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 frankelee wrote:
I have a feeling the specifics of why the Speed Paints don't always behave themselves will be sussed out before too long. People do some many different things when painting models, they use primers they get from hardware stores, they use gloss undercoats, all kinds of different stuff than Army Painter might have done during testing.

Not to mention men's incredible capability for not reading the instructions and then blaming everyone else when they get a bad result. This is why every varnish, no matter how good, has bad reviews all over the internet. Every day, somewhere on the Earth, somebody walks outside in 90 degree heat and 102% relative humidity, holds his model 2" from the can nozzle, and sprays for a count of 27 elephants, then gets mad at the company for making a bad product.

I doubt anybody got lied to here, it's a new product, they haven't had the chance to test all the possibilities (or thought of them all).

Several of the reviewers have given very detailed descriptions of the variables which eventually led to reactivation, and none of it jumped out of me as particularly odd.

We're not talking about some edge cases of randoms on reddit who give no description of how they've used it, it's been reviewers with demonstrated capability in how to paint a model using well described methods that are typical of most*** people.


***Sorry Azazelx, I had to do it after your comment

Yeah, and plenty have said they used it and it worked fine. Guess it must be a conspiracy.

If a person wants to be aggrieved, they'll find a way to be aggrieved, facts be damned.

On the prices, I wonder what individual bottles will cost. It’s $4.16/bottle of speed paint if you pay full price for the big set.

Compared to $7.80/contrast bottle, speed paint costs a little more than half. Not sure if there’s a discount baked in to the whopper set, though.

A local e-tailer has them listed for AU$8 a pot ($13.99 RRP), and Contrasts are AU$9.20 ($11.50 RRP)

Wayland Games has SP for £3.36 (£3.75 RRP), and Contrast for £4.01 (£4.75 RRP)

Miniature Market has SP for $3.89 (RRP $4.50), and Contrast for $6.99 (RRP $7.80)

 frankelee wrote:
Yeah, and plenty have said they used it and it worked fine. Guess it must be a conspiracy.

Or maybe those people who said it worked fine didn't test it thoroughly enough, or maybe the product range is inconsistent and some reviewers got a worse sample than others, or maybe AP have updated their formula as time has gone on.

If a person wants to be aggrieved, they'll find a way to be aggrieved, facts be damned.

That's an absurd position to take on a demonstrable flaw. It's as absurd as saying "no matter how much a product sucks some fanboys will still champion it".

If you don't personally care about the flaw, that's fine, but it's a bit silly to pretend the flaw doesn't exist or arises from product misuse when the reviews that have shown the flaw are rather comprehensive in their description on how they used the product.

I'll still probably buy a couple to test them for myself, but I'm less interested in buying the big pack of them and given the price difference in Oz isn't terribly significant, I'm not jumping over myself to swap from my contrast paints.

 frankelee wrote:

Not to mention men's incredible capability for not reading the instructions and then blaming everyone else when they get a bad result. This is why every varnish, no matter how good, has bad reviews all over the internet. Every day, somewhere on the Earth, somebody walks outside in 90 degree heat and 102% relative humidity, holds his model 2" from the can nozzle, and sprays for a count of 27 elephants, then gets mad at the company for making a bad product.
.

That really made me chuckle

 frankelee wrote:
Yeah, and plenty have said they used it and it worked fine.

Have they though? All the positive review videos I've seen have been people painting the figure entirely with SpeedPaint with the marketed one layer approach, and doing various plastic swatches that show how it looks compared to Contrast over different undercoats.

I've not seen any videos of someone using it then layering on top that hasn't pointed out the reactivation issue. Happy to admit I'm wrong on this, I've certainly not watched and read every review, but I've watched quite a few and at no point have I seen someone use it in a way that would apparently cause it to reactivate, and have no problems. But if those videos are out there I'd happily be pointed in the right direction - would be a good thing if it's less of an issue that we thought.

I think the issue here is essentially comparing the 2 products as if they were the same.

Speed Paints aren't Army Painter's version of Contrast, they are just Army Painter Speed Paints.

They do exactly what they are advertised to do, which is paint minis quickly whilst adding a base and shade colour.

Citadel's Contrast paints do that too, but also do lots of other things that Speed paints don't, such as glazing and being able to layer over etc.

If you just want to base and shade models quickly and then do nothing more with them, go for Speed Paints.

If you want to do other things, go for Contrast.

It's not quite comparing apples and oranges, but kinda lemons and limes. Sort of....

StraightSilver wrote:
If you just want to base and shade models quickly and then do nothing more with them, go for Speed Paints.

If you want to do other things, go for Contrast.

It's not quite comparing apples and oranges, but kinda lemons and limes. Sort of....

