Contrast paints from Games Workshop have been around for a while. I try to avoid buying GW stuff at full price as a matter of principle. That principle being that I am cheap. But the contrast paints have been tempting. There are some great looking minis that others have painted up well and fast using these magic paints that claim to only need a single coat to be table ready. Seeing the work others have completed, I wanted to know how well they really worked.
Nicely, Army Painter recently released their answer to contrast paints, Speedpaints. They are supposed to work the same way as contrast paints. My usual method of painting is to prime, paint everything with the right color, ink the piece to darken the deep spots, repaint with the main color, then highlight with a lighter color at least once. Speedpaints claim to reduce that down to two steps, prime and paint.
The paints themselves are resin based. They flow very differently from the acrylics you may use. The resin stays “looser” longer and tends to flow into cracks and deep parts, making those areas darker. This also means that they recede from the high parts, making them lighter. This helps to eliminate the inking step and may reduce or replace the highlight step.
To test this, I found some old figures that I picked up for cheap and decided to paint up some goblins for 7TV Fantasy or for Frostgrave. A mix of Old Hammer goodies here; they were painted but someone, but not well enough to prevent me from stripping them. I selected them because they have a good level of detail and I hoped they would offer a good sample to test the speedpaints.
My usual priming method is handbrushed with Testors primer. For my usual painting method, this is perfect. The primer is just enough to hold the paints but not thick enough to affect detail. Turns out that with speedpaints, the primer is part of the final color and look. Speedpaints are transparent and allow the underlying color to show through. This means, first, no black priming. And second, your primer has to be a flat consistent surface.
My priming method was not good. Look at the two goblins below. You can see slight hints of metal showing through the primer. For my standard painting method, this is fine. For speedpaints, this will prove to be a mistake.
Let’s look at the product. For now I could only find the starter set. Some of these colors may not be used often but there is no one selling them as individual bottles near me. The starter set comes with 10 paints that will do for most projects. I would prefer a darker black and a whiter white, but we can test what we have.
With goblins, we are obviously going to need green. Here is where I learned lesson number two. I usually paint form the inside out, starting with the underlying areas and working outward. Skin first, then the next layer of clothing, working out to the top most layer. This allows me to be a bit sloppy and overpaint onto areas and use later layers to cover the mistakes.
What’s the lesson? For speedpaints you can’t do that. Working form the inside to the out is not the way to go because these are transparent paints. You want to work from lighter paints to darker paints. The darker paints may give you some coverage and hide mistakes and overpainting. But, if you start with a darker paint, you cannot cover it with a lighter speedpaint.
You may think you could cover the overpainting with some other paint. If you want to do that, make sure it’s enamel. If you use acrylic, the speedpaint will bleed though it.
The green worked ok. I’ll give them credit where due, all of that green skin took very little time. Less than 15 minutes. Then again, I was being a bit sloppy. Here is the next lesson. The effectiveness of the speedpaint, the highlighting effect, is largely controlled by the contours of the miniature. These older GW miniatures have a lot of detail, but they don’t compare with today’s miniatures. If you want to get the best out of the speedpaints, make sure the minis are sufficiently detailed.
At this point, I stopped taking step by step photos. No real reason, just forgot. Until I got to the end.
Teaser shot, there. More to follow, with details next time.
Initial thoughts on speedpaints? They do make things go faster. I like the consistency, meaning how they flow. They cover areas quickly and well. The transparent medium makes layering tough if not impossible. This is a change for my style of painting and presented a problem.
The real thing is that I don’t get the excitement over speedpaints and contrast paints. Some of the colors turned out well and gave nice depth without the need for highlights. The primary colors, however, are somewhat flat.
2022 Count:
141 figures painted
19 figures printed
90 figures purchased
4 terrain painted
the immortal frequentist 
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