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I only have one, dark angles green, as I thought it would be a quick way to paint up DA, but I had bad results so just left it on the shelf for a year. I had another go last night and still don’t get great results. The light and dark are very patchy. I suspect I have one of the worst contrast paints because DA don’t really suit a dark to white highlight, in my opinion. But I have tired using a bright green under coat which looks promising. The reason is suspect that contrast paints are actually difficult to use to get a good result is because I have seen numerous videos of people using them and they all have a different technique and it’s always different from the one GW tell you to use.

I also suspect that, despite a good shake, the paint wasn’t mixed properly with the contrast medium. I’m tempted to try again as I want to paint up some EC lighting claws using the pink colour and I get a bit board paining whole units so trying to keep it a bit simple.

To share my personal experience (everything on Wraithbone as base)
I bought some Nazdreg Yellow to have an easier time with my "Tallarn" coats. I was not really impressed with the result. It is OK, but not really great.

=> my take home message: while it makes painting fabric convincingly easier, one still has to work for it to make a really good impression. I also took away that I have to train and improve my brushwork and do thinner coats.

Another tryout was contrast on metal, in this case Terradon Turquoise on Retributor armor on the sniper rifles:

=> works pretty well and is a nice and easy way to get "tinted" metal on guns etc.

Next I wanted to try out to get a convincing skintone on some horses:

The second and third picture in reading direction are 60:40 Cygor Brown/Skeletton Horde with a little bit of Doombull Brown highlighting. The 4th and 5th are Skeleton Horde with some White Scar highlighting, the last one was conventional XV88, but its tail is pure Cygor Brown
=> here I used thinner coats and more care with the brushwork and also highlighted on top of the contrast paint and I was much more satisfied with the result.

Next was an experiment to achieve a smooth, very dark skin tone on a human (only the Pygmy on the Pangolin)

That is pure Cygor Brown. Pretty perfect result, exactly as intended.
=> takeaway message from this try (even if it cannot be seen in this picture): while it is possible to "salvage" a mistake by applying Wraithbone from the bottle, contrast on sprayed on Wraithbone looks slightly different than contrast on painted on Wraithbone.

I also tried to use it to Speed up painting my jungle bases.
The first Picture was done "conventional" (Whaag Flesh, Drakenhof Nightshade, Warpstone Green, Moot Green + Details

The second one direct with Warp Lighting + some Little Moot Green + details

=> my take away: both look equally good, but using Contrast Speeds up the process significantly. Again: I personally see contrast an alternative step in my procedure that still profits a lot from additional highlighting/detail work.

Then I tried it on an orky vehicle, mainly to practice and this time I was really satisfied (the red, yellow and green parts are contrast)

=> the result on "battered and beaten metal" is pretty good and for that it is exeptionally easy to apply.

Finally in the next pictures I experimented with contrast on top of Army Painter Skeletton Bone (only on the bases):

=> it works as well as the GW Basecoats. The "Stones" are Nazdreg Yellow, the statue head is terradon Turquoise, the read starfish, coralls and crab are Blood Angels Red, again each time with some Little "conventional" highlighting.


I hope this helps a little bit.

It really depends on your parameters for good. Personally, I don't think that using them in the GW proscribed 'one thick coat' technique, does not give a good result on its own. Extra work is required, and the technique of applying them also requires skill, which is why the ones shown by the team at fest last year looked pretty good, yet some by amateur painters don't look very good.

Some are undoubtedly quite useful for leaving a solid basecoat to work over, but I wouldn't use them as a one stop shop for all painting.


I tend to use them as glazes, to add depth to colours or shading, and to smooth transitions.

I think they certainly work best over high detail areas at letting a beginner get a rough shade and highlight along with rich core colour into areas that can be tricky with limited experience and brush control. Over larger flat areas the effect can be more mottled and variable. Now personally I think that works fine to great over something "alive" and organic which might not be expected to have a pure colour over its body and skin/hide/scales. However for things like tanks, armour and such its less ideal because you expect them (when clean and new) to have a more even colouration.

Hmm thanks for the info. I think I might have a go at deathwing armour as the results I have seen for wraithbone base and skeleton horde look consistently good. I think I’ll ditch DA green for power armour and get a DA green spray to use as a Base and then shade. I did use DA green Contrast on a Tentacle and got a decent crocodile hide look.

