WarhammerFest: Contrast Paints

If you hadn't heard already, Games Workshop is bringing out a new range of paints, called "Contrast Paints". The basic concept of them is that they are higher pigment not quite washes that can paint a model in a single coat over a white undercoat. Games Workshop is keen to push these, and has even created a new paint website to explain it all.

These paints are obviously super useful for anyone who's starting out, or who wants to get an army done in a hurry to a basic standard. But they're not restricted to that. This is an example Stormcast (I think from Warhammer Underworlds) that has been painted in contrast paint, with a simple edge highlight over the top. While clearly done by a skilled painter, we shouldn't be writing these off as just for the newer folk.

This Nurgle Plague Marine, however, is just contrast paints and nothing else. That's pretty exciting for me as it's clearly done to quite a good standard, and should really speed up painting.

Meanwhile, here's a Chainrasp who had a zenithal undercoat before the contrast paints were applied. There's going to be a lot of cool and interesting techniques to discover with these, as they're a new tool for the arsenal.

There were some paint stations where you could try out the new paints yourself with a figure they supplied. I picked possibly one of my favourite Stormcast models of all time. There are two new undercoats. Both off white (for better coverage) one bone and one grey - Wraithbone and Grey Seer, respectively.

I tried out the yellow on the helmet first. Bluntly, it's great and sneaky wizardry that I resent not having had access to earlier.

I wasn't as much of a fan of this dark blue, but look at how thick you need to put it on to get it to work right. It dries thin without obscuring details, though. They did indicate that it will not be as robust as their existing range so it'll be worth giving it a coat of varnish or two - and they're also updating their varnish range, conveniently...

So, here's where I ran out of time. I tried some wet blending and playing around, relatively unsuccessfully. You likely want to treat them like watercolours, and paint light to dark colours as you go. There's a base coat that matches the undercoat if you screw something up, but we didn't have any available to play around with on the day.

I painted the shield in the new "Snakebite Leather" - a throwback name some people will remember. It's not exactly the same but I co-incidentally utterly love what it does.

I keep looking at that cloak thinking that it will just pop with a little bit of dry-brushing and maybe a little highlight. But for a first pass, gaming standard piece, it's good.

Here you can see where a couple of attempts at blending have gone wrong, or where over-paint has happened. It's remarkably easy to do, so you'll want to be super precise with these new paints, or you'll have to do a lot more work correcting them. These are definitely a case of "more haste, less speed".

All in all, I'm super excited for these new paints. I think they're going to massively help with me getting more models painted, and I want to spend a bunch of time learning what they can and can't do. I'm super stoked to get the painting desk operational again!