I love contrast, 20 year veteran here and they've revolutionised the way I paint hordes of models. Recently I've painted 50 poxwalkers in 2 weeks, start to finish. Contrast are a tool, they don't replace the entire toolbox, I've still highlighted and weatgered them with traditional paints in addition. And thats the key, using them in with your regular paints to enhance your technique.

To my mind Contrast is great. They finally got my wife, who was scared to paint because she thought she would suck, to try painting minis and built up her confidence. For that alone, I love them.

I really like how you can make any of them into metallic colors when basing with stormhost silver or leadbelcher.

A friend who would never have painted, ever, now paints because of Contrast. I think GW made a great choice in figuring out these paints, marketing them and bringing in more people who found painting too time-consuming or daunting or whatnot.

I couldn't imagine painting yellow without contrast paints. I looked for years for a quick way to paint yellow basecoats without wanting to hurt myself. Iyanden Yellow over a pink primed model with white zenithal highlight.... man, the results are insane. Best yellow I've tried yet.

"Candy-lookin'" sounds like an insult an Ork would actually use.

This may be one of the best comments sections. I can’t recall a video where I keep checking back in for more color combination ideas. Rock that fez even after your haircut.

contrast on demons is like my favorite use of the paint

Flesh tearers red is amazing. I’ve been using that and a wash of agrax earthshade instead of blood for the blood god to do much more realistic blood.

To my eyes, Space Wolves Grey has a blue tone whereas the Gryphcharger Grey has a green tone.

I like contrast paints for leathers mostly, haven’t really got into the other colors. I’m still new to all this.

After 20 years I finally started painted thanks to contrast paints. I'm now addicted to them and am improving as we speak. Little by little I start trying out new techniques, such as dry brushing and keep being amazed how fun and 'dimple' this all is. So, for me, contrast paints were like a gate paint: it allowed me to get over the initial barriere!

Four words: Aethermatic blue on skinks. Two coats and it looks awesome

Skeleton Horde is alone worth its weight in gold even if they trash the line keeping that for random skulls would be worth it

I agree with everything you said. One addition for the blood Angels red, I found that worked really nicely on robes as they have lots of ridges.

I picked up Contrasts for my Ork Army, I love the "bubblegum" feel that it gives. It's a perfect fit for orks!

100% agree about snakebite leather and wyldwood. It’s so delightful to see a black and white model transform into a rich detailed brown with dark recesses.

imho: battle ready? go for contrast, it will look ok. then you can learn to add some highlights. then you can switch to old school techniques, if you like painting.

Yeah, Contrast over zenithal primes is my go to for 28mm these days, and now I've begun adding watercolour pencil highlights! Priming a darker colour then dry brushing a lighter colour also works very well as a base for Contrasts, especially on smaller scale miniatures.

I've found that a light drybrush really improves the final result. Another thing is that if your primer is "rough" as sometimes happens with sprays, it stops the contrast flowing and working properly. Contrast absolutely needs a smooth base.

Just a couple things I've discovered using and experimenting with contrasts: First, some contrasts over a silver/gunmetal look great. If you want a colored metallic, it is hard to go wrong with contrast over Ironbreaker (or your chosen equivalent from another line). Second, you can get a great mix with a contrast over another contrast, or a contrast over itself. I used Darkoath Flesh on a coat of Darkoath Flesh to get a color that looked much closer to a natural black skin tone than with anything else I've tried in the past. I used these two techniques on the weapons of my Nighthaunt to get great looking aged weapons. Undercoat white, Ironbreaker base, first coat Plaguebearer Flesh, then a second, less thick, coat of Snakebite Leather while the Plaguebearer Flesh is still wet. The contrasts will run together in an interesting way that makes it look like it has this patina on the weapon. Finally, on a personal note, Gryphcharger Grey is maybe my favorite color I've seen from a paint. I've used it for some of the cloth bits of my Iron Warriors (there's more than you might think on some characters and plenty on Cultists) and for the ethereal ghosty bits on my Nighthaunt. It has this great quality that makes it a dark blue-grey in the recesses, a light blue-grey on the surface, while still lightly staining the very raised edges.

Thanks for doing this retrospective video. There was so much content on youtube about contrast at launch and the cacophony of voices tended to drown each other out. Spending a protracted period of time with the the product and observing how the paints have been incorporated into your workflow is not only a more honest approach to reviewing them, it also feels like more credible breakdown because you could point to specific use cases.