I appreciate your argument that they're "meant" for different things, but it's the ability to use contrasts for a broad range of tasks that is what gives them value IMO.

But even in the context of "speed paint" sometimes you accidentally slop some paint on the wrong area (or sometimes intentionally slop some paint on the wrong area) and you want to touch it up before you move on.

Another one is if you want to spent a just a minute extra on a model to take it to a slightly higher standard, sometimes you want to lay a wash over a speed paint for some added depth. Speed paints / Contrasts are monochrome, and we know to add visual interest it can be good to add a touch of complimentary colour, so adding a different colour just locally into a crevice here and there can make the model pop a lot more and add a lot more depth and contrast. It's a very minor addition in terms of how long it takes to paint a model (still firmly in the "speed" category) but adds a lot to the model.

For the moment the main use case seems to be to block the main colors of a mini without the need for extra shadows and highlights, and so far it does it pretty well, with (in my experience) a cleaner result than contrast paints and a more homogenous result along the range, but also with less marked highlights than what you can get with a layer of contrast paint.

As far as that goes it does it pretty well, and if you then seal that (just to make absolutely sure there's no bleeding) you can then continue with anything else. If I'm painting armies or units, for which I'll be batch painting, it doesn't seem to be an issue.

I'm going to give them a try, I'll be painting an eldar army soon and that's going to involve a lot of flatter smoother surfaces where the speedpaint might work better than contrast.

All I want is to get a good colour scheme going where primer > contrast/speedpaint > edge highlight works properly as a 3-stage process, at the moment contrast is just too "blobby" unless diluted to work on smooth surfaces, but if diluted loses its intensity. They're great paints, but overall the highlights are too bright and often just let the entire underlying colour through, with the exception of some awesome colours like iyanden yellow which gives perfect smooth yellow surfaces and orange in the recesses.

I might need to take a second look at glazes to get the results I want over contrast if speedpaint doesn't work out. Something like dilute flesh tearers + primary red glaze might give me the smooth result I need.

 frankelee wrote:
Yeah, and plenty have said they used it and it worked fine. Guess it must be a conspiracy.

If a person wants to be aggrieved, they'll find a way to be aggrieved, facts be damned.

Odd how this is like an issue of faith to you.
Here's an idea - go buy some, use them, enjoy them, and if they reactivate while you're using them either post in this thread about how you weren't 100% correct or pretend it didnt happen because people can't be wrong or change their mind on the internet.

--------------------------------

Here's a series of blog posts from a mate of mine for anyone interested in a regular hobbyist trying them out over a few (continuing) sessions:

Starting with this one, then "next post" your way through.
https://bogenwald.blog/2022/02/22/test-run-with-new-paints/


Automatically Appended Next Post:

scarletsquig wrote:
I'm going to give them a try, I'll be painting an eldar army soon and that's going to involve a lot of flatter smoother surfaces where the speedpaint might work better than contrast.
All I want is to get a good colour scheme going where primer > contrast/speedpaint > edge highlight works properly as a 3-stage process,

It'll probably work fine for that, as long as you let them dry for (??) days and then spray varnish before adding edge highlights or doing any form of touchup or detail (gems, eyes).

 Albertorius wrote:
Ok, another quick color test... I fething love the red, it looks gorgeous:

Spoiler:

As I'm trying stuff out, I took the fifth mini of the squad and right after this I repainted the grey areas over with metal. then I added water to the purple and washed over the metal parts with it, plus some chest and legs panel lines and the whole head, to see how it would react. I also painted the chestpiece gold and then used brown speed paint over it:

Spoiler:

I had no reactivation issues for this, and it behaved pretty ok. I'm gonna varnish them afterwards.

Looks good! Did you do a two step prime? It's hard to tell if you started with black and then xenithal white oversprayed or if that's just the nature plastic color of the bases coming through. I've seen recommendations to do the two step/color prime for added depth.

Okay, after three coats of Vallejo Model Colour white, it still bleeds through. Applied the three coats on the same area after one, four and ten days.
So, just wait a bit and it doesn't reactivate... yeah, that wasn't true really...
Shame.

 warboss wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
Ok, another quick color test... I fething love the red, it looks gorgeous:

Spoiler:

As I'm trying stuff out, I took the fifth mini of the squad and right after this I repainted the grey areas over with metal. then I added water to the purple and washed over the metal parts with it, plus some chest and legs panel lines and the whole head, to see how it would react. I also painted the chestpiece gold and then used brown speed paint over it:

Spoiler:

I had no reactivation issues for this, and it behaved pretty ok. I'm gonna varnish them afterwards.

Looks good! Did you do a two step prime? It's hard to tell if you started with black and then xenithal white oversprayed or if that's just the nature plastic color of the bases coming through. I've seen recommendations to do the two step/color prime for added depth.

