[Miniatures] Painting tips and progress reports (with pics!)

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 2:04 pm

I'll echo everything you've heard from the reviews online about them. Amazing coverage, they appear to be much more consistent on the application than Contrast paints, and reactivation is a real thing.

If you're like me and sometimes will slop a paint over into another area, with contrast (or just standard paint) you could pretty easily just grab your white (or gray) paint and clean it up. In my experience (from these three models) even after letting the paint dry for a good 10 minutes painting white back over it the underlying color will seep through the white primer. Took a couple of coats of white to get it back to even close to clean.

I do wish there were more color variations. I'd like a few more green and brown tones in the set. In the Lucky Dundee figure above, I had to apply a mix of Dark Wood and Pallid Flesh on the coat. Worked pretty well, but I'll have to do some experiments in mixing.

Love the dropper bottles. But one thing...the colors on the pallet look VERY similar. Almost need to do a custom pallet with labels

Overall, very impressed with the paints, they did what I was wanting from them, just need to keep the reactivation issues in mind.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 2:10 pm

hentzau wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 2:04 pm just need to keep the reactivation issues in mind.

Just so I'm clear (no pun intended), the only way to seal these then is with spray finish, right? If you hit them with a painted-on sealant, it'll reactivate?

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 3:18 pm

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 2:10 pm
hentzau wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 2:04 pm just need to keep the reactivation issues in mind.
Just so I'm clear (no pun intended), the only way to seal these then is with spray finish, right? If you hit them with a painted-on sealant, it'll reactivate?

I have not tested this, cause I really don't want to screw up these paint jobs. But I have to imagine that it would in fact reactivate the paint. Probably even a heavy coat of sealer could even re-activate the paint (but hopefully not mess things up TOO much, since you aren't moving the paint around.

I have some other figures primed that I could test on. Let me give it a try on one of these figures and report back.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 3:22 pm

Appreciated. Needing to hit them with a rattle can dull-cote isn't a deal killer, but if I can't even do that, I'd be kinda worried about handling them at all.

Unofficially, I'm seeing that spray can seems to be fine, but brush-on is indeed potentially problematic.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 4:45 pm

I painted this up real quick…I’ll show you the results after I give it a solid 3-4 hours to dry.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 9:11 pm

Yeah, it’s pretty much a horror show.

On the skirt and below I applied Agrax Earthshade, and waist and above I put on army painter anti-shine (brush on).

You can see on the skirt how it pulled the blue color from the skirt down to the legs. The anti shine wasn’t as bad, but you can see it picked up the yellow from the hat and stained her blouse. So I’d say that washes after are a definite no. You might be able to get by if you spray varnished first and then applied the wash.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Mon Apr 04, 2022 9:14 pm

Ugh. Well...knowing is still half the battle so thanks for your confirmation.

I am a bit curious to see how they hold up without doing anything - just slathering Speed Paint on and using them. I suppose as long as no one does a spit take at the table or has super sweaty hands they might be ok?

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:01 am

Wow to both! Those Batman figures are almost identical to the pictures!

I'm impressed with the Speedpaints! Seeing those, I might have to change my mind and invest in some to do smaller scale figures.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:03 am

I suspect airbrushed varnish would be ok?

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Apr 05, 2022 9:08 am

baelthazar wrote:I suspect airbrushed varnish would be ok?

Yes. I applied airbrush varnish to the other 3 figures I did and no issues.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:44 pm

Did some messing around with Contrast Paints and Massive Darkness. I am quite pleased.

I had to re-do the fur on his armor with a golden brown color (game art has it as gray) but I couldn't get it to work right. Might go back and do some more coloring on the pouches and apply an ink wash to the axe head. But yeah when they work, I love these paints.

I am also beginning to think my issues are related to the primer. He was primed with my Official (tm) Citadel Wraith Bone rattle can primer (a one time test purchase). I have a friend that swears by Rustoleum 2x Ultra Cover Flat White Primer for use with Contrast paints. At $4.50 a can, I'm willing to try.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 6:47 pm

I have always…ALWAYS…had the best results with Wraith Bone and contrast. I’ve tried Armory, Army Painter, and generic flat white sprays and nothing seems to grip the paint better than the official GW primers. Be interested to see how you fare with the cheaper stuff.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 7:32 pm

I will definitely report. I sourced the cheapest Rustoleum to Target, of all places. My plan is to do a test run with a mob minion and see how it comes out and I'll be sure to post it here. But yes - the Contrast paint seemed to be perfectly adapted to work with the official Citadel primer. Go figure.

I think my Nemesis figures were either a flat Krylon or Valspar primer. Whatever it is, the Contrast paints bead off like I've applied water and oil.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 9:05 pm

Citadel designed Contrast Paint to force you to use their official products? Not surprising.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 9:16 pm

Capitalists!

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun Apr 24, 2022 11:23 pm

Citadel is GW. They're in the same boat as Asmodee - capitalism, but the most heavy-handed, customer-hostile form of it that they can get away with.