I think for other stuff I’ll just get a wider variety of sprays to use as bases.

Just going to add my 0.02 to this.

I tried Skeleton Horde, thinned 50/50 with Contrast Medium, over an airbrushed on Skull White undercoat, trying to emulate a "bone armour" tutorial I had seen a guy on Youtube called JuanHildalgo do.

This was on a Deathwing Terminator.

It coffee stained.

I don't know if it was due to my choice of undercoat paint or method, if there's something "special" about Corax White spray, or if I am just not doing things right (it doesn't' seem difficult to brush it on the same as JuanHidalgo did in his video), but it just didn't turn out right.

Naturally the coffee staining effect got even worse when I "stripped" the areas affected using brushed on IPA, re-undercoated by brush, and then re-applied the thinned Contrast Paint.

I need more practice, but from what I've learned so far you need to be a lot more careful about how you apply it than GW suggest.

Rather than just slapping it on, you need to pay attention to where it pools and make sure you only let it pool where you want the darker shades. This is more of an issue on smoother textured stuff like power armour. On cloth, fur etc it will do this more or less by itself.

It also doesn't seem to like being reworked much, so try to apply it and get it where you want it quickly, then leave it alone.

Yes I applied DA green on a cloak to see what happened and it was a good result, so to speak, because the contours directed the paint so it created dark pools and light peaks, but I don’t want white showing through on DA so I I think I have tried to create a more solid colour all over which has resulted in splodges of dark all over. This is why I then tried doing it over green undercoats but DA contrast is dark green and black so to be honest there’s not a wide contrast of colour anyway. I watched the DA veteran video done by GW and the power armour was almost black the finish wasn’t good. I have also seen demo f ultramarines blue looking pretty Naff for the same reasons. The only good uses of contrast I have seen are where people have worked out their own system of use.

However they always seem to work on nids and I think it’s cos the carapace has a downward direction travel and often the desired look it to go from near white/bone to dark colour

I've found they are great for tabletop quality.

I've painted a couple of heroes with them and the effects were useful as a base. It'll definitely speed up getting the model going but they aren't anywhere near as good as actual techniques.

I have found the capillary action makes keeping the colours separate difficult, so I can't do things like paint a jacket and then paint brocade both in Contrast. I sort of have to pick one. Even super light layers didn't work well. Maybe just that I'm kak.

I did decide that for things like material pants they are the tits. As with flesh if you're just going to playable.


Painted with almost exclusively 1 coat Contrast.

It also really depends on what you are painting. On models with a lot of large, flat surfaces, getting a good result is hard. OTOH, on models with a lot of "bumps", it can be a real time-saver.

Duncan Rhodes has a pretty good video on how to use those paints on YouTube :
https://youtu.be/JJGqInWb2yo

It is impossible to give general opinion on Contrast paints because some of them are better than others and the end results depend on where and how you apply them. My best advice is to continue experimenting, find out what works and what doesn't for you. Once you find out what works best for you, you can save a lot of time, effort or both without sacrificing quality.

Dark Angels Green is one of the few contrast paints that I do not have yet but I wouldn't expect it to work straight from the pot. I would probably use it as a quick basecoat and build from that with drybrushing, wetbrushing or layering, or use it as a final glaze to enrich the armour colour.

mrFickle wrote:
I only have one, dark angles green, as I thought it would be a quick way to paint up DA, but I had bad results so just left it on the shelf for a year. I had another go last night and still don’t get great results. The light and dark are very patchy. I suspect I have one of the worst contrast paints because DA don’t really suit a dark to white highlight, in my opinion. But I have tired using a bright green under coat which looks promising. The reason is suspect that contrast paints are actually difficult to use to get a good result is because I have seen numerous videos of people using them and they all have a different technique and it’s always different from the one GW tell you to use.

I also suspect that, despite a good shake, the paint wasn’t mixed properly with the contrast medium. I’m tempted to try again as I want to paint up some EC lighting claws using the pink colour and I get a bit board paining whole units so trying to keep it a bit simple.