Yeah, I usually do a zenithal priming with black and white sprays whenever I want to use contrasts, so I used the same method.

Cool and thanks. Also, now I know how to spell zenithal correctly.

One of the Army Painter reps is on stream somewhere saying that the people with reactivation issues all used primers with a more gloss finish. Not sure how true or universal it is, but there you go.

 Garfield666 wrote:
Okay, after three coats of Vallejo Model Colour white, it still bleeds through. Applied the three coats on the same area after one, four and ten days.
So, just wait a bit and it doesn't reactivate... yeah, that wasn't true really...
Shame.

It's totally your fault for not using the paints "correctly".

Apparently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dendarien wrote:
One of the Army Painter reps is on stream somewhere saying that the people with reactivation issues all used primers with a more gloss finish. Not sure how true or universal it is, but there you go.

So is the next step to tell hobbyists and painters that they need to use only Army Painter products in order to use these paints "correctly"? Because they never explicitly said that we can use GW or Vallejo or AK or hardware store or auto primers?

 Dendarien wrote:
One of the Army Painter reps is on stream somewhere saying that the people with reactivation issues all used primers with a more gloss finish. Not sure how true or universal it is, but there you go.

Sounds like damage control to me.

I think one of the folks said they were using Corax White spray. I've not used Corax White spray, but isn't it more on the matte side?

EDIT: Yeah, Stahly's review used Corax White.

You also have an Army Painter representative several days ago replying to Juan Hidalgo's video saying that reactivation is intentional and you need to varnish between coats.

I don't think its intentional I think its a side effect of the smooth coverage of pigment on a flat surface.
The formula visually works for its intended purposes but to expand into other techniques you will need a different approach to the traditional acrylics.

I think the inks can be used but just differently so painters will need to adjust to it not the other way around.

If you like the tones give it a go on a few pots and try them out, you may like them or not.

Reviews are useful only to a certain point because with these things you really need to try it yourself.

 Azazelx wrote:

 Garfield666 wrote:
Okay, after three coats of Vallejo Model Colour white, it still bleeds through. Applied the three coats on the same area after one, four and ten days.
So, just wait a bit and it doesn't reactivate... yeah, that wasn't true really...
Shame.

It's totally your fault for not using the paints "correctly".

Apparently.

Well, I did indeed not use any army painter primer, which would be ridiculous as it is not that good and quite expensive...
What I used was what is called "Haftgrund" in geman... White and matt. It's only purpose is having paint adhere to it better, it is pretty much the primer of primers. Maybe it was the mooncycle or the wrong star constellation or my brand of brush...
Dang... I like Armypainter products and these have many merrits, but please skip on the excuses and refine your formular. Then we'd have a winner here.

 Garfield666 wrote:

Dang... I like Armypainter products and these have many merrits, but please skip on the excuses and refine your formular. Then we'd have a winner here.

I'd put money on the thing that causes them to reactivate being the same thing that makes them cover smoother than Contrast. I mean, these things paint marine power armor far better than Contrast does in one coat. I don't believe for a minute that Citadel hadn't tried and junked something similar to the Speed Paint formula when they were working on Contrast for this very reason. And this is Army Painter, they're the cheap and cheerful mini-painting alternative. I think if there were some way to refine the formula, one of them would have done it.

deano2099 wrote:

 Garfield666 wrote:

Dang... I like Armypainter products and these have many merrits, but please skip on the excuses and refine your formular. Then we'd have a winner here.

I'd put money on the thing that causes them to reactivate being the same thing that makes them cover smoother than Contrast. I mean, these things paint marine power armor far better than Contrast does in one coat. I don't believe for a minute that Citadel hadn't tried and junked something similar to the Speed Paint formula when they were working on Contrast for this very reason. And this is Army Painter, they're the cheap and cheerful mini-painting alternative. I think if there were some way to refine the formula, one of them would have done it.

Then again, Citadel is Games Workshop, when was the last time they've done more than the bare minimum?

Some reviews have mentioned the reactivation / bleeding can be an issue where 2 colours meet also, with one colour wanting to bleed into the other and creating a different coloured line between them.

deano2099 wrote:
I mean, these things paint marine power armor far better than Contrast does in one coat.

I feel like the reviews have been a bit mixed on that. In some reviews, the Speed Paint looks better than Contrast does on a Marine, but in others they look very similar. Some reviewers have said speed paint is easier to manipulate, others have said contrast is easier to manipulate (I think squidmar said that).

Application technique definitely matters with paints like these, so it's probably hard to judge without just using them yourself.

