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 ced1106 wrote:
And did I mention that I'm looking for a paint that saves me the time and frustration of painting eyes? Because I totally am.

Someone needs to come up with a paint equivalent of those 'outline' marker pens, so you can just dot the paint onto the eye and it dries black in the middle with a white border.

POTS? Is he nuts???? Move liquid paints to POTS! Oh my.

 NAVARRO wrote:
POTS? Is he nuts???? Move liquid paints to POTS! Oh my.

Maybe I'm nuts but I actually prefer the contrast paint in flip top pots. I move most of my citadel paints to dropper bottles but the washes, glazes, technical paints, and contrast paints stay in the pots. They dry out too fast on a paper palette. The bottom layer can also dry into a solid and then when you move your brush around, you get little pieces of it in the brush and then onto your model. It's just easier to use out of a pot IMO

I sort of agree, but I end up diluting most of my contrast paints with medium, so a bottle ends up more useful than the pots. I use a little metal makeup dish as a palette for them and have no real issue. (and I have a pre-mixed 80% medium/20% skeleton horde dropper bottle that I use as the base coat of my army anyway)

Meh, I personally never had issues with GW's pots, strangely enough. Especially for shades and contrast and such, the little...roundish tray on the underside of the cap is awfully convinient for them.

I've heard a few reviews say it's more runny and a few say it's less runny than contrast.

Another vs video

So, here is my final review & comparison. And yes, Speedpaints reactivate when you paint over them. All of them. Doesn't matter how long you let them dry.

It's not the end of the world, but you need to think about how you want to use them:




I must have put over 25 hours into filming and editing this video, hopefully it's the most comprehensive review yet. Hope it helps!

Thanks for that review, Stahly!
It's great to have that detailed testing on the reactivation aspect.
As someone who has a rather large Ultramarines army to paint, I've been trying to find just the right blue for them, as Idon't like GW's "official" Ultramarines/Macragge Blue (too dark). I really want to give that Highlord Blue from Speedpaint a try.

Very disappointing that they all bleed, can't see myself picking them up now tbh. It's shame as they do look to cover quite nicely, particularly on the flatter surfaces that contrast falls short on, but if the purpose is to save me time then they seem like a bit of a non-starter

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Thanks for that review, Stahly!
It's great to have that detailed testing on the reactivation aspect.

I will second this, i was completely sold on Speedpaints from the reviews I saw. Now I am definately second guessing it. The problem I have with contrast is often times I have to go and touch up spots which sounds really hard if they bleed through. My question might be for edge highlighting or drybrushing over the Speedpaint. Is the bleed through still an issue?

I'm seriously thinking about picking up big box of Speedpaints, as I've realised that there's a time and a place for putting hours and days into a single model and times when I just need to get stuff done.

This reactivation thing looks like it will require a different approach; I'll have to start staying in the lines and not just slapping it on and painting over it. Also, I'm thinking that it will be a case of doing Speedpaint base layers (carefully!), then hitting it with varnish before doing any details. This just adds another step to the whole process. At some point I'll decide that that's just not worth the effort and go back to my old tactics.

Staying in the lines is a dealbreaker. I'm probably switching from the Megaset to none.

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Thanks for that review, Stahly!
It's great to have that detailed testing on the reactivation aspect.

I will second this, i was completely sold on Speedpaints from the reviews I saw. Now I am definately second guessing it. The problem I have with contrast is often times I have to go and touch up spots which sounds really hard if they bleed through. My question might be for edge highlighting or drybrushing over the Speedpaint. Is the bleed through still an issue?

Edge highlights and drybrushing should be fine, the reactivation only becomes noticeable when you want to paint over a "larger" area.

I have ordered the small set, should arrive in a couple days, so I'll be able to check for myself.

If nothing else, I'll surely be able to use them for all those boardgames that glare at me unpainted from the shelf.

I'm going for the full set next month.

I'm mostly painting power armour so first pass can probably still be a sloppy all over base coat. I'll then do a rattle can varnish pass to deal with the reactivation issue.

Yes, it's an extra step, but minimal time investment.

