Armypainter Speedpaints meet a Corsair Kill Team from GW

[Easy E]

Greetings all,

I had little interest in purchasing anything new from Games Workshop.  I dropped out of Warhammer 40K in 5th edition or so.  I had all the specialist games stuff I wanted, and a lot of older miniatures that I still use in various games.  However, some of my local players have been tinkering around with Kill Team.  The sharp eyed among you may have seen my Kill Team games have gone up on the tracker, but no real reports on it. 

Well, this led to our local wargaming group trying to run a Kill Team themed event in order to reach out to our local community of gamers and get them together in one place. 



This coming event led me to do something I did not expect to do at all.  I purchased a Kill Team from Games Workshop!  I still have plenty of old models, and had been using some older Orks as my team.  However, I was at a FLGS and saw the Corsairs box sitting there, and I also found a box of the Army Painter Speed Paints. 



With that being said, I decided to commit to painting these new Corsairs only with Speed Paints.

You can see how this experiment turned out on the blog here:
http://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2022/10/on-painting-desk-speed-painting-some.html

[Bloggard]

they look fantastic in that last group pic on your blog.

[fred]

They look good - I do like the red. I also really like the GW Contrast Red, it gives a similarly strong colour.

Did you try a mini without the pre-shading? I have found with contrast paints that the base colour has quite an impact on the final shade.

[Malebolgia]

Great colours, I really like what you did with them.

[Easy E]

Did you try a mini without the pre-shading? I have found with contrast paints that the base colour has quite an impact on the final shade.

Yeah, the Reaper Bones test minis did not have any special pre-paint work.  The guy in the trench coat I did nothing to other than put speed paint on him. 


In my limited experience, their are five keys to getting the speed paints to work really, really well. 

1. Pre-paint prep work.  The effort to wash and drybrush on the primer led to really great results and depth on the model.

2. Give them plenty of time to dry.

3. Paint lower parts up to higher parts of the model, i.e. skin, to clothing, to armor, to accessories

4. For touch-ups, if you over paint, you will want to put some grey or white on it before trying to re-paint the speed paint over it again.

5. Minimize handling while painting (or use clear coat to protect layers) and make sure that you varnish them after you are done. It does not hold up to handling well.

[Easy E]

Here is the end result.....



Overall, this project took me about 1/3rd of my normal time to paint up figures to tabletop quality.

[eilif]

Good stuff!
About to try contrast paints for the first time and this gave me a few things to consider.

[Major_Gilbear]

About to try contrast paints for the first time and this gave me a few things to consider.

Beware that Speedpaint reactivates with water/other paints, even after drying. Some colours are more prone to it than others.

Citadel Contrast doesn't have that issue, but they are twice the price.

I understand that you can mostly mitigate the reactivation issue with Speedpaint a bit by adding some acrylic varnish to them, as that helps 'set' them, but adding too much can change how the Speedpaint behaves generally.

If you can afford to wait a bit, Vallejo are currently formulating their own right now, and they should be out soon. People who've tested them early say they're like Contrast. No idea what the range will be called, or what the price will be, but certainly cheaper than Citadel.

[Easy E]

I have heard/read a lot of talk about re-activation, but did not run into it myself.

However, I am also not trying to paint more than just tabletop quality.  I am just trying to get painted figures on the table in less time that still look good at arm's length. 

This may have impacted my results.

[Major_Gilbear]

Hi Easy E,

My apologies - the thread come up on my phone, and it jumped me to the first unread post (eilif's)! I didn't mean to impugn your results or criticise your work, and I'm sorry if it came off that way at all. 

However, the reactivation of Speedpaints is reasonably well known at this point, and if you didn't overlay the colours much (or if the colours were similar to each other) then it's possible the issue may not have been especially apparent. I also note you lightly matte-sprayed your models without any problem, but those who varnish with a brush have tended to experience rather unfortunate effects, which is especially disheartening right when you think you're done. 

For in-depth tests of all the Speedpaints, both JH Minis and Stahly on YouTube have some very thorough and very fair videos that highlight the pros and cons of the stuff. In any case, I just thought I'd point the issue out, so that eilif could make a more informed choice before potentially buying a lot of them.

[Battle Brush Sigur]

Yup, the reactivation is a thing. Certain paints more than others (that yellow loves springing to life again it seems), but it's not a huge problem. To an extent it can be used for fancy blending and whatnot.

The price on Contrast paints is just silly and unjustified (especially  since they still insist in using those silly pots). I'm not hugely into AP in general, but I like the "speed paints". It's not like they're something incredibly new, and it's just one more tool. Nice thing about figure painting is that very little changes.

[Easy E]

Hi Easy E,

My apologies - the thread come up on my phone, and it jumped me to the first unread post (eilif's)! I didn't mean to impugn your results or criticise your work, and I'm sorry if it came off that way at all. 

Oh, no offense at all.  Just I did not experience the re-activation but I know others have. 

The reasons you related explain why I did not run across it.  I did not try to overlay the paints, and when I did it was an accident!    I only tried to use one layer of speed paints where I wanted the color, and that was about it.  Maybe some very targeted washing and dry brushing here and there, as anything beyond that is out of my league!   

I also did not brush varnish, and I can see why that would be a HUGE issue.