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If you like the Citadel Dry colours but wished you could paint with them, well now you can, or at least two of them....Light Tan which is our equivalent to Elf Flesh and the aptly named Havoc Pink (In honour of the Lonely Havoc) which is our match for Changling Pink, we did think about putting an advisory notice on the bottle because of it's brightness
We've also matched up some of the flesh range too with Amber, Caramel and Golden Sand making an appearance which are our matches for Ungor Flesh, Kislev Flesh and Flayed One Flesh
We've also made some additions to the Vintage line, as you may recall a few months ago, we repainted an old 3rd edition Ultramarine using colours we had converted, we're pleased to announce that these are now on sale too, with Blood Red, Ultramarines Blue, Sunburst Yellow and Snakebite Leather making a reapperance under the names IV-27, IV-28, IV-29 and IV-31
Why is there no IV-30? Well that was an admin error by us, but don't worry, we'll fill that gap soon!
We're also going to be putting our empty bottles on sale soon as well, not only will you get that, but you'll also get the dropper spout, lid and a glass agitator for those of you who love to mix paint, we'll have a way for you to store your recipes in a larger format! If you make something you think we would like as well as other miniature painters, you can always send the bottle or a swatch into us and we'll get it recreated.
There is now a reviews section too under the "About" Menu, from here you can read and watch companies and individuals who have tried out our paint
We've matched 5 more colours to the vintage range and should be released sometime in the next couple of weeks.
ALSO
For those of you who get a subscription from Model Box, you will have gotten a preview of our new metallic colours that will be available soon, we'd love to see what you do with them and what you think of them
ALSO
If you subscribe to Asset Drop, there will be a preview in the re of our upcoming "Extreme" paints, these are almost similar in consistency to the Foundation range and provide a great level of coverage similar to the foundation range
We finally decided on a name for our new range coming out soon, it was quite difficult to do without causing a lawsuit because we couldn't use words like Foundation, Base etc since these were already being used.
Also words like Mighty were just silly
So we finally settled on Alpha to create the INSTAR Alpha Range.
These paints will be are pretty close in terms of consistency to the Old Foundation Range, but we'll be releasing these in our own colour versions (There will still be some pretty vibrant and rich ones!)
As long as you don’t release a whole legion of colors I think your good
Could go the whole Genesisi line route though.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/01 11:36:11
LOL, Theo your mind is an amazing place, never change.-camkierhi 9/19/13
I cant believe theo is right.. damn. -comradepanda 9/26/13
None of the strange ideas we had about you involved your sexual orientation..........-Monkeytroll 12/10/13
I'd put you on ignore for that comment, if I could...Alpharius 2/11/14
Just placed an order for a couple of metallics and a colour flip to test out. Pretty interesting to see how it goes!
I've seen people say you need to highlight the basecoat prior to applying the metallics. Does anyone know how this affects the colour flip paints, or am i best just sticking to a flat gloss white undercoat for it and then just stick with washes and highlights for standard metallics?
So we finally settled on Alpha to create the INSTAR Alpha Range. These paints will be are pretty close in terms of consistency to the Old Foundation Range, but we'll be releasing these in our own colour versions (There will still be some pretty vibrant and rich ones!)
Thoughts on the name?
Works for me, though a descriptive name – like 'high coverage', 'groundwork' or 'underpainting' – would be more likely to gather traffic and help distinguish these colours from your other ranges.
So we finally settled on Alpha to create the INSTAR Alpha Range. These paints will be are pretty close in terms of consistency to the Old Foundation Range, but we'll be releasing these in our own colour versions (There will still be some pretty vibrant and rich ones!)
Thoughts on the name?
Works for me, though a descriptive name – like 'high coverage', 'groundwork' or 'underpainting' – would be more likely to gather traffic and help distinguish these colours from your other ranges.
We did try to think of some descriptive names, unfortunately we also had to find something that would fit on the label as well (Especially for the smaller bottles!)
