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Wednesday, October 16, 2019

Quick thoughts on Contrast paints

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As this appears on the blog, I am actually in Spain, more on that another day perhaps.

A few weeks back i had an opportunity to try out the GW Contrast paint set.  Oh the joys of being late to discuss a new trend!

 

 
 How did we find them?  Well, some colours were great, whilst others were pretty bad.  To be fair, the range of mid to dark shades, with highly saturated colours, worked best.  I was taken with the greens and browns, and these could easily do the whole paint job for those not looking for a complex project.  The most disappointing in my view were the flesh tones, none of which succeeded alone in making for a convincing colour.  To that end I tried creating a red-flesh blend to get more colour into it, which I think looked better.

A couple of hours playing around
There are no metallics in the range either, and for many that would be an issue.  Overall, I doubt these are the one-stop solution GW suggests, but, I do think they can provide interesting effects; and as part of a fully considered scheme, on the right figures, will be of great use in speeding up a process.  These would glaze well over light base colours for example.

But I don't think they are really for me.

Still, thanks to Gav for giving me a chance to try these for free.

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3 comments:

  1. They are a great tool in the tool kit, but not the end all paints GW sell them as. I've seen some gaudy colors on historical troops out there that are hideous. I use them for rust effects and a few other things. Most of all, people could really improve on them just by doing some highlights or a dull coat (same is true for the "dip method". I spray painted some orc heavies gun metal then went over with brown and reddish brown contrast paints. Then went back with a gun metal dry brush and painted the flesh, buckles, belts traditionally. Looked great.

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  2. I quite like the flesh but over a sand colour rather than the yellow GW recommend. Gore Grunter Fur is another good one and I use it for sandals and as a basecoat for ..well fur. Otherwise I use them as a glaze over a lighter tone and then dry brush and highlight. They do save time (helped with my Republican Romans a lot) but not massively.

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  3. I've been trying them out on my AWI infantry (I'm a bit late to the party too!). I found the red and blue worked well for the infantry coats but I still ended up using other washes on them which kind of defeated the point.

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