Contrast paints are a new formulation that’s gotten popular in the market. They are like a glaze with wash properties. The idea is that you can simply paint them over a white priming and you’re done, all the shading is done for you.
I find the average results I see in real life to be underwhelming. The colors can often be patchy especially if applied to large flat surfaces like for example Space Marine armor. What is more is that contrast paints only contain one shade of pigment and the darker or lighter portions on the model just relate to pigment concentration. I prefer to shade and highlight by adding different colors to the base paint. I find that it offers more control and greater range over the colors. The control relates also to how highlights are placed. Many people either skip them entirely by relying on contrast paint, or they copy the modern GW Box Art style which highlights pretty much every single hard edge rather than trying to give the impression of a light source. I like to give the impression of a light source.
For traditional touches, blacklining is a practice of tracing a thinned black or near black paint on the borders of different objects of the mini to help give them definition. This can be especially important when painting in bright and saturated color schemes to keep them from assaulting the eyes with too much brightness.
I underpaint, which is related to mixing for shading but means to paint certain areas a particular color in preparation for another color to support it. For example Caucasian skin is usually a red-brown or purple before the first actual flesh tones go on.
Sometimes it’s just things I consider absolutely basic like basing a mini at all in any way. All I my minis are based with texture in some way (any you see in my history that don’t have basing texture were specifically requested such by other people) and have at least basic drybrushing or flock. A lot of people just paint the bases now, or simply just leave them bare.
I also like putting segmented colors, camo patterns, or other simple freehanding on minis. This draws a lot of attention in real life as many people are so used to just contrast painting that they never learn fine control and as such never even attempt freehand.
I do have a few paper copies of older painting books I reference along with various PDF scans. All the the exact paint recommendations are out of date, but the general concepts are still valid.
I partially blame army bloat and the FOMO treadmill in Warhammer 40k for creating unmanageably large armies that cause people to treat the painting as a chore to be finished with rather than something to enjoy and get better at.
Oh! Ok so I’m totally out of the loop on contrast paints, I paint(ed) with many of the same techniques you do, but less advanced. I would prime usually with a black undercoat and then do my base colors, then I’d do detail work and finish with washes, dry brushing, and mixed color highlights. I didn’t realize there was another way to go lol. I never got good enough to try and really work from a light source perspective but I was aware of the technique, but mixing paints was a chore because of how slow I was so my shit would be constantly drying up so I didn’t do a huge amount of different shades, just a few, which limited my ability to gradually lighten stuff up. Also I sucked at getting my mixes right/consistent.
Your minis look great, better than mine ever did and I’m sure you’re MUCH faster than I was. I really took a long time because I didn’t like them looking sloppy and I worked mostly using the games workshop kit I started with, along with one or two other brushes I bought without any real education, and some more paints. At the time I learned techniques from the GW books and some old forums. I was always surprised by the lack of effort people put into painting their minis but I guess people were rushing because they wanted an army and didn’t want to get crap for fielding unpainted sets (or bad luck).
I think some of my favorite work was actually the terrain pieces I made. I think I have a really good eye for weird bits and bobs and garbage that looks great as detail for terrain more than I ever was at painting technique.
In general even though my painting was slow I didn’t think it was a chore, my struggle was finding folks that I enjoyed playing with. I lived in a small town with a single games shop, they did an open mini game day 2x a month but the people that showed up were just not fun to play with, the worst kinds of stereotypical neckbeardy folks and I don’t mind me a good nerd but gross obnoxious assholes suck whether they’re nerds or not. I know it’s much easier to find folks these days than it was in the 90s but it’s a discarded hobby for the time being, life is too busy and I do miss it but it’s on the shelf for another phase of life, for now.
Thanks for taking the time to explain. I doubt I’d get into contrast painting either, your description of the downsides sounds like the benefits wouldn’t outweigh the pace.
I think I have some (really) old 40k minis I saved somewhere, if I run into them in my garage I’ll snap some pictures and reply in another post.