We were also trying to avoid a possible lawsuit from GW too with the name, so we decided to see what we could use that was the same wording but in another language (Much like our company name is Latin), however they were either completely unpronounceable or they would have lead to the line being called something else that wasn't intended
So that's why we settled on Alpha, being the first coat on and the strongest coverage we can cram in it fit perfectly....as well as on the labels too
These won't be ready for release until early next year though and we're hoping to have at least 6 colours ready
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kdash wrote: Just placed an order for a couple of metallics and a colour flip to test out. Pretty interesting to see how it goes!
I've seen people say you need to highlight the basecoat prior to applying the metallics. Does anyone know how this affects the colour flip paints, or am i best just sticking to a flat gloss white undercoat for it and then just stick with washes and highlights for standard metallics?
You won't need to use a gloss basecoat with these
Basically a black coat works best for standard metallics, however for the colourflip metallics is where it gets interesting
For the colourshifting material, it's all to do with the shade of grey that you use will determine the effect you get, for instance if you used the Brown Green Flip, a white or light white coat will be brown on application with a green reflection, if you use a black base coat is will be the reverse (Which is why we named the colours as we did ), a grey base coat will give you a balance between the two.
With a white basecoat though you'll need more thin layers though to avoid streaking and build it up slowly, on a black basecoat you can normally get away with one or two layers and see an immediate effect.
The rough example below shows the effect of the different basecoat colours on the Green Gold Flip (Black on the Left, White on the Right, Grey in the middle)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/08 14:55:44
So we finally settled on Alpha to create the INSTAR Alpha Range. These paints will be are pretty close in terms of consistency to the Old Foundation Range, but we'll be releasing these in our own colour versions (There will still be some pretty vibrant and rich ones!)
Thoughts on the name?
Works for me, though a descriptive name – like 'high coverage', 'groundwork' or 'underpainting' – would be more likely to gather traffic and help distinguish these colours from your other ranges.
We did try to think of some descriptive names, unfortunately we also had to find something that would fit on the label as well (Especially for the smaller bottles!)
We were also trying to avoid a possible lawsuit from GW too with the name, so we decided to see what we could use that was the same wording but in another language (Much like our company name is Latin), however they were either completely unpronounceable or they would have lead to the line being called something else that wasn't intended
So that's why we settled on Alpha, being the first coat on and the strongest coverage we can cram in it fit perfectly....as well as on the labels too
These won't be ready for release until early next year though and we're hoping to have at least 6 colours ready
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kdash wrote: Just placed an order for a couple of metallics and a colour flip to test out. Pretty interesting to see how it goes!
I've seen people say you need to highlight the basecoat prior to applying the metallics. Does anyone know how this affects the colour flip paints, or am i best just sticking to a flat gloss white undercoat for it and then just stick with washes and highlights for standard metallics?
You won't need to use a gloss basecoat with these
Basically a black coat works best for standard metallics, however for the colourflip metallics is where it gets interesting
For the colourshifting material, it's all to do with the shade of grey that you use will determine the effect you get, for instance if you used the Brown Green Flip, a white or light white coat will be brown on application with a green reflection, if you use a black base coat is will be the reverse (Which is why we named the colours as we did ), a grey base coat will give you a balance between the two.
With a white basecoat though you'll need more thin layers though to avoid streaking and build it up slowly, on a black basecoat you can normally get away with one or two layers and see an immediate effect.
The rough example below shows the effect of the different basecoat colours on the Green Gold Flip (Black on the Left, White on the Right, Grey in the middle)
Fantastic, thanks!
Might have to have a play with a grey basecoat for the flip as well – brought the red-blue flip as a test for some Thousand Sons. I love the metallic red of 30k Thousand Sons, and I think the colour flip could be amazing as an idea to show the “transition” from the old red to the new blue.
Highlight and shade wise, what would your suggested method be, or, is it generally just not needed?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/11/08 15:12:21
So we finally settled on Alpha to create the INSTAR Alpha Range. These paints will be are pretty close in terms of consistency to the Old Foundation Range, but we'll be releasing these in our own colour versions (There will still be some pretty vibrant and rich ones!)
Thoughts on the name?