Find Duncan Rhodes' latest video (from his new channel, or on youtube) where he paints a space marine with contrast paints. He specifically points out that you have to use contrast differently than "just slop it on" if you're doing larger plates/flat areas. I found it very helpful in terms of how to apply it, and not to ever go back over an area already laid down, as it can 'break the skin' of the drying contrast, which then can't easily be fixed.

I've also found that some of the colors are very saturated. You might be better off with a dark angel or dark green spray (army painter, etc.) to do you base, and then highlight up, or use some contrast into the creases.

I have heard (I think from Uncle Atom) that Dark Angels Green is a Contrast Paint he had poor results with as well, even after he shook it to hell and back. That doesn't help you if that's the color you really needed, but it does mean that you may find some useful Contrast Paints for other projects. They've been great for my Aeronautica Imperialis planes (but those were different colors).

I have messed with the contrasts to a limited to degree, and if you can already paint well, I think you really aren't the target market. I think from having used them, this is aimed squarely at the people who just want to meet a 3 color requirement to get models on the tabletop and are disinclined to paint their own models. Which is fine, everyone should have a good option to play and I think contrast works perfectly well for that.

The only one I'm using as intended is yellow mixed with some medium, which comes out pretty nice. The others I really just use as glazes.

Isn't it the fastest solution if you want let's say the metallic base coat to still show after one or two layers of that contrast paint + contrast medium ?

edit: I'm a total novice in painting

Crispy78 wrote:
I need more practice, but from what I've learned so far you need to be a lot more careful about how you apply it than GW suggest.

Rather than just slapping it on, you need to pay attention to where it pools and make sure you only let it pool where you want the darker shades. This is more of an issue on smoother textured stuff like power armour. On cloth, fur etc it will do this more or less by itself.

It also doesn't seem to like being reworked much, so try to apply it and get it where you want it quickly, then leave it alone.

Yep, it is a 1 coat paintstyle, you must be presice and accurate with the brush. Get it right and correct on the first try or watch a bad result manifest.

It is deffo not new beginner freindly paint style. someone who has barly used a hairbrush and with no knowlage of painting wont get any good results using contrast paints. For thouse painters, base paint and shade wash is the mutch better option.

Just to echo some of what has already been said, in my experience:

Contrast paints vary quite a bit, Gryph Hound Orange for example is massively rich in pigment, while Aethermatic Blue is very thin.

Contrast works best on high detail models with few large, flat surfaces.

The best way I've found to apply Contrast is in a single medium coat, adjusting to any pooling as you go. If you apply too thickly, it will likely be messy. Apply too thinly, and you get no 'contrast' effect, and adding more layers just darkens the overall colour.

Rob Lee wrote:
Just going to add my 0.02 to this.

I tried Skeleton Horde, thinned 50/50 with Contrast Medium, over an airbrushed on Skull White undercoat, trying to emulate a "bone armour" tutorial I had seen a guy on Youtube called JuanHildalgo do.

This was on a Deathwing Terminator.

It coffee stained.

I don't know if it was due to my choice of undercoat paint or method, if there's something "special" about Corax White spray, or if I am just not doing things right (it doesn't' seem difficult to brush it on the same as JuanHidalgo did in his video), but it just didn't turn out right.

Naturally the coffee staining effect got even worse when I "stripped" the areas affected using brushed on IPA, re-undercoated by brush, and then re-applied the thinned Contrast Paint.

I suspect your use of Corax White spray might be to blame. White spray paints use titanium pigments, which are comparatively large, and tend to product a gritty finish. Also, GW can't make a good white spray paint (or varnish, for that matter) to save their lives. When you start with a rough, matte surface, a wash or glaze can't move and collect properly, and you wind up with lack of contrast and coffee staining. This is specifically why GW makes Contrast primers, which use secondary pigments to smooth out the white, providing a better surface for the Contrast to act on.

Since you have an airbrush, I'd suggest trying again, but prime with two light coats of Vallejo Surface Primer or Badger Stynylrez, then build up the solid color with your Skull White. That should provide a sufficiently smooth surface for the Contrast to work.

Sorry but you've misread my post.

I used Skull White.

JuanHildago, whose tutorial I had watched, claimed to have used Corax White spray - although it wasn't shown in the video, he just started with a white model.