I bought a packet of 3mm ball bearings and dropped one in every pot. Helps agitate the paint when shaking and gets all that white stuff of the bottom.

The best voice in miniature hobbyism. Very soothing, Bob Ross vibes! I got an okay result with cheap black acrylic hobby paint thinned with water and medium glaze. It's just a base coat but it highlights all the tones and details, so should make painting easier. I am brand new and just started yesterday. My main objective yesterday was to get over my hesitance to paint and not to see it as a hassle or insurmountable! It went okay. I don't have ideal conditions but set up was quite easy and i didn't make a mess. All my models are detailed and it's intimidating but i realised using thin layers didn't lose detail and so there's nothing that can't be undone. Painting with some music on and youtube in the background was soothing and I'm just eager to do more and learn more now 😁👍

Contrast has effectively become the major workhorse of my paint shelf. I've used them to paint a few hundred models by now ranging from 28mm Hundred Year's War, Adeptus Mechanicus, to 15mm War of Spanish Succession. My experience has shown that it works extremely well over large and non-technical pieces like robes, boots, backpacks, so on. However, it is extremely well complemented by including metallics and standard paints. In other words, contrast paints work by reducing the heavier workload of your models and thus reduce time spent painting per model.

I recently got back in to warhammer painting after about 2 decades, and I'm powering through your videos while I paint. I love your content and video format, thanks!

Thank you so much..you're always encouraging & keep me painting to the level that's fun to me

Great video Uncle Atom! Your Stormtrooper video is what initially sold me on Contrast paints, and I'm very glad you've done this detailed review. Thanks!

As a relatively new player coming late to 8th edition 40k, the contrast paints have some great uses, I can't imagine trying to paint up 20 or 30 Poxwalkers with traditional/classic method, not only would it take much longer my personal results would be lacking. Great product.

great vid uncle atom!! I'm thinking about ivesting in some contrast paints for the first time and this vid has given me things to think about and some an idea of what paints to get first. Keep up the awesome content

This is so exactly in line with my experience it's eerie. Tip: Use snakebite leather over salmon pink for a nice rust colour

I used Black Templar for an Escher Leather Jacket and absolutely hated it. I've just started using it over a Leadbelcher base on weapons or Titan chassis, and it's perfect! Ends up like a heavy Nuln Oil that also shades the flat sections. Really happy with it.

Holy cow I can't believe there's no honorable mention for Iyanden yellow. It makes yellow painting actually possible instead of fighting your chalkyness and transparency every step of the way. Also, I get the sediment reeeaaaally bad on my apothecary white. Can't figure out how to shake it away.

I love the flesh tearers red Been using it to paint up some red corsairs and its great, goes on smoothly and covers areas well. It's the only contrast I've used so far, I'll be picking up some more for sure, thanks for the tips on other colours to look into.

Thanks for your thoughts! Another colour I'm able to get tremendous mileage out of is Flesh Tearers Red. It's such an awesome, complex, rich red that doesn't have the cherry feel of Blood Angels Red. It's kind of like the mature version of that, and I also like to mix it with Agrax Earthshade to create intense and saturated shading for red elements that doesn't dull down the base colour, as Agrax tends to do when used on it's own. It's awesome!

They seem great for the people their aimed at. I'm not one of those people, I love painting minis, mixing paint, shading, dry brushing. Now that t-shirt has caught my attention. 🤔 Thanks Uncle Atom

Painted an Owlbear with contrast paints.....blew my mind as it was perfect for the larger textured surface. Great viscosity to find the nooks easily and I was able to get a good looking paint job very quickly.

First, thanks for another great video! I use contrast since their release in combination with classic techniques and metal clolors. All the contrast paints do indeed shade and highlight in once, at least the 10 I use. For me they are the new base blockers.

Thank you for this video Adam. I was / have never really been all that interested in the contrast paints. On certain things I have found them very useful, especially on a metallic zenithal. But my lacking interest has kept me from buying more than two bottles (one of them happened to be ultramarine blue.. kind of the reason as well why I was put off of the whole thing to be honest). Knowing that you have been messing around with these paints for a year and hearing your summary was great. Thanks for that!

