are just a premixed version of a very old technique. I mostly am bored and feel like proving it! Which I cannot do without a sample.

8 hours ago, Alan Noir said:

I like them a lot. They will take a little practice though, and don't work miracles. But they do speed things up. Tip: for white use 50:50 Apothecary white and contrast medium for better results

I, like Tauntaun Scout, have been resisting mightily, but white is the one color I was interested in trying out. I don't have any stormtroopers to do (I am 100% Rebel to the core), so thus far I have not pulled the trigger on it.

I'll try them out if I ever get around to start collecting clone wars. Seems to be made for the gazillion B1 droids.

3 hours ago, aniron said:

I'll try them out if I ever get around to start collecting clone wars. Seems to be made for the gazillion B1 droids.

This^

I probably would have gone insane painting all of my B1's the traditional way. Instead I did all of them in 2 days

I got 6 to try. $50. Ouch.

I just kept it even more simple with my droids. Army painter skeleton bone primer, black templar contrast for weapons and army painter strong tone mixed with lahmian medium for wash. Easy and great results.

Below you can see how my Rebel Troopers look like using Contrast Paints (Only the band on the helmet is paint with regular Citadel paints).

I have only used a few Contrast Paints:

Apothecary White for shirts
Militarum Green for pants
Skelleton Horde for jackets
Basilicanum Gray for weapons
Snakebite Leather for boots and backpacks
Darkoath Flesh for skin
Talassar Blue for the alien and the glasses

All of it printed with Grey Seer Primer

In my opinion, totally worth their price.

To me it seems like they are an expensive way to go about a technique I already use by tinkering with medium. But I am bored and willing to test that theory.

Dunno what primer to use. It seems to me that the special primers are either matte or satin, whichever the usual Citadel primer isn't. Might have to experiment on scrap figures first.

Also I am gonna paint an extra 1,000 points of Nurgle right now, and successive washes (which is all Contrast really is IMO) seem to be a great option for Nurglesque models.

Does anyone have a reputable source for info on contrast paints? I'm not really into the mini scene; I'd like some info from a good source before I commit to a sizable purchase of paints. I've picked up some info from the forums here, but a lot of it is contradictory or incomplete.

On 4/2/2020 at 5:21 PM, SFC Snuffy said:

Does anyone have a reputable source for info on contrast paints? I'm not really into the mini scene; I'd like some info from a good source before I commit to a sizable purchase of paints. I've picked up some info from the forums here, but a lot of it is contradictory or incomplete.

I will report back after using them.

From what I can guess, the “special” primer for them is just a satin finish.

Got my two copies of Dark Imperium today so the contrasting shall commence. Also, the eBaying of soooo many Ultramarines. And books. And dice.

I appreciate that. I've poked around a bit on the GW webpage, but I've long since stopped believing their propaganda/BS.

You're not far off, these aren't revolutionary and the contrast paints can absolutely be recreated with medium and other products. I think every painter tends to find a formula that works for them, depending on their tastes and tools (airbrush or not, etc). People have absolutely been painting similarly for many years. These do tend to have a lot of pigment in them (so they only take one coat) and that could be a small difference from your personal methods. You can still use medium with these contrast paints to quickly and easily achieve fades, paint a small amount of medium onto where you want the paint to flow to and then draw it out with the contrast paint (this is like a magic trick, quick and really effective). I think the line of "special" primers GW introduced was really just 3 light greys that compliment this type of painting.

I'm old enough to remember the old ink sets from GW, so these aren't new to me. It's a very different style of painting, with a distinctive look as well (shiny, saturated tones and generally a little sloppy at edges due to how difficult it is to control the flow of the paint) but can achieve a solid table top level rather quickly with a small amount of practice. I'd be very happy with those troopers shown above, especially considering the time investment.

Here's a good write up (not me) with solid suggestions on how to recreate your own. Since you're headed down that path anyway thought you may appreciate it.

https://tangibleday.com/citadel-contrast-paints-worth-it/

I am highly critical of them. But I figure it's better to use them instead of criticizing something I haven't actually tried yet.

I dabble with inks to increase pigment, medium to decrease it, and water and soap to change how the stuff flows. So I don't think these are anything but the ink and medium concoctions I already use.

For Nurgle, specifically, they seem well suited to rapidly painting an army. Who cares if some green or brown gets where it shouldn't? Looks like gangrene or whatever. I am selling the marines and books from two core sets to get a free 1,000 points of Nurgle models.

On 3/31/2020 at 7:00 PM, TauntaunScout said:

I have ordered 6 of the Contrast paints that I rail against. We'll see how they do.

