The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[Gibby]

Good point about the smaller scales. These could be brilliant for those!

[fitterpete]

Everyone has their own tabletop standard and this can up the game of casual painters. I'm interested.   I've been painting a Empire army of old GW metals for a year now, over a thousand infantry and 250 cavalry. During the week I paint 1 to 1.5 hours a night and whatever I can on the weekend depending on schedule. 40 infantry a week so if it saved me 5 minutes a fig that's a extra 3.5 hours a group. That's a lot of time saved. The marine pictured would have taken me 2 steps instead of 1. So one coat then highlight could save me a easy 5 minutes a figure.     Like Hobgoblin I have a lot of figures to paint. Like to get them done before I leave this earth.                     

[Jagannath]

Same as Hobgoblin - I’m interested to see why these so on small scales, I’m a very slow painter so my 15mm mass battle dreams might be helped along here. I am worried that the shallower detail of 15mm might not be advantageous here.

Of note to some - I’ve been following Contrast with interest and nearly every painter I’ve read who’s had a go said that Ultramarine blue is the worst one. So maybe that picture doesn’t quite tell the whole story. I’ve preordered a few to give them a go.

[Chico]

While Contrast isn't directly aimed at me (I don't have a unpainted pile anymore, they end up on ebay if they sit around too long now) I'm still interesting in how the white handles and the flesh paints do.

Hate painting both white and human flesh tones.

[Hobgoblin]

I am worried that the shallower detail of 15mm might not be advantageous here.

Yeah, that might be a problem. More generally, I wonder how well they'll work on things that aren't ultra-animated/detailed GW plastics. I can imagine that what looks good on an AoS figure with fluttering robes and flags might look a little less exciting on a Gripping Beast viking or whatever.

Of note to some - I’ve been following Contrast with interest and nearly every painter I’ve read who’s had a go said that Ultramarine blue is the worst one. So maybe that picture doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

That's good to know. Blood Angel Red seems to be the one getting the best write-ups.

I'm intrigued by the white paint, which looks like it could be a way to get stormtrooper-ish armour done very quickly (and consistently, which is probably more important). I can't quite imagine how it works, but judging by the Convertorum link I posted, it seems to do the trick.

The overall effect, I think, will be a lot of 'bright but dark' armies; the 'parade' standard GW is showcasing involves extra highlights with other paints.

I played around with the reported prototype Nighthaunt Gloom (a nice marine-iguana-ish colour). Here's how it looks over white on three scaly beasties. In each case, the skin is just a single coat. With the lizardman archer, you can see that it does a better job of picking out the scales than the orange wash on his jaw and underbelly or the red wash on his armour.

And with the kobold, the skin already looks better, I think, than the brown bits, which have had washes of both paint and GW 'wash'. I'll probably add a few swift highlights to his brow and nose, etc., but I'm quite happy with how his hide has come out.

With the plastic lizardman, I'd be happy to call the scales done and pay more attention to the other bits. The effect's certainly much better than a single coat of a standard wash. So, if these new paints are better than Nighthaunt Gloom, I think they might work quite well.

[Jagannath]

Yeah those gave come out nicely - especially useful for scales, which a are sooooo time consuming to paint properly. A good white recipe to try for you:

Vallejo silver grey (a sort of warm off white) - good coverage on black
Vallejo grey wash - works really nicely on above.
Layer silver grey again.
Layer a true white highlight.

The other thing I’ve realised about contrast for bulk painting 15s is I’ll need to get much better at cleaning up mould lines - my usual ‘thick’ layer painting style means I can vanish mould lines if I miss them. No such luck with contrast.

[Duncan McDane]

This, and you'll need to fill in the gaps between different parts and smooth it up afterwards, or you'll get nasty results. Our local GW has a demonstration coming week so I'll go and see if I like the effects. Will probably use them on single part metal mini's, though ( which are great for the classic basecoat/wash/drybrush and/or highlight method anyway ), modern multipart plastics not so much...

[Hobgoblin]

Yeah those gave come out nicely - especially useful for scales, which a are sooooo time consuming to paint properly.