Good point on the zenithal technique with Contrast Paints! I have tried that technique as well with these paints and it works wonders.

I just painted my first mini in 3 years and color blocking followed by contrast paint worked really really well.

SKeleton horde over an off white helps make the colors that don't stand out very well in the contrast line stand out even more. Add in a drybrush and you can be up and running to tabletop standard quickly. Plus it tunes the super vibrant ones down a few notches and it helps a lot.

What a great video thanks, I had a pretty good experience with contrast paints on my pox walkers I got through like 24 of them in 2 3hr sessions, base colours at least. Subbed

I mostly only use them for clothes, fur and leather as a base coat. Sometimes as a thicker type of wash with some contrast medium added.

My two cents: the contrast paints generally work well on anything that has an expectation of unevenness or randomness. And if you're really careful, they kind of work as a pinwash. So, Snakebite Leather works really well because aged or worn leather isn't meant to be even. With very few exceptions - best typified by Black Templar - the rest just look blotchy and patchy in places they shouldn't. I think this is why they are really popular for people painting things like Poxwalkers because they are supposed to look random. I think using them as a panacea is wrong, but so is dismissing them out of hand as being 'beginners stuff'. They have their place.

Great video! I am in the same boat you are. The browns are just fantastic. I would put Cygor Brown one level higher. It’s like Frank’s Red Hot. I put that stuff on everything. I find that 99% of time I use the contrast paints as glazes. They thin really well. They do dry a bit glossy but that’s what a little varnish is for. Thanks for all you do for the community Uncle Atom. You’re awesome.

An interesting combo I've noticed for contrasts is using a gemstone technical over a similar color with a metallic base, it tends to make the paint look almost like the candy paint used on classic cars

I am a boardgamer first and so kind of resigned myself to gray for life. After Contrast, I'm actually painting and enjoying the process. I'll never win any awards, but it's fun, kind of relaxing, and gives me a good sense of accomplishment when I finally table the stuff.

Militarum green is my favourite contrast paint, it looks amazing slapped onto packs and canteens and stuff, I used it for all the leaves on my trees which looks great as well.

As a very lazy and sloppy painter, Contrast paints are the best thing that ever happened to me. So much so that they've convinced me to do a bit more work on models, so I'm edge highlighting (never used to) and all sorts now. It was like they unlocked the next level for me

You sir and your information is a gift? Thank you.

I like using Contrast paints on bright silver (Vallejo Metal Color Chrome or Mithril Silver) to make eg. metallic red/blue etc. Super easy and quite good looking.

For the blues, the only one I use all the time is Ultramarine Blue. I'm painting a ton of figures for a Prussian Seven Years War army and it's perfect for the uniform coats. Blood Angels Red and whatever the name of the pink one is works great for the uniform details like cuffs, facings, turn backs and whatnot. Snakebite leather and Gulliman Flesh are favs too. Overall I've gotten a lot of use out of the Contrast line, I"m a fan.

I can't believe it's been a year already! I do like these paints, but I use them in conjunction with other paints.

Flesh Tearers Red is an awesome deep crimson color. I also like Gryph-hound orange when done over a yellow base coat. Another zenithol (not sure if I spelled that right) to try on orks is a purple primer followed by a yellow zenithol highlight. The ork green works really well over that.

I love them for Washes and in certain situations. I have my DG that I do with Militarum Green over a black primer/white drybrush and looks great. I tried fleashtearers red and wooow that is THICK, but great as a glaze to give some semi matte look

I use Contrast paints to do almost all of the work on my Infinity models. It works really well because the Infinity models are so finely detailed, and the anime aesthetic means that "bubblegum" look you describe ends up looking just fine.

Flesh Tearers Red is gorgeous, one of my favourites

I used the contrast paints on my Adeptus Titanicus buildings for their base colors and doors. Then picked out metallic details with the regular paints and used inks for the windows. Came out quite nice and let me finish them pretty quickly.

I can only agree on the ones you talked about, I use magos purple and the yellow for my imperial fists, which is pretty amazing with a zenithal highlight. Then drybrush it and it looks quite good

Great post. I recently (2days ago) used both space wolves grey& gryphcharger grey/ close shades, but Gryphcharger has a blue-green hue& tint when dry.