It seems odd that it wouldn't be something they could fix. Acrylic drying retarders that slow drying but still allow a full cure do exist. I'd be curious to see what results one could get from just adding some drying retarder to GW's contrasts and if it'd make it easier to avoid tide marks.

I do intend to pick up a couple to try, but my interest has gone from "I'll buy the 10 paint set from an online store" to "I might buy 1 or 2 to try out when I see them in stock in my FLGS".

Does anywhere in Australia have them yet? Preorders were being taken with an expected date of Feb, but TCC still has them as "preorder" rather than "in stock".

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

deano2099 wrote:

 Garfield666 wrote:

Dang... I like Armypainter products and these have many merrits, but please skip on the excuses and refine your formular. Then we'd have a winner here.

I'd put money on the thing that causes them to reactivate being the same thing that makes them cover smoother than Contrast. I mean, these things paint marine power armor far better than Contrast does in one coat. I don't believe for a minute that Citadel hadn't tried and junked something similar to the Speed Paint formula when they were working on Contrast for this very reason. And this is Army Painter, they're the cheap and cheerful mini-painting alternative. I think if there were some way to refine the formula, one of them would have done it.

Then again, Citadel is Games Workshop, when was the last time they've done more than the bare minimum?

Except there's a point where that basically becomes a meme and not actually the truth. Citadel paints are generally better than a lot of others on the market. Do the pots suck? Yes. Are they better enough to be worth the very premium price? You can argue either way.

The reality is GW consistently push out very good products. They just charge a fortune for them.

Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the problems actually stem from the difference in primer.

The first test of contrast I ever did I compared an intercessor primed with army painter's white primer and one with GW's Wraith Bone and there was a very noticeable difference. On the AP primer it looked more like just a normal wash, it didnt flow very well at all and if you looked close the surface wasn't smooth at all. The one with wraithbone primer looked just like any of the GW promotional material at the time. Almost like difference between painting on paper that sucks in the paint versus on plastic were the paint dries on the surface only.

My experience with army painter primer is that they are much more matte and "rough" and absorb way more paint/Water/fluid than the GW primers made for contrast. GW's contrast primers are much more glossy on the surface so the contrast paints flow more like they want to.

So if you use contrast on AP primer you don't get as good of a result as using it on a GW contrast primer. So it is almost expected hen if you get worse result from using the AP speed paints on something more like a GW primer than AP's own.

How glossy/smooth a surface is matters a lot when applying stuff like washes, inks and contrats. For example I coat my Blood Angel vehicles in gloss varnish inbetween the basecoat and wash step or it looks like crap on the larger surfaces.

Klickor wrote:
Wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the problems actually stem from the difference in primer.

The first test of contrast I ever did I compared an intercessor primed with army painter's white primer and one with GW's Wraith Bone and there was a very noticeable difference. On the AP primer it looked more like just a normal wash, it didnt flow very well at all and if you looked close the surface wasn't smooth at all. The one with wraithbone primer looked just like any of the GW promotional material at the time. Almost like difference between painting on paper that sucks in the paint versus on plastic were the paint dries on the surface only.

My experience with army painter primer is that they are much more matte and "rough" and absorb way more paint/Water/fluid than the GW primers made for contrast. GW's contrast primers are much more glossy on the surface so the contrast paints flow more like they want to.

So if you use contrast on AP primer you don't get as good of a result as using it on a GW contrast primer. So it is almost expected hen if you get worse result from using the AP speed paints on something more like a GW primer than AP's own.

How glossy/smooth a surface is matters a lot when applying stuff like washes, inks and contrats. For example I coat my Blood Angel vehicles in gloss varnish inbetween the basecoat and wash step or it looks like crap on the larger surfaces.

That's very handy to know, thank you!

Klickor wrote:
The first test of contrast I ever did I compared an intercessor primed with army painter's white primer and one with GW's Wraith Bone and there was a very noticeable difference. On the AP primer it looked more like just a normal wash, it didnt flow very well at all and if you looked close the surface wasn't smooth at all. The one with wraithbone primer looked just like any of the GW promotional material at the time. Almost like difference between painting on paper that sucks in the paint versus on plastic were the paint dries on the surface only.

That was covered on Warhammer Community when the Contrast paints were released. From The Science of Paint:

4. The Pigment Predicament

You know when we said colour is the art, and bases are the science? We weren’t telling the whole truth. Some colours have unique properties which make them difficult to pin down, with white paint being the most tricky to nail.

Pigment is made by grinding down chemical compounds. Each chemical compound has a minimum size it can be reduced to, with black pigment being the smallest, and white pigment – or titanium dioxide – being the largest. As such, pure white paint can appear clumpy or struggle to provide good coverage.

When we make white paints, we mix them with pigments of other colours to increase their coverage and smoothness, as pure white can lead to a bumpy or rough surface texture.