Testing the Official New Contrast Method: Super Easy, Big Impact?

Contrast paints, speed paints and washes are staples in the miniature painting world. But recently, I watched a Warhammer painting tutorial and saw something I had never seen before! The Narrator explained the best way to apply contrast paints without creating tide marks or coffee stains. So today, we are testing this new method and seeing if it has the big impact I'm hoping for.

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Lyla Mev The Mini Witch creates beginner miniature painting tutorials and easy-to-understand guides for Warhammer, dungeons & dragons, and more. My favorite things to paint are sisters of battle, display quality miniatures, and focusing on having fun.

00:00 Intro
00:50 Whats the problem?
1:38 The Technique (Contrast)
4:48 Testing
5:59 The technique (Wash)
7:19 Reveal

[LylaMev]

This technique was new to me, had you ever heard it before?

[jorgemontero]

Contrast paint's inconsistency makes almost every technique difficult to apply without a label: Baal Red, Imperial Fist Yellow and the like are just completely different kinds of paint than the heavy contrasting ones: They are basically great basecoats that only work well over very light colors.

Given that GW separates layer paints from bases, It's surprising they haven't broken up the contrast paints into two, or even three groups, because they are just that difficult to use if you don't know the specific color's properties

[ShinakoX]

Baal Red contrast paint has the same consistency as other contrast paints, but it's a lot more opaque and it meant to be used more as a base layer paint. I do think the dabbing technique worked quite well for the traditional low-opacity contrast paints/washes, so I'll probably use that in future for my mass production speed painting projects.

[Kid_illithid]

I kinda figured this out on my own. Glad to see people are figuring it out

[krzysztofmathews]

Great experiment! You do an excellent job of documenting your process here.

[mikey_vengenz]

Interesting how GW chose to put this tutorial out so long after the introduction of this product. I guess they had to do something since other brands have really began to catch up with the quality of contrast paints.

[brendanarmstrong]

I've seen a lot of youtube creators recommend dabbing on contrast paints. I have to imagine GW's in-house painters probably stay pretty-well plugged in to hobby youtube and have been trying to get this change made for a while now.

Now if only they'd bring back the chart showing which contrast paints pool in the recesses, and which contrast paints are meant to provide a flat one-coat color over white.

[TheMrFishnDucks]

The red looks fantastic. Keep up the good work.

[bluedotdinosaur]

So here's what's going on in terms of the physics. Any form of wash intended to pool in recesses and create shadow works via a combination of gravity and capillary action. Gravity pulls the liquid into deeper and lower locations. Then capillary action causes the deeper wells of liquid to "suck" adjacent liquid into itself. What goes wrong with many attempts at applying washes for shading? Treating the wash too much like glazing. If you think you're using enough liquid you may not be. Without enough liquid there isn't sufficient volume for the liquid to quickly and forcefully run down into recesses. It begins drying in place too quickly. And it dries before capillary action can pull liquid away from raised (and flat) surfaces. Which leaves "coffee stains".

Even with washes not intended to function as "contrast" paint, you should be using a lot of liquid initially - and then quickly dabbing away dripping excess and genuine blobs of liquid that form after settling. The dabbing application style being talked about here and in the GW video is just depositing a ton of liquid fast and forcing gravity and capillary to have an immediate effect.

Getting actual Contrast-brand contrast paint to work well still does require a strategic manipulation of the liquid as you lay it down. You have to use a LOT so it has enough weight and volume to flow quickly and smoothly. But rather than just leaving it sit there (unless it's a mostly opaque color like Baal or Imperial Fist) the brush should then be used to quickly flick certain parts of the surface towards recesses and crevices. Leaving the open flatter areas smooth and glazed.

Army Painter's Speedpaint avoids coffee staining by simply having so much darn medium in it, it runs like quicksilver. But that has its own oddities and strengths / weaknesses.

[johnhildenbrand]

Contrast paints were an absolute nightmare for me for a long time, once I learned to wick away all the excess water from wetting the brush, fully loading the brush, working in sections, and working quickly then using the brush to reabsorb excess paint until it started to set, only had to reprime and repaint 30 poxwalkers to properly apply the paints after using them to learn on lol

[AIconconqueredmyheart]

it is a super cool model, awesome result!

[GreyHouseGames]

Heck yeah, new Lyla Mev video! I love your stuff.

[thevuntzer]

I was mid comment about to go ACKSHULLY when you identified that the Baal Red just behaves differently. It's really one of the best contrast paints for not doing contrast - it covers so well and bright over white or bone primer, almost like an Ink. There are a few others from the GW line that behave similarly. It's a staple in my paint arsenal but Blood Angels Red is much better for that 'natural shade' effect.

[matthewtorpey]

This video is great, I had no idea about the "recommended" application. Appreciate your review!

[ThomasGallinari]

Well that's something I've been doing intuitively pretty quick after I tried Contrast paints for the first time. Glad to find out it's the official way to go 😅

[bigH]

To prevent as much pooling, I lay the miniature down. Then I pull the speed paint thicker where I need the shadow. They dry so quick that it takes no time. I agree about using the dabbing technique for shading. Lyla, you have a taught me a lot and I love your videos. Thank you for helping us become better painters.

[InkBreathingDragon]

Baal Red is the color of the Carapace of my Nids, and I applied it vie stippling and I have loved the look it has given me. Seeing this videos proves I am not bias and it is in fact a pretty smooth look.

[LongscopeTV]

Reminds me of the old "dipping" technique from way back in the day. high volume of paint, let the natural pool dry into the recesses.

[fitz]

How can you not be a Skaven fan! *cries in ratfolk*

[cordial]

I saw that contrast dabbing video too and wondered if it would really work. I'm glad you tried it out for me :D