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I tried painting one of my metal Beastmen that I had laying around with contrast paint (Cygor brown on the fur), but for some reason it seems to actively slide away from some spots! It's almost as if it's hydrophobic. I needed to get a very thick layer on before it stuck. I'm not too worried because the cygor brown was just a test and I dry brushed over it anyways, but how can I go about preventing this? Should I paint a layer over my primed model before contrast painting? Is the metal somehow reacting? Or is it the coldness of the metal, in comparison to the room?

Silly question but are you under coating before putting the contrast on?

 Rybrook wrote:
Silly question but are you under coating before putting the contrast on?

Undercoating as in putting a layer of paint on before contrast paint? I'm contrast painting right over the primer. Is that a dumb baby move? From my understanding (and from what i've done myself), a primer is just fine to contrast paint directly over. At least, with plastic.

Do you have a photo?

Is it actually beading up, or just not as dark in some areas?

If it's beading up it's usually a surface tension issue, maybe the wrong type of primer?

If it's not beading, but just migrating to unwanted areas, it may be that the primer (assuming it's a spray primer) is slightly rough and porous and the paint is being attracted to the areas where the primer is thickest.

It seems to be beading away from certain areas. Some areas will be perfectly fine, while I notice that other areas will take to it just fine. But its a fairly even coat of primer throughout.

What primer are you using?

Rustoleum Premiere white

Ah...that might be the issue. The new primers are 'the best match' for the Contrast stuff.

 vaklor4 wrote:
It seems to be beading away from certain areas. Some areas will be perfectly fine, while I notice that other areas will take to it just fine. But its a fairly even coat of primer throughout.

Primer can look perfectly smooth, but it will almost always be built up more on some areas.

A picture would really help, I'm guessing it's nothing that someone hasn't seen before, but without a picture we're just going to be guessing.

I have had a similar problem come up once using Contrast paints. I had primered a group of figures with the bone white contrast base spray. Most of the figures worked fine, but the constrast paint beaded up on one of the figures. It was a metal figure that I had the problem with, but so were some of the others that I didn’t have problems with....

Valete,

JohnS

There's nothing wrong with using a non-GW spray paint with Contrast. GW's sprays just use a mix of pigments to get a smooth, satin finish, that's all. You can get the same finish with satin spray paint, it just tends to be less forgiving of bad technique.

Which is not what I think is going on here. A hydrophobic surface implies the presence of some kind of oil, and is not the kind of result you get from a bad application of spray paint.

I suspect one of two things:
1. You accidentally touched part of the model, and your skin oils are repelling the Contrast.
2. The pewter had mold release on it, which floated to the surface of the paint, and gave it a hydrophobic finish.

If you're only experiencing this with pewter models and plastic ones have gone fine, I'd be inclined to suspect #2. The effect is normally subtle enough that you can paint over it with regular paint, but with Contrast being thin and formulated to flow, it is much less forgiving of surface defects.

If the model's been previously stripped, certain paint strippers can leave an oily residue as well, causing the same problem.

Aaah, it could be the oils from the stripper then. I did scrub them and wash them after I stripped them, but its possible that my degreaser I used did indeed leave a residue. Thanks! I swapped to Dryad Bark base coat instead of Cygor, since they look almost identical anyways.

One thing I've noticed with contrast paints is that you don't want much (if any) water in your brush. I dip it to get the bristles soft then blot before loading it otherwise I get beading which is the water grabbing itself.

This may just suit my style but I've also transferred my contrast paints, mediums, and most washes to dropper bottles. I use 5 drops of contrast paint to 2 drops of contrast medium.

Some primers tend to produce a super smooth surface that lacks the necessary tooth to keep Contrast paints in place since they have lower surface tension than regular paints. You could try adding a thin layer of satin (or even matte) varnish to add some tooth.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Ah...that might be the issue. The new primers are 'the best match' for the Contrast stuff.

And yet, unhelpfully, they labelled them as 'Base' rather than actually calling them primers.

So are they primers or a base that goes over an actual primer?

Could also be residual release agent on the metal parts themselves.

I've had a similar problem in the past getting the primer to stick. Treat metal like Resin, with a quick scrub in warm, soapy water usually solves it.

For me I got this with too heavy primer coat of wraithbone resulting in too smooth layer. That's how I ended up with some uruk hai warriors with this issue and others not. Difference was this appeared on the 2nd batch I primed.