Works for me, though a descriptive name – like 'high coverage', 'groundwork' or 'underpainting' – would be more likely to gather traffic and help distinguish these colours from your other ranges.
We did try to think of some descriptive names, unfortunately we also had to find something that would fit on the label as well (Especially for the smaller bottles!)
We were also trying to avoid a possible lawsuit from GW too with the name, so we decided to see what we could use that was the same wording but in another language (Much like our company name is Latin), however they were either completely unpronounceable or they would have lead to the line being called something else that wasn't intended
So that's why we settled on Alpha, being the first coat on and the strongest coverage we can cram in it fit perfectly....as well as on the labels too
These won't be ready for release until early next year though and we're hoping to have at least 6 colours ready
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kdash wrote: Just placed an order for a couple of metallics and a colour flip to test out. Pretty interesting to see how it goes!
I've seen people say you need to highlight the basecoat prior to applying the metallics. Does anyone know how this affects the colour flip paints, or am i best just sticking to a flat gloss white undercoat for it and then just stick with washes and highlights for standard metallics?
You won't need to use a gloss basecoat with these
Basically a black coat works best for standard metallics, however for the colourflip metallics is where it gets interesting
For the colourshifting material, it's all to do with the shade of grey that you use will determine the effect you get, for instance if you used the Brown Green Flip, a white or light white coat will be brown on application with a green reflection, if you use a black base coat is will be the reverse (Which is why we named the colours as we did ), a grey base coat will give you a balance between the two.
With a white basecoat though you'll need more thin layers though to avoid streaking and build it up slowly, on a black basecoat you can normally get away with one or two layers and see an immediate effect.
The rough example below shows the effect of the different basecoat colours on the Green Gold Flip (Black on the Left, White on the Right, Grey in the middle)
Fantastic, thanks!
Might have to have a play with a grey basecoat for the flip as well – brought the red-blue flip as a test for some Thousand Sons. I love the metallic red of 30k Thousand Sons, and I think the colour flip could be amazing as an idea to show the “transition” from the old red to the new blue.
Highlight and shade wise, what would your suggested method be, or, is it generally just not needed?
Highlighting generally won’t be needed as you’d end up with clashes, shade wise you’’d be safe with black or brown shades as coloured ones might wash out the effect too much.
So, a little bit of feedback from my experiments so far. Note that these have been done with a brush, and I’ll be revisiting once I have an airbrush back up and running (current one died after a rather intense week).
Red-Blue colour flip.
Bit disappointed with this so far, in terms of brush application. The colour is more of a peachy pink than red or the crimson colour I was hoping for. I’ve also found that it is incredibly thin and, when using a brush, really struggles to cover over a white basecoat even with several coats.
On the flip side, the blue is really visible in light over the black basecoat and is a really nice colour.
Radiant Red.
I like this colour and it has been pretty easy to use so far with a brush. In regards to the colour, in light it can also feel like it is more on the pink side of red, rather than the crimson side but its good for getting some effects. However, if you are looking to use this as a potential alternative to clear colours, then I would say that it doesn’t provide the same effect and will be noticeably different to any previous models painted using the clear.
I also have a metallic gold, which I’ve not yet tested – but will be soon. Again, it appears to be a little on the thin side, so I’m waiting purely for my new airbrush to arrive before committing to any serious test models.
In regards to the bottles, they are generally very good and easy to use. That said, if you’re doing a large batch of painting with one of the colours, beware of potential nozzle blocking, as it did happen to me once. The nozzles are very thin so you might have a bit of difficulty clearing the block unless you can find something to fit inside.
Looking forward to testing with the airbrush to see what differences it makes!
Kdash wrote: So, a little bit of feedback from my experiments so far. Note that these have been done with a brush, and I’ll be revisiting once I have an airbrush back up and running (current one died after a rather intense week).
Red-Blue colour flip.
Bit disappointed with this so far, in terms of brush application. The colour is more of a peachy pink than red or the crimson colour I was hoping for. I’ve also found that it is incredibly thin and, when using a brush, really struggles to cover over a white basecoat even with several coats.