I was on the side of "these are a way to get lazy *** paints on the table and I would never use them" to "these are a good tool in the toolbox" very quickly. I still would never use them as intended, but I have found they do some unique things that can be very useful for effect. I guess I use them more like GW tech paints than for their intended purpose in that regard.

My favorite use for them right now is to use the contrast medium and contrast white to thin down Nuln Oil and it makes a great 'white shade' that makes distinctive lines that show detail while running off the highlight spots as it drys. The results are less highlighting to get to a pure white.

I also like using them over ledbelcher or gun metal primer to make 'colored metals'.

Third I really like the contrast black with a little dark blue for star wars (non metallic) guns. Saves a ton of highlighting.

Just a couple of examples of effect that contrasts bring to the table.

Painting a chaos army with them. It'll be up to 60 models soon and that's probably where I'll leave it until I revisit it with (metal) demons for reinforcements. I am firmly of the (now informed!) opinion that these Contrast paints are old news, dressed up to sell a product. They're a fun novelty for the convenience of being pre-mixed, but it's just the kind of thick washes I make with acrylic medium. You absolutely have to hit this stuff with at least one quick coat of varnish ASAP. Even normal handling wears the contrast paint off. I had a slightly older chaos dreadnought in the basement and I bought two copies of Dark Imperium, reselling the Primaris Marines and rulebooks to get the chaos models for free. Because I didn't want any Newhammer GW army bad enough to actually spend money on it, at their crazy new prices. So I went with a freebie plastic chaos army. The models lend themselves well to successive washes and it doesn't matter if some of the colors run together a bit on these guys. I've finished one core set's worth and a dreadnought. Working on a 2nd core set now. I have an old metal Demon HQ and two troop squads in the basement which I'll then add to these and probably call it done. All in all, the contrast paints are a fun way to support my LGS right now, but, they're hardly the technological wonder they get made out to be. I bought red, yellow, blue, green, dark brown, and a Caucasian skin tone, figuring I could mix those to make whatever. There IS a learning curve to mixing Contrast paints with each other. I'd probably be better off making my own washes from scratch, than mixing Contrasts with each other. They tend not to be very “pure” reds, yellows, etc. so there’s always a danger that mixing any two of them will just make brown unless you experiment a bit. I could see a use for them mostly for big, organic armies. I wouldn't use them much on tanks or anything like that.

This experiment is concluded. Contrast paints are just the washes we always made up with medium and soap, but, it could be convenient to have a steady supply of the same color for a big army. This Nurgle army, by the way, was completely free. I bought two Dark Imperium's and sold everything but these minis. You do not need a Codex to play with these, and they total over 1,000 points. So even the most expensive miniatures wargame, Warhammer 40k, can be played at the "real" level and doesn't have to be expensive if you are willing to get creative and don't chase the latest broken combos. I've said it before and I'll say it again: miniatures is a cheap hobby. To give the Contrast paints a fair shake, I felt I had to use them on current Citadel minis. They rub off extremely easily, you must varnish the heck out of them. I had to do touch ups after basing because my fingers rubbed contrast paint off some figures.

13 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

This experiment is concluded. Contrast paints are just the washes we always made up with medium and soap, but, it could be convenient to have a steady supply of the same color for a big army. This Nurgle army, by the way, was completely free. I bought two Dark Imperium's and sold everything but these minis. You do not need a Codex to play with these, and they total over 1,000 points. So even the most expensive miniatures wargame, Warhammer 40k, can be played at the "real" level and doesn't have to be expensive if you are willing to get creative and don't chase the latest broken combos. I've said it before and I'll say it again: miniatures is a cheap hobby. To give the Contrast paints a fair shake, I felt I had to use them on current Citadel minis. They rub off extremely easily, you must varnish the heck out of them. I had to do touch ups after basing because my fingers rubbed contrast paint off some figures.

I have not had a problem with paint rubbing off with the contrasts. How long were they dry before basing?

13 hours ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

I have not had a problem with paint rubbing off with the contrasts. How long were they dry before basing?

A few days. It is something I had heard on other reviews also. Maybe all the spikes in my particular selection of models makes them prone to it, too.

I painted up a ton of older models. 2nd edition core set plus metal dreadnought instead of cardstock one. Painted in 3 days.

Last night I painted these. I am basically painting core set armies in the order needed to play through the 3 Battle For Armageddon scenarios. So first I paint 30 gretchin and 5 space marines, then I paint 15 orks and 5 space marines, then I paint 10 gretchin, 5 orks, 10 space marines, and an ork dreadnought.