About to order some new paints. Might try some of these out. Thnx alot!

blood angels red is amazing with pre-shading, just airbrush it and those reds work like a charm. I know it because that is how I powered my way through all my blood angels and I'm really happy on how they turned out

i’m painting with contrast paints from their release and i love them. It took me some time to adjust my painting technique, but they are amazing for painting nice looking miniatures for tabletop games and save so much time. i’m using full contrast range and black layer paint. Wraithbone primer and contrast medium are key ;-)

I found them to lower the bar of entry for painting when I got in to the hobby. I use them in combination with traditional acrylics and that combo really works. I also found them to be at their best when you have models with a lot of detail for them to flow in to. I think of them as a wash and base in one. You still, I find, want to build up highlights if you want to take them a few steps beyond table ready. I painted my whole squad of wyches in the better part of a day with contrast, then one more day to make them pretty with highlights. I LOVE using some of the contrasts really thinly over metallics, too. It's such a nice effect. Definitely going to give a zenithal highlight a try with them (if it works out, it'll really help save on the primer because holy crap does GW charge a lot of their primers)

I’ve found contrast good for painting base coats, because they tend to work good for that. Then I can go back and toss on some highlights, or dry brush.

I've started using contrast this month for Age of Sigmar Chaos minis. I usually thin them down, and use them as a combination of base colour plus wash. Then I add an edge highlight and do the metallics. It does seem to speed things up quite a bit, which I appreciate.

To anyone who wants to introduce contrast paints to your painting process, if you do a gloss varnish before you put it down it'll flow increadibly well. Also make sure to put on another layer of varnish after if you want to dry brush as they're quite weak. If you are looking for alternatives to contrasts, scale75 has a line coming soon, Kickstarter has finished, keep an eye out for reviews later in the year. The orange and yellow work very well for fire, or using them through an airbrush as a filter. I also like akhelian green.

They are great for wet blending and gradients. And some love for Talassar blue.

Used selectively, some of them are great tools - when dry brushed! For instance, the skel' horde has been a sanity-saver painting multiple squads of Star Wars Legion B1 Battle Droids & the blues, reds and greens work well for the clone squad colour differentiations.

Yeah, contrasts have been great for specific applications. I like them for robes and fur (Wyrmwood, Basilicanum Grey). They've been fantastic for Legion Stormtroopers/Clones (white prime, Apothecary White, Praxetti White drybrush + Black Templar) and Battle Droids (white prime, Skeleton Horde, Terminatus Stone drybrush) -- both in effect and speed. I tried countershading to do my Legion Vader Operative and it turned out great. Over a white zenithal prime, I first highlighted the top highlights with bright white, put some darker grey in the shadows, and some metallic silver in areas where I wanted black to sparkle a bit. I then did Black Templar over all of that. Turned out great -- I basically just had to pick out fine details and then use some gloss varnish on the helmet and a couple of other spots. Much, much easier than the layers of grey and Nuln oil I did with my first Vader, and with a better effect.

That was very informative and helpful. Thanks!

Thanks for the content. As for Blood Angels Red. I painted my whole BA army with that contrast colour and only used wraithbone spray as primer. Worked great after a learning curve of some models^^. Also used regular paints on few models as a comparison with normal shading(Nuln Oil, etc.) and can definately recommend the BA RED contrast colour.

Great video. I have used a lot of the different contrast colours. On larger flat surfaces, 2 thin coats with a ekstra layer in recesses is a preffered method in my experience. Sometimes I thin the contrast paint with contrast medium also. A thick coat often makes a mess regarding to pooling. It's also great as layer paint over other paints to give depth to colours, used like I use a wash. I also wet blend different contrast paints, and it makes the process easier (for me) than with regular paints. Contrast medium with ink's is also great.

I've been loving them because they make my painting so much easier. Last weekend I painted my new Incubi up in just under a weekend by using the Dark Angel Green contrast and then Drakenhof Nightshade shade over it (to make it blue-er), plus regular drybrushing according to the 'traditional' method. They look very very similar to the other models I did the 'traditional' way, but which took me sooo much more time to paint up because base paints are so much thicker it takes more time and energy to paint with them. Contrast is so fluid that it makes painting many models in one go so much easier. It really has given me new energy to tackle my backlog of models and I've definitely been catching up a LOT even though I'm still working full-time, because contrast makes it so much easier.

