Initial Thoughts on Citadel Contrast Paints

[Muzfish4]

There is already a fair bit of discussion on various sites around the new Citadel Contrast Paints (CCPs). Haven't seen too much here so I thought I'd add my two kopeks worth.

CCPs are promoted by GW as being:

Contrast is a revolutionary paint that makes beautiful painting simple and fast. Each Contrast paint, when applied over a light undercoat of Grey Seer or Wraithbone, gives you a vivid base and realistic shading all in a single application.

So, are they all that and a bag of Twisties?

Short answer is no, they couldn't possibly be. So, what are they good for?

I tried them out on things I will probably paint in bulk in this case skeletons from backing the Forgotten World KS by FireForge, and stormtroopers for Star Wars Legion. With the Legion stuff I had a base white spray coat (actually car body primer from an auto shop) on a stormtrooper from the seemingly OOP Hasbro Star Wars Command range of toys. These guys are about the same size as a 'standard' toy solider and are reasonably well detailed to act as a test miniature.  Here's the result:



Initially I was pretty disappointed. There was a distinct grey-blue colour to the miniature quite unlike the light grey-ish colour the pot seemed to promise. The coverage was also a little blotchy and not at all even for these smooth surfaces. I was ready to junk the idea then and there but I then added a coat of VGC white to one leg (and the trooper's 'hector protector') to see how it went and I changed my position. As you can see, the white top coat worked pretty well and only needed a few thing coats to get the effect you see. This could be a reasonable option for white in-bulk painting.

I then thought about skeletons. Thanks to the miracle of the Reaper Bones range (and poor impulse control over KickStarter) I have waaaaay too many miniatures sitting around looking for some paint. Would CCP be they way I'd clear this backlog?

In the spirit of exploration I resolved to try a few different options and remembered the sage advice from a chum who has published some games that good testing should also 'try the stupid strategies'. To that end I tried three options with some Bones skellies:

1: CCP over the 'ready to paint/no undercoat needed' Bones surface.
2: CCP over a cool colour, one you might use for old bones.
3: CCP over a warmer colour, one you'd probably use for your standard tabletop skeleton.

Here's the results with 1 the left, 2 in the middle and 3 on the right:



Using CCP directly onto Bones just didn't work. the CCP had poor coverage, contracting and not sticking to may of the surfaces. The Bones onto a cooler colour (in this case VMC Deck Tan) stuck just fine but for mine didn't work with this sort of base. The CCP on the halfling skeleton (over a coat of VMC Ivory) worked just fine coverage-wise and did everything I'd expect a good inking or wash would do, but without too much running and pooling.

To follow this up, I had a skeletal lion from Dark Fable miniatures ready to go with a white undercoat over which I had painted a layer of VMC Khaki Grey and slopped on the CCP Skeleton Horde:



Again, with a complimentary colour for an undercoat the CCP worked well and delivered the results I'd expect from a good wash. It's by no means the finished product but is definitely a good base upon which to build.

My initial impressions of CCP are that they are quite good as a wash/ink option and do not run or pool as much as similar products. They're not the complete package in one pot but they will,  I think, be a boon for new or reluctant painters.

Finally, a few tips from my limited experience:

1: Match the basecoat colour to the CCP colour. Try to avoid using a warm colour over a cool one (and, I imagine, vice versa). Remember to have the base coat as a comparatively light colour to get the full effect.

2: Once the CCP is down and dried a quick highlight or dry brush should usually be worth the effort to really get your miniatures looking good.

3: The effects you'll get are quite good and should be okay to get a force to a tabletop standard quite quickly. Good for hordes of the same thing (zombies, skellies & etc) but you won't be winning too many Golden Demons using CCPs alone.

4: Finally, these are pretty pricey so you'd really only need them for things you'll paint in bulk so unless you've got cash to burn I suggest that it would be prudent to be judicious in your colour selection to, at least initially, get a few high-usage colours and see how you go from there.

Anyway, so much for first thoughts. Given the standard of painting on show around these parts I don't see any real call for LAFers to run out and empty the shelves of CCP but I do hope this is useful to anyone considering trying CCPs.

[Sunjester]

Thanks for this, I found it very useful. I have been considering giving the CCPs a go (my usual painting standard is "basic") and you have give me some good pointers.