On the flip side, the blue is really visible in light over the black basecoat and is a really nice colour.
Radiant Red.
I like this colour and it has been pretty easy to use so far with a brush. In regards to the colour, in light it can also feel like it is more on the pink side of red, rather than the crimson side but its good for getting some effects. However, if you are looking to use this as a potential alternative to clear colours, then I would say that it doesn’t provide the same effect and will be noticeably different to any previous models painted using the clear.
I also have a metallic gold, which I’ve not yet tested – but will be soon. Again, it appears to be a little on the thin side, so I’m waiting purely for my new airbrush to arrive before committing to any serious test models.
In regards to the bottles, they are generally very good and easy to use. That said, if you’re doing a large batch of painting with one of the colours, beware of potential nozzle blocking, as it did happen to me once. The nozzles are very thin so you might have a bit of difficulty clearing the block unless you can find something to fit inside.
Looking forward to testing with the airbrush to see what differences it makes!
Hi there,
Thank you for the feedback!
In regards to the Red Blue, It is a little more on the pinkish hue than a red, we are looking into alternatives for this next year. As for the the large number of coat required on white, this is true of any colourshifting paint and is usually better on a grey or black basecoat.
However you can get a decent coat over white but it will require a large number of layers.
All our metallics have been formulated on the thinner side for ease of use, for further thinning they only require a very tiny amount of water so it can be very easy to over thin them this will be especially true in an airbrush, in fact, you may only need a drop of thinner to get it to go through the airbrush.
As for blockages, this is an unfortunate side effect of more control but a simple unfolded paperclip (just the first part) will quickly and easily remove any blockage
Vorian wrote: This seems like a long shot, but have you any plans for equivalents of Lupercal / Sons of Horus green?
Not at the moment no, The collapse of the Forge World paints caught us a bit by surprise so we were unable to get hold of any before they went.
However, that's not to say we're not trying to get hold of them as they did have some really unique colours, it might be worth following us so that when it does become available you'll know straight away
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StygianBeach wrote: I will have to test the Mecharite Red equivalent sometime, and probably the scab red.
You won't be disappointed!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/10 18:26:38
Vorian wrote: This seems like a long shot, but have you any plans for equivalents of Lupercal / Sons of Horus green?
Not at the moment no, The collapse of the Forge World paints caught us a bit by surprise so we were unable to get hold of any before they went.
However, that's not to say we're not trying to get hold of them as they did have some really unique colours, it might be worth following us so that when it does become available you'll know straight away
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StygianBeach wrote: I will have to test the Mecharite Red equivalent sometime, and probably the scab red.
You won't be disappointed!
If it’s any help I could prob send samples of some of the FW clear paint colours to you. I won’t be the full clear range but, a start if you wanted to go down that route.
Vorian wrote: This seems like a long shot, but have you any plans for equivalents of Lupercal / Sons of Horus green?
Not at the moment no, The collapse of the Forge World paints caught us a bit by surprise so we were unable to get hold of any before they went.
However, that's not to say we're not trying to get hold of them as they did have some really unique colours, it might be worth following us so that when it does become available you'll know straight away
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StygianBeach wrote: I will have to test the Mecharite Red equivalent sometime, and probably the scab red.
You won't be disappointed!
If it’s any help I could prob send samples of some of the FW clear paint colours to you. I won’t be the full clear range but, a start if you wanted to go down that route.
That's very kind of you but we're not exploring the clear paint route yet, if we do we'll be sure to give you a shout
But again, thank you for the kind offer, it really means a lot
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dyndraig wrote: Any hints on when the new Alpha range will be available?
At the moment it's planned for the end of the month, but it might be pushed back a bit as we're waiting on a part for our machine to make the whole thing work.
Until that arrives we're a little stuck.....
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/01/11 16:53:34
Vorian wrote: Well now I don't know if I should wait for you to duplicate the FW paint or try the annoying mixing 4 paints together version!
As an alternative to the previous Forgeworld recipe, you might find this guide helpful inspiration. It looks at 3 alternatives to the Forgeworld colours in Vallejo, Scale75 and regular Games Workshop paint ranges. IMO the guy who put it together has some of the best looking Sons of Horus out there.