I frequently have to varnish contrast minis anyways because of how easy is for the paint to rub off.

I wonder if you can reactivate contrast paints with the Speed paints to correct unsightly pool marks etc. that I missed on the first pass?

That would be very useful

 stahly wrote:

angel of death 007 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Thanks for that review, Stahly!
It's great to have that detailed testing on the reactivation aspect.

I will second this, i was completely sold on Speedpaints from the reviews I saw. Now I am definately second guessing it. The problem I have with contrast is often times I have to go and touch up spots which sounds really hard if they bleed through. My question might be for edge highlighting or drybrushing over the Speedpaint. Is the bleed through still an issue?

Edge highlights and drybrushing should be fine, the reactivation only becomes noticeable when you want to paint over a "larger" area.

If anything, reactivating slightly on edge highlighting will potentially just help with blending.

 Gallahad wrote:
I frequently have to varnish contrast minis anyways because of how easy is for the paint to rub off.

I wonder if you can reactivate contrast paints with the Speed paints to correct unsightly pool marks etc. that I missed on the first pass?

That would be very useful

I have no experience with speed paint, but reactivating paint is rarely a neat or clean process, it's not going to return to a nice consistency and it's probably stained the surface, so you're probably more likely to make it look even messier.

A review of the Speed Paint line by Juan Hidalgo:

Yeah just looked at that If theres someone that knows the ins and outs of contrast its Hidalgo since he is one of the best painters using those techniques and pushing the limits of contrasts.

As expected a great review.

Ok, guys I have now a little big head after all those reviews. Could you please give a horrible painter a quick, short, definitive answer - are these paints for me? Will they make the painting as short, and least unpleasant experience as possible or should I save my money?

you want to have a simple base coat on your minis that looks ok are going to use the colours straight out of the bottle with no mixing, and are still able to paint careful enough for only getting the colour were it should be
than those are for you

you want a basecoat to apply some advanced techniques or use them as base colours for wet-blending so you don't need to thin others down
get something else

 Shadow Walker wrote:
Ok, guys I have now a little big head after all those reviews. Could you please give a horrible painter a quick, short, definitive answer - are these paints for me? Will they make the painting as short, and least unpleasant experience as possible or should I save my money?

Maybe?
I think a large part of it depends on what models you're painting and what color you're using. If you're after a quick and easy paintjob, I think Army Painter's standard method is still one of the most straightforward: basecoat the model (possibly using a primer of the color your majority basecoat is), and then just "dipping" the whole model (either literally in a can of quickshade, or brushing a wash over it), with maybe a drybrush somewhere in there to highlight. Speedpaints and contrast kind of combine those steps of basecoating and dipping/washing.
To offer my own anecdotal evidence: I'm starting an Ultramarines army. GW's Ultramarines Blue Contrast paint had terrible coverage when I tested it. To get an even color on the flat surfaces of the marine I was testing, I had to apply two coats. With two coats, just about any shading created by the Contrast paint was gone. So I would be better off using a standard one-coat paint and then shading with a wash/dip. On the other hand, I hear that the red Contrast paint offers great coverage in one coat, but I'm not painting Blood Angels.

Oh man, these reviews coming out showing the reactivation issue are disappointing.

I like using contrast as an additional element/tool in traditional base/layer/highlight painting, speeds up painting and helps hide my poorer skills. With the reactivation of the paints that’s basically not possible now. Even just the need to keep it all neatly in the lines, and not be able to touch up spillovers, limits their value for me.

Was hoping that we’d get a couple of nice substitutes for the darker/worse Contrast paints. But it looks like I’ll give them a miss entirely now.

that they are still reactive to water after the colours tried, actually makes them better in that case as you can remove spillovers easier
you just don't paint over them but remove them

so the colours do exactly that they are advertised for, 1 layer speed paint

for more advanced techniques, Acrylic Inks have always been the alternative to Contrast, or better said have already been used for that long before Contrast existed

 kodos wrote:
you want to have a simple base coat on your minis that looks ok are going to use the colours straight out of the bottle with no mixing, and are still able to paint careful enough for only getting the colour were it should be
than those are for you

This! Thank you