[Leman]

I bought an experimental pot of Blood Angels Red and tried it over a base of Vallejo Iraqi Sand. It worked well for some early Renaissance clothing giving a good shading effect on folds in the cloth. I may well get some other primary colours to speed up the painting of larger blocking areas, concentrating in the traditional manner on things such as faces, belting, trim etc. I was advised by the GW shop assistant to make sure the finished figure is varnished as the thin nature of CCPs can result in them rubbing off with handling.

[Sir_Theo]

I like them. They seem to represent a way of making a significant dent in my lead pile. I generally undercoat in light grey which seems to work fine, although I've experimented with a bone colour in a few things which also works well.

[Hobgoblin]

I've used them a lot over the past couple of weeks, as documented in my thread in the Fantasy section. I really like them. I've found them particularly effective at dealing with subtle textures (like the feathers and fur in John Dennett's Grenadier sculpts, which are too fine to respond well to drybrushing). They're also great for 15mm. All of these were done with contrast paints except for the metal parts. The skaven had light highlights on the flesh, but the others are pretty much straight contrast:





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They also seem great for 15mm.

[Cait Sidhe]

Yeah I've found them quite tricky to use and not the beginners shortcut they're marketed as. I think they'll be fantastic for detailed stuff like fur or scales but unfortunately I picked them up to see if they would help me get through a Space Crusade project. After a few attempts this is my best results, this was using the "special" grey seer primer.




The large smooth areas of really don't help the effect and ends up fairly blotchy in places. I'm convinced there's a knack to it though as I've watched videos of pros getting good results with the same colours.

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah I've found them quite tricky to use and not the beginners shortcut they're marketed as. I think they'll be fantastic for detailed stuff like fur or scales but unfortunately I picked them up to see if they would help me get through a Space Crusade project. After a few attempts this is my best results, this was using the "special" grey seer primer.

The large smooth areas of really don't help the effect and ends up fairly blotchy in places. I'm convinced there's a knack to it though as I've watched videos of pros getting good results with the same colours.

You know, I think those look pretty good. As always with miniature painting, the devil's in the details. If you were to paint the lenses in the helmets using that gradient/point-of-light trick and maybe use the black contrast paint over the tubes on the helmets and backpacks and the rubbery bits at the back of the legs, and then add some sharp insignia to the shoulder pads, you'd have some very serviceable marines. You could do the guns in the contrast paints and just edge the blade attachments in silver.

For me, the blotchiness doesn't detract from the look; it's much how I'd imagine battle-worn armour. For comparison, I reckon your yellow armour has come out better than mine here (using traditional paints), and you could get to a better tabletop standard by adding details in the same way - and much more quickly too!

[Cait Sidhe]

You know, I think those look pretty good. As always with miniature painting, the devil's in the details...

I think they look a bit more blotchy in real life but the yellow isn't too bad except the lower legs, the blue by far came out worst but I think I didn't use enough. If they were slightly more modern styled marines I think the leg armour would work better. It's seems to be just all a matter of control as well, you need a good amount of contrast so it doesn't dry too quick and you can correct pooling but not enough to cause the blotchyness so currently practicing on some more minis.

A mate also suggested hiding it a bit with battle damage and pointed out that if you can get the red and yellow to work that would be pretty much considered a win.

[Duncan McDane]

Got myself the Skeleton Horde en Wyldwood contrast paints yesterday. Will initially use them as washes over a base colour ( not a primer ) and see how it goes from there...

[grant]

Basically, not interested. Another GW gimmick.

[Harry Faversham]

Basically, not interested. Another GW gimmick.

Ha! Ha! He shoots, he scores!!!

 

[Bloggard]

have the whole lot (yes there's always at least one sucker ...  ).

very inconsistent - so much so that marketing them as one coherent range with similar properties is pushing it to say the least.

a few get close to doing what's claimed for them (blood angels red seems good) - the browns and flesh tones are as good as or better quality shades / washes then otherwise available (*actually they do work in 'one' coat pretty much, so are not washes / shades as such).

but really they just seem to be a range of (acrylic?) inks and washes, with most of the issues that have always plagued such paints present and (in)correct.