Vorian wrote: Well now I don't know if I should wait for you to duplicate the FW paint or try the annoying mixing 4 paints together version!
I’m sorry we couldn’t be more help, we really are and it’s a shame really.
However with the amount of work we have going on at the moment with new lines and getting the Vintage lines complete it’s going to be a little while before we start looking at matching other shades as well as creating more of our own unique ones.
Hopefully the guide that was shared will be useful
I have bit the bullet of the high postage and ordered a few INSTAR colors.
I'm all in favor of small companies putting passion in a product so I hate to say that I'm not very happy.
Grey Blue is supposed to match GWs The Fang but it really doesn't and is thus not usable for my Space Wolves. Furthermore it has the same issue as all Vallejo colors I tried: I need at least 2 or 3 additional coats to get the same coverage as a GW base color.
So for me it seems I have to swallow GWs price increase :(
I ran into the same problem. Unfortunately the majority of paint companies seems to cater more to "figure painters" rather then "army painters", painting 3-4 layers for every colour is not feasible when you are painting 200+ miniatures
Thats why I'm optimistic about Instars Alpha range, it blows my mind that it's only really GW that has a base/foundation colour range. You would expect that at least Army painter would have done something along those lines considering their name
I've had similar results with GW paints. I don't like their pots (pots as a concept I don't mind--P3 pots actually work very well), but some of their colors are just excellent. VERY dense pigment and excellent coverage on some colors that normally have issues like red (mephiston and khorne are great) and grey (celestra grey covers amazingly well). Paying the premium for a paint that I'll actually end up using less of and cause less frustration just makes good sense for me. They obviously do have some duds in their range, though.
I just recently got some samples of Instar and for the most part I like them. Their khorne red equivalent didn't quite match well enough to replace it, but its actual properties as a paint were nice. I also liked their bright silver color (forget what it's called). Did some highlighting with it so far and it's got a really nice almost platinum-like quality.
Need to do some more testing, but so far Instar is finding a way into my paint collection. No "duds" so far in the ones I've tested. I also really like their dropper bottles and the ability to order different bottle sizes.
Ragnar69 wrote: I have bit the bullet of the high postage and ordered a few INSTAR colors.
I'm all in favor of small companies putting passion in a product so I hate to say that I'm not very happy.
Grey Blue is supposed to match GWs The Fang but it really doesn't and is thus not usable for my Space Wolves. Furthermore it has the same issue as all Vallejo colors I tried: I need at least 2 or 3 additional coats to get the same coverage as a GW base color.
So for me it seems I have to swallow GWs price increase :(
I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like our product, It's very strange that you had to use 2-3 coats to get some really good coverage as these paints have quite a high opacity.
We aim to get as close as we can with our colours but as with anything we can't always get 100% matches (It's actually impossible for our equipment to do this, the closest we've ever gotten was 99.5%).
But again, it's really sad to hear that you weren't happy with the product, we can only hope that you would consider some of our other lines which are getting highly positive reviews.
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dyndraig wrote: I ran into the same problem. Unfortunately the majority of paint companies seems to cater more to "figure painters" rather then "army painters", painting 3-4 layers for every colour is not feasible when you are painting 200+ miniatures
Thats why I'm optimistic about Instars Alpha range, it blows my mind that it's only really GW that has a base/foundation colour range. You would expect that at least Army painter would have done something along those lines considering their name
The Alpha line should make army painting a breeze by reducing the amount of time spent basecoating with its high opacity and coverage, even over dark colours, but it's sad to hear that you weren't impressed by our main range as well, but as I said in the last comment, I hope you might consider some of our other lines that are getting highly positive reviews.
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ced1106 wrote: Some pics of INSTAR paints with Tiny Furniture miniatures!
Medieval Bath and Tavern sets WIP
Reaper Bones Pathfinder goblins WIP
RAFM Cthulhu ritual stones WIP
Some awesome work here! Thank you for sharing
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/01 17:37:12
), a grey base coat will give you a balance between the two.
