A Mr. Delaney from INSTAR paints sent a little sampler of five colors with printed color samples matching INSTAR to
GW paint names.
The INSTAR names of the delivered paints are:
Burnt Red
Obsidian Black
Arctic White
Grass Green
Ocean Blue
Their
GW counterparts are:
Evil Sunz Scarlet
Abaddon Black
Ceramite White
Warpstone Gloe
Teclis Blue
This is a first review.
I will come back when I have a chance and give these paints another go after some time to reflect on what I learned about working with them with the the first time out.
Some pictures before comments:
As you can see, I chose a pretty effed up model to test these paints on.
I had gotten some tints a few months ago, and tried dry brushing white on this model and as you can see, it got pretty chalky.
Now, typically, I paint multiple layers of acrylic artist paints over layers of typically white or ivory as highlight layers.
I start with a black or dark grey or dark brown basecoat, typically.
Then, I drybrush white, sometimes painting white over the drybrush.
I take advantage of the dry coat as it takes up watered paints like a watercolor.
Then, I paint a base layer over this drybrushed model.
Then, I will paint on highlights or sometimes dry brush again white/ivory.
And, paint one more layer of acrylic color.
Because the acrylics dry transparent, the white under shows through as painted highlighting.
I wash with - yup - black ink in select spots, do a liner with the same, then touch up with white and colors again before adding final details.
That will usually do it.
Here is the finished model after about 40 minutes of playing around I guess.
When I was in the States, I had a ton of
GW paints, inks, and Liquitex stuff - maybe a hundred colors.
I have been in South Korea for a long while, and only recently have been back into the hobby.
So, I have been using what I have had available and have been getting decent results.
For reference, I am posting some examples of the standard that I was painting in the States before I left below - some of the old Inquisitorial warband.
Then, I will conclude with some brief opinions on the INSTAR paints that I had available to test, today.
Conclusion for the day:
I want to thank Ian Delaney of INSTAR for sending these nifty testers out to me in super-fast Royal post.
Fantastic service, really.
So, one thing that I wanted to see is how this paint dealt with this challenging surface, so I didn't exactly paint the way that I normally would have/should have.
For example, I let my brush get a bit dry, I tried painting with paint a little too thick, I tried some of the basic techniques that I often employ but that I am not going to go into, here, and from all this I have come to the following:
WORKABILITY: OK, so does the paint get a skin on it fast, making for gummy nasties, or does it stay workable even when neglected and let get a bit dry? If it dries, and I add water, does it come back to life. If I have let some paint get gummy on a spot of the model, can I add a bit of water to a brush and work it off smoothly, or does it leave a ring of sorts? If I overwater and come back to it, does it return to a workable consistency or does it just disappear into the paper (I use wet typing paper for a palette these days)? Actually, this paint reminds me a lot of the way that
GW paints used to feel when I was using those. They have a plastic feeling, almost like nail polish. That said, they do take water well, and retain their ability to cover when thinned pretty well. The best in this case was the blue. The yellow was also a good performer, and I do like to paint yellow! The burnt red we not so strong, though this may be due to separation - I tried to mix, but then I noticed that the white had separated completely, and needed a lot of shaking. I may not have shaken the burnt red enough, so it deserves another chance after I leave it out upside down and sideways for a couple of days. In short, I was able to get a lot of mileage out of the small drops that I used from these little bottles, as I could wet the paper and add some water to the brush and work the paint very well. When I let the brush dry a bit, the paint got quite gummy without turning chalky. I don't like that, and tend to use the pigments a lot with the acrylic bases that I have because I like to alternate between dry and wet layers, but anyways, these are easy to work with.
PIGMENT: The pigments are quite strong in the blue, the yellow and really all but the red as mentioned above but again this may be due only to separation. I was able to cover in one coat with unthinned yellow (just a wet brush with paint on wet paper), and two thinner coats did a bang up job. The blue was very strong, and required more thinning than I had anticipated, and worked well even when overthinned. Very controllable.
COVERAGE: The paints all performed very well covering the chalky tint dry brush. I tested the white by painting the spear first with black ink and then going over with thinned arctic white to make the spear white again. Two quick coats and the result is pictured. I also added some white spots to the green spirit stones/studs, and figure on coming back with a thin coat of a thinned tinted green to pull those highlights out and deepen the color.
Other comments:
Painting one color (the green for example) over another (the yellow, for example) the green seemed not to adhere strongly to the yellow, at least not immediately. Now, I am used to working with paint basically like watercoloring. I put down some dry white/light coat on highlight areas, and soak this with thinned acrylic, and proceed like this in layers until I am happy. So, I tend not to have this problem, exactly, and figure it is a difference in the way that the paints set up. These again have a strong, almost plastic nature that makes them very strong at covering over for instance the chalkiness of the tint layer that I started with, but the trade off is that they do not provide an absorbant base for other colors. This is of course easily fixed. I should have just gone back with my typical highlight coat and then added the green, instead of putting the green directly on the yellow. In the end, the paint performed exactly as expected.
The paints mixed together well, though I didn't do much with the mixtures. They also worked well when mixed with a bit of black ink, which is something that I like to do, so that is a bonus. And, I had not trouble painting inks on top of them - worked fine.
FINAL JUDGMENT (FOR NOW):
These are indiscernible from
GW paints the way that I remember them. Of course, there will be differences in colors and between the ranges some colors will be stronger/weaker than others and so on, but at the end of the day these paints might have been swapped for
GW paints without my knowledge and I am not sure if I would be able to tell.
In truth, I need to reflect a bit on some of the things that I remembered about working with
GW paints as I was trying these INSTAR paints today, and then I need to come back and try a bigger model to see what can be done when larger spaces need to be colored consistently. I will want to see how easily it is to work with these paints in getting a nice smooth finish and some watery transitions. I don't have an airbrush, as tempted as I have been forever to invest in one, and maybe someday but here I have no time and really no room either. That said, if
GW paints are good for an airbrush, then I cannot imagine why these wouldn't be.
Also, I want to test these to see how well they mix with other media. Do they enhance the acrylics, can they benefit from tinting without losing their plastic sheen, and...? These are questions for next time.
Please check back in a week or so, I will try to post another installment and render another FINAL JUDGMENT (FOR NOW).
Until then, INSTAR gets two thumbs up!
Time for bed...