I moved my contrast paints into dropper bottles and added a army painter ball bearing helps alot for the seperating colors and i love airbrushing on the contrast paints and mixing my own colors

i varied the goobertown zenithal of pink and white and sprayed contrast yellow over it with my airbrush (it goes great through the airbrush without thinner or flow improver, btw). Result was a very vibrant golden yellow almost neon orange fade. Also when shooting it with the airbrush, you can apply layer for layer and that increases the opacity of it, making it more intense and more orange-ish. Very pleased with the outcome for my tau army project so far.

Any tool to the box is a good thing. Contrast paints work well as friggin' *washes* when you thin them down and when it's not possible to find some colours of wash? They're a godsend. Augment the shade of your darker colours? Put some contrast of the same colour over to top.

Totally agree. I’m really liking them. I would add a couple tips. Try them over a metallic paint for a neat effect. And, you can save some paints with a light dry brush. I’ve even used mechanicus grey on a vehicle with a dry brush to even the tones. They’re worth experimenting with. Timing is huge for me, you have to be quick or you’ll get weird edge lines in the middle of your surface.

When used in conjunction with other standard colours they look great!

Around the time that Contrast came out, I decided to start a brand new Salamanders army using them in GW's advertised "One thick coat and done" method. At first, I loved how quickly they helped me get my army up to a tabletop standard, but I've found over the year or so since that I'm really not happy with the look of them, and have gone back to doing all my marines the old fashioned way. Now I'm looking at going back to all the marines I did back then and repainting them entirely. Contrast paints are a great tool, but I think GW advertising them as a one-step solution is doing them a disservice. Side note: Black Templar is great for getting Salamanders skin done quickly and effectively!

I’ve made a heavy wash out of two parts cygor brown one part black Templar and about eight parts of medium, put it on and wipe it off with a damp brush and it mimics the effects of an enamel wash pretty well without a ton of effort. I’ve also done a candy apple red using flesh tearers red airbrushed over a bright gold that worked incredibly.

I use the Blood Angel Red over highlights, add a bit of dry brushing with Mephiston Red and edge highlighting with a couple of brighter reds looks great.

I've been getting into using contrasts recently, mainly as a time saving tool, or to do something easier than I can do with traditional paints. Iyanden yellow I've found is good for a quick and easy fire, just layer it heavier where you want it to be darker, then a shade of either nuln oil or reikland fleshshade over and it's basically done. For someone who finds blending quite difficult, I've found it works pretty well for a convincing flame that doesn't look too cartoony. I also quite like guilliman flesh for skin, and found again just by layering or thinning you can get several different skin tones out of one paint. Aethermatic blue has been useful for me for the magical crackles of stormcast evocators. Also one of the good uses I've seen for nazdreg yellow is putting it over skin to give it an irradiated look. Also kind of a niche use but I found they were perfect for stained glass, I just let it pool on the areas of the plastic and dry. It did a much better job than washes at staying on the whole piece rather than just running into the recesses, and also didn't leave any brush marks, as well as actually being translucent. I think geedubs made a mistake trying to market it as an independent line from the other citadel paints, because it honestly just doesn't work on its own, lacking things like metallics make them look very cartoony, seriously, look up when they did sanguinary guard entirely contrast, it's not great. However, when used alongside traditional paints, it does certain things easier, and they work best in tandem when you do what you can in contrast and the rest with traditional, which is basically highlights and metallics.

I resisted contrast paints, and then after a long time I gave in and tried it. I love them

Metallic paints and Contrast have given me some of my favourite results, thus far. Lead Belcher and Magos Purple, for example.

i found for the contrasts i really like Goregrunta fur for rich leather colors, their flesh colors are really nice and i love skeletal bone for bones ill use them and a few other colors for those that can be difficult (like certain yellows and oranges ) ive found they really added to my painting tool box and really improved some of my work

I randomly used Gor-Grunta Fur at Pax Unplugged last year and I loved it for the look it gave to heavy leather. Now I need to try some of these other ones. It seems like earth tones are the way to go though.

I've used a handful of the contrast paints a fair bit now and my general observations are they are brilliant for anything that isn't a large flat panel. I have used blood angels red as the accent colour on my skeletons and it looks amazing on the cloth and shields. The skeleton horde is a game changer for painting skeletons. And the skintone colours are the only way I play human flesh now. Something I actually plan