Hi Folks,
I decided to try painting a *mostly* contrast Cadian. I don't have many Contrast paints, just a few I picked up for another project but here's what I got up to, and how I got there.
Contrast goes on heavier than a wash. You'll get small pools in the recesses. That's ok. If it looks like you're just "staining" the white primer, you need to apply paint more heavily. It's totally different to "normal" painting. There is skill needed in brush control, but I found it developed quickly. Worst case scenario, a second coat of contrast should do you. It's still faster than 2 thin coats, a wash, touch-ups, highlights, edge highlights, ultra highlights... you get the idea.
EVERYTHING is painted with a
GW "Standard" Brush.
Pro tip: If you're painting Cadians, for the love of the Emperor, do NOT attach the lasgun arm before you're done. You should leave a little stub of sprue to hold it by, but I forgot about that...
1st up, Primer. Seriously. SOLID WHITE PRIMER. No exceptions. No black showing through the base. SOLID WHITE. I use cheap-o rustoleum 2x Coverage. Two thin coats. You can't see much, because of the blinding whiteness of it all.
2nd, I don't have a proper khaki Contrast paint. What I do have is an empty pot, 10 drops of Iyanden Yellow, 3 drops of Gryph Hound Orange, and 1 drop of Chocolate Syrup... or Cygor Brown if you like to be accurate. I botched the lighting on this, but for completeness' sake.
3rd, first coat of Warp Lightning Green, and some Cygor brown for the belt and boots. Cygor Brown probably looks black, it's very close. I don't have a flesh Contrast colour, so I'm cheating with a custom mix of Reikland Fleshshade, Elf Flesh, and some Medium. (I'm just trying to show the colour here).
4th, the flesh wash has been applied. If you look between the fingers, you can see the effect of adding the Flesh Shade to the mix, and the darker shadow it creates. One coat of the wash, over white. Similar to a Contrast effect.
5th, I've painted a single coat of Chainmail on the metal bits. Hard to tell, Chainmail is a bright Silver colour, but it's there.
6th, a coat of Nuln Oil for the Metal, and a basic Bestial Brown Base.
7th, I felt the green was too pale, so I went over it a second time with the Warp Lightning. I might not use this particular green for Cadians, but it's what I have on hand so that's what I'm trying. I'm pretty pleased by the deeper colour, but irritated that I slopped on his face and onto the white of the eagles.
It's not beautiful, and it could certainly use a couple of touch ups. I discovered my White paint has become a white lump. So no more for me today, though I would certainly want to fix up the face and white parts (I have a custom grey wash for that...).
That said, I'm fairly sure I did this in about 20 minutes of paint time. Hard to tell for sure, taking about a dozen or so pictures and fiddling with the lighting. I spent an hour from start to finish, but that includes mixing up the custom khaki, refilling water a few times (working out of a pop lid
) sorting out the plan... pretty sure there was about 20 minutes of paint time. Pretty sure I could crank out a squad in 3 hours, including touch ups.
Contrast dries slow-ish in the recesses. It's well suited to assembly line painting.
Hope this helps.