Contrast paints are a new formulation that’s gotten popular in the market. They are like a glaze with wash properties. The idea is that you can simply paint them over a white priming and you’re done, all the shading is done for you.
I find the average results I see in real life to be underwhelming. The colors can often be patchy especially if applied to large flat surfaces like for example Space Marine armor. What is more is that contrast paints only contain one shade of pigment and the darker or lighter portions on the model just relate to pigment concentration. I prefer to shade and highlight by adding different colors to the base paint. I find that it offers more control and greater range over the colors. The control relates also to how highlights are placed. Many people either skip them entirely by relying on contrast paint, or they copy the modern GW Box Art style which highlights pretty much every single hard edge rather than trying to give the impression of a light source. I like to give the impression of a light source.
For traditional touches, blacklining is a practice of tracing a thinned black or near black paint on the borders of different objects of the mini to help give them definition. This can be especially important when painting in bright and saturated color schemes to keep them from assaulting the eyes with too much brightness.
I underpaint, which is related to mixing for shading but means to paint certain areas a particular color in preparation for another color to support it. For example Caucasian skin is usually a red-brown or purple before the first actual flesh tones go on.
Sometimes it’s just things I consider absolutely basic like basing a mini at all in any way. All I my minis are based with texture in some way (any you see in my history that don’t have basing texture were specifically requested such by other people) and have at least basic drybrushing or flock. A lot of people just paint the bases now, or simply just leave them bare.
I also like putting segmented colors, camo patterns, or other simple freehanding on minis. This draws a lot of attention in real life as many people are so used to just contrast painting that they never learn fine control and as such never even attempt freehand.
I do have a few paper copies of older painting books I reference along with various PDF scans. All the the exact paint recommendations are out of date, but the general concepts are still valid.
I partially blame army bloat and the FOMO treadmill in Warhammer 40k for creating unmanageably large armies that cause people to treat the painting as a chore to be finished with rather than something to enjoy and get better at.
Oh! Ok so I’m totally out of the loop on contrast paints, I paint(ed) with many of the same techniques you do, but less advanced. I would prime usually with a black undercoat and then do my base colors, then I’d do detail work and finish with washes, dry brushing, and mixed color highlights. I didn’t realize there was another way to go lol. I never got good enough to try and really work from a light source perspective but I was aware of the technique, but mixing paints was a chore because of how slow I was so my shit would be constantly drying up so I didn’t do a huge amount of different shades, just a few, which limited my ability to gradually lighten stuff up. Also I sucked at getting my mixes right/consistent.
Your minis look great, better than mine ever did and I’m sure you’re MUCH faster than I was. I really took a long time because I didn’t like them looking sloppy and I worked mostly using the games workshop kit I started with, along with one or two other brushes I bought without any real education, and some more paints. At the time I learned techniques from the GW books and some old forums. I was always surprised by the lack of effort people put into painting their minis but I guess people were rushing because they wanted an army and didn’t want to get crap for fielding unpainted sets (or bad luck).
I think some of my favorite work was actually the terrain pieces I made. I think I have a really good eye for weird bits and bobs and garbage that looks great as detail for terrain more than I ever was at painting technique.
In general even though my painting was slow I didn’t think it was a chore, my struggle was finding folks that I enjoyed playing with. I lived in a small town with a single games shop, they did an open mini game day 2x a month but the people that showed up were just not fun to play with, the worst kinds of stereotypical neckbeardy folks and I don’t mind me a good nerd but gross obnoxious assholes suck whether they’re nerds or not. I know it’s much easier to find folks these days than it was in the 90s but it’s a discarded hobby for the time being, life is too busy and I do miss it but it’s on the shelf for another phase of life, for now.
Thanks for taking the time to explain. I doubt I’d get into contrast painting either, your description of the downsides sounds like the benefits wouldn’t outweigh the pace.
I think I have some (really) old 40k minis I saved somewhere, if I run into them in my garage I’ll snap some pictures and reply in another post.
Happy painting!