Let’s try The Army Painter’s Speedpaint with this review. The Danish company in fact made me have three shades of its new Speedpaint: gray, brown and blue. They are not many colors, but we can already do some tests to test them and try to use this technique.
The Army Painter Speedpaint: the review
As I told you in the previous article about the Speedpaint, I have never tried Citadel Contrasts either, so I’m a bit immature with this technique. And always in the same article I explained to you how it is not in my interest to speed up painting as I am not a player, but I live this hobby precisely for the passion of painting. So my goal is not to speed up the process, but to improve it more and more.
Having said that, however, for today’s players I am sure that finding a way to paint their miniatures with dignity and in a short time is a result to be achieved.
So I tried these colors with two miniatures: a Space Marine and a Death Guard Poxwalker. To the first I applied a black primer and then a splash of white, abundant, from above. This made the miniature white, but still left small areas of shadow. The second, on the other hand, had already been painted light beige with The Army Painter’s Warpaints AIR test a few months ago. We will then see in the conclusions that neither of these two choices was appropriate.
The Army Painter Speedpaint: the test
So what I did was paint the miniatures evenly and entirely to see how the color behaves. The result was bad, but this is beyond the quality of the color. In fact, I believe that the problem was my lack of experience with this kind of painting which is completely different. I am used to working on subjects with a black background, on which I apply the lights with colors, but here it is a question of using color to create the shadows. Certainly my unsure hand of what I was doing slowed the process down. To use these colors you need a firm and decisive hand, you need to spread the color quickly and evenly. Otherwise, darker and lighter areas are created, because being a “transparent” color, giving more coats causes the color to darken. This creates halos and shadows that shouldn’t exist.
Also, I think a medium is highly recommended. The color, in fact, in particular brown, has a strong need to be diluted and with water it would strongly lose its pigmentation. Not having it, the result is something of little appreciable.
Another thing that you also pointed out to me among the various comments received on my various social channels, is that it is good to have white immediately available in order to quickly correct any color spots that have ended up in areas where it is not expected. In fact, spreading a different color will not cover the error as it happens with “classic” colors.
Finally, what I’ve learned is that you definitely shouldn’t use a primer other than white. They are colors that work well on miniatures with a uniform white primer, otherwise they lose their ability to darken recesses and illuminate the highlights.
The following video (in italian) will show you the painting process and the obtained results.
Conclusions
It does not end here, soon I intend to carry out other tests, perhaps even comparing them with the most famous Contrast of Citadel. In fact, one of the shortcomings of Contrast is certainly the very high price and we already know that The Army Painter is known for its more affordable prices. We will therefore see, with the same miniature and color, how the two brands make it to choose the most convenient one.