Hobgoblin and others are getting nice results - and they've worked beautifully for me on some fireforge byzantine spearmen - where the colour palette and nature of the detail / sculpting on the figures really flatter them, but have also utterly spoiled some lovely Copplestone Frostgrave metals ... which I'll have to completely strip now*.

* - after all - one's ok and should finish up nicely, one only had to have his tunic white-washed and again has turned out quite acceptably - the other I did indeed have to strip. I'd attempted to do an all-over pre-shade of 'skeleton horde' in order to mute subsequent greens and browns, but it really didn't work - just a blotchy mess.

bit of a balancing act with these paints - in some applications, and with some of the paints, it seems like you mustn't overload the brush, while at the same time not allowing paint to dry before you've finished a particular area of colour ... then with something else, loading heavily works just fine ...
the potential for decent results with speed are there, but there's a bit of knack involved - hopefully something that experience will facilitate.

[Hobgoblin]

have the whole lot (yes there's always at least one sucker ...  ).

very inconsistent - so much so that marketing them as one coherent range with similar properties is pushing it to say the least.

Which colours haven't been working for you? It would be good to know which ones to regard with suspicion!

Hobgoblin and others are getting nice results - and they've worked beautifully for me on some fireforge byzantine spearmen - where the colour palette and nature of the detail / sculpting on the figures really flatter them, but have also utterly spoiled some lovely Copplestone Frostgrave metals ... which I'll have to completely strip now.

That's an interesting point. They definitely seem to suit certain designers' work better than others. For example, I've started painting some (tiny) Bob Olley Essex 15mm stuff with them, and they're just perfect for that; they bring out the intricate detail much better than other washes or manual painting could (my manual painting at least!). And I think they're likely to work well on his 28mm stuff too - which can be quite hard to paint well conventionally, especially the most Rococo designs.

I can see how they might not work well on Copplestone 28s, given the unclutteredness of those models - although they work well on Copplestone 15s.

Here's the shield of a 15mm Bob Olley halfling. It's tiny. But a single stroke of contrast paint brought out the detail much better than either Reiksland Fleshshade or conventional painting would.

[Bloggard]

Which colours haven't been working for you? It would be good to know which ones to regard with suspicion!

Aethermatic blue and Magos purple - at least for me, out of the bottle these seem like typical citadel watery washes - I've had to use preshades with them to be of any use at all [see pink trousers on dwarfish GA crewman in pic below] or at least try and do a few coats. I haven't exhaustively tested all shades of course.
Some of the dark blues and greens seem a bit problematic too: they 'cover' but don't seem to actually 'shade' that well - giving a more uniform and matt look.
And this is another thing - some of the paints are quite satin with the one coat, and some matt ... (adding more coats seems to increase glossiness - consistent with inks).

anyhow - here are a few pics:
the byzantines are as good as I could hope for (not finished obviously - and the armour needs a wash). I don't think I'd better that significantly with conventional painting.
All Contrasts (apart from the armour and spear shafts), and straight fromt the bottle, although some bits have two coats (the 'pauldrons' for example).

in the other work table pic - the group of 4 on the white gesso pot - three are painted with contrast paints, inc. a Copplestone wizard, the one where I had to redo the tunic. The Sinbad guy is a 'basecoat / wash shade / drybrush highlights' effort from some time back, and I think they compare well with him.
the wizard to the left  of the pic (oof and a red tunic) is about as good as I can manage with conventional layering these days (there's an infocus pic of him in my GA thread), and again I think the Contrasted figs compare well - and have that inky brightness (they have been matt coated).

* the orange / red trouser leg on the harliquined oriental fantasy figure is in fact a tamiya acrylic - gosh does that stuff pong! I was just testing colours out on him, but quite like the patchwork result, and am keeping him that way!






always good to see Bob Olley figs btw - and that shield has come out well.
I've found the Contrast flesh shades to consistently 'work' - without going back with too much titivation or further shading either.

[Leman]

Just tried the Darkoath Flesh over a Wraith bone undercoat. Very disappointing result on 10mm figures. Will have to still paint them in the old way to get a viable result. They may work with 15s and up but I think 10s are going to need the old style of paints and washes.