Yup - it's hard to tell from a WIP photo, but from comparing the plastic lizardman with finished examples of his ilk, I think that Gloom paint achieves roughly the same effect in one coat as preshade/drybrush/wash/drybrush/wash again. And yes, scales are a nightmare. I'm taking an increasing amount of solace from the fact that many real-world reptiles don't have the paler underbelly that they are always given in fantasy illustrations.

I'm also hopeful about contrast paints as a tool in tackling some of the best old Grenadier stuff. A lot of the best Grenadier miniatures have very subtle details. They come up well with preshading and drybrushing, but they don't take well to drybrushing once some colour comes on. I'm thinking here of John Dennet's fur and feather textures in particular. So I wonder if spray undercoat, white drybrush, contrast might be the best way to do those justice. The same goes for some old Tom Meier stuff, which I'd already resorted to painting mainly with layered washes, so fine is the detail.

A good white recipe to try for you:

Vallejo silver grey (a sort of warm off white) - good coverage on black
Vallejo grey wash - works really nicely on above.
Layer silver grey again.
Layer a true white highlight.

Thanks - I'll give that a try! Silver grey is pretty much the best paint around, I reckon.

The other thing I’ve realised about contrast for bulk painting 15s is I’ll need to get much better at cleaning up mould lines - my usual ‘thick’ layer painting style means I can vanish mould lines if I miss them. No such luck with contrast.

It's a good point. I'm going to get a batch of odds and ends assembled and based this week for the arrival of contrast, with particular attention to mouldlines.

Duncan, I think the gaps, etc., is only a problem with some modern plastics. A lot of the new GW stuff is pretty seamless - and so are some of the older things (like the Isle of Blood skaven, for example).

[YPU]

people on the 6mm facebook group have shown some impressive results using the contrast paints for 6mm space marines.


from Austin Hunt posted here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/266872090170793/permalink/1110012725856721/


And there is a album of the same detailed base painted in ALL primer/pain combinations here: https://imgur.com/gallery/cge87zj

[Hobgoblin]

Both those links look very promising! I'd seen the base thing, but minus the photo of the reds and yellows.

Presumably, a pure white drybrushing (e.g. with Vallejo white over the bone/grey undercoat) would push the contrast a little further too.

[Jagannath]

Oh man, thanks for that! You could turn an epic space marine army out in an afternoon - or, in fact, some 6mm astronauts...... 

Sorry Hobgoblin - totally forgot you’re a fellow silvergrey advocate already!

[YPU]

Presumably, a pure white drybrushing (e.g. with Vallejo white over the bone/grey undercoat) would push the contrast a little further too.

I'm not sure, I've heard people say the primers for this are a bit smoothers to push the paint away from the edges more, if you were to drybrush before the contrast paint it might result in more paint sticking to or being absorbed by the Vallejo white and reducing the effect. or maybe it works great, I don't know! 

[Jagannath]

Yeah this was my understanding - that the primer isn’t really a primer (in the sense of a surface with tooth) at all, it’s smooth to help the contrast flow. I’m actually looking forward to playing with this stuff.

[Hobgoblin]

Sorry Hobgoblin - totally forgot you’re a fellow silvergrey advocate already!

It's the paint of paints! 

On the white thing: I noticed that the Convertorum guy said he'd drybrushed his marines white on top of the base coats before using the contrast paints; it seems to have worked pretty well. In that link to the base samples, I didn't see much of a difference between the 'special' new sprays and the standard Corax White, so I wonder if the strengths of the new sprays have been slightly hyped (I'm sure they're a bit smoother, but people who've used the new paints say that they work just fine over any light-coloured undercoat). But I'll certainly pick up a can.

Incidentally, the science behind the use of off-whites seems to also explain why white gesso isn't as good as black for miniatures; the titanium dioxide particles are too big to be as smooth, or something along those lines.

A friend in Singapore has been trying them out in a shop today. He reports that they're a bit like Tamiya acrylics, and that there's a gulf in quality between colours (purple weak, red great, apparently).

[Jagannath]

Ah that’s good intel.

I’m excited to try some zenith work in airbrush before the contrast is applied. All in all they should be a fun new tool.