Cognizant · Post by **Cognizant** » Mon Apr 25, 2022 4:07 am

It's a big problem for me to paint portraits. I cannot draw a face that looks equal to the model(( once I painted a portrait of a girl from my college group and she asked "who is it?"

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Tue Apr 26, 2022 5:03 pm

You shall not...get by!

Three different variations of grey Contrast colors

Space wolves grey
Basilicanum grey
Gryph-charger grey

The photo has the cloak washed out a bit - it's much darker in person. My new strategy is to slather all this Contrast stuff on and then when I'm finished with all the minis, I'll go back and do some minor detailing - pouches, buttons

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Wed Apr 27, 2022 12:36 am

Finished this tonight.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:06 pm

I found some great ideas here. Well worth the watch.

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:43 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue May 03, 2022 1:06 pm I found some great ideas here. Well worth the watch.

Thanks for this! Such great stuff!

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:46 pm

I really want that pen drill. On the wishlist it goes!

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat May 07, 2022 10:57 am

Dana Howl might have figured out the issue with Speed Paints

Spoiler:

baelthazar · Post by **baelthazar** » Sun May 08, 2022 11:24 am

Not going to lie - with the need for specific medium to avoid reactivation, I am pretty confident SpeedPaints are not the Contrast Paint killer for me. I love Dana Howl's videos, but I'm not impressed by the effects she demonstrates here. The idea is speed and convenience, so Contrast with some easy highlights/glaze and Drybrushing is just a lot more convenient.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue May 10, 2022 12:50 am

Pulp Alley figure…half hour paint job with Speedpaints. Not quite finished, need to still do the buttons and metal trim.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue May 10, 2022 1:17 am

My SpeedPaints arrive this week. I have 20 Reaper townsfolk ready to experiment with. I paint straight from the Army Painter bottle so hopefully the reactivation should be a non-issue.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue May 10, 2022 1:25 am

Zarathud wrote:My SpeedPaints arrive this week. I have 20 Reaper townsfolk ready to experiment with. I paint straight from the Army Painter bottle so hopefully the reactivation should be a non-issue.

It is an issue. Just paint as neatly as possible. And if doing additional washes/shading/highlights, I would recommend giving it a solid 24 hours dry time and maybe a shot of dull cote.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sun May 15, 2022 2:15 am

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun May 15, 2022 2:32 am

Excellent work

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Mon May 23, 2022 5:09 pm

Here are some pictures of the motorcycles with sidecars that I used for a Pulp Alley game. I bought an STL file of the a Norton Big 4 with sidecar and was just planning on printing them up and putting them on the table. My mad genius buddy Tommy, who’s league was running on the cycles, came up with the brilliant idea of putting them into Tinkercad and slicing chunks out of them so you could actually slide figures in and have it look like they were actually riding. Came out really great (but a pain in the ass to print and the handlebars snap off if you breathe on them hard.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue May 24, 2022 12:18 am

That is brilliant.

I’m enjoying my speedpaints but my coughing is interfering with finishing the Reaper townspeople. Need to find a good blonde hair color.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Tue Jun 07, 2022 4:51 pm

Finishing up my film crew.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Tue Jun 07, 2022 6:05 pm

I’ll take pictures of the 20 Reaper townsfolk I finished painting. I’m very impressed with the yellow, grey and leather/brown. The dark blue and camo green gave me some difficulties in getting a consistent color.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:51 pm

Painting Return to Dark Tower minis after two months out from foot surgery. One of the nice benefits of my steady improvement is that I seem to be getting faster without a real drop in quality. I managed to do this guy in about an hour:

I also managed to get the 4 quest tokens in about 2 hours, give or take.

These have been fun to paint and I'm really excited to get them done so I can get the game on the table.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Wed Jun 08, 2022 7:14 am

I love the vibrant colors on those tokens.

miltonite · Post by **miltonite** » Sat Jun 11, 2022 2:23 am

I am still painting, I am still super slow. This one took about 5 hours total.
This is Arcanis, Cleric of The Raven Queen. Belongs to Acrcanis from this board.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sat Jun 11, 2022 12:20 pm

Nice work! You’ll get faster with practice so don’t let speed discourage you.

Malificent · Post by **Malificent** » Sun Jun 12, 2022 1:59 am

hentzau wrote: ↑Sat Jun 11, 2022 12:20 pm Nice work! You’ll get faster with practice so don’t let speed discourage you.

Yes, yes, second that!

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Sun Jun 12, 2022 6:33 pm

The Next Evolution of Citadel Colour Paint is Coming

telcta · Post by **telcta** » Sun Jun 12, 2022 6:39 pm

Do you guys wear special glasses working on miniatures or is it all through lighted magnifying lenses? I have such a hard time seeing my phone screen as I get older I can’t imagine working on such fine detail.

I’m really impressed at the photos here (when I pinch and zoom in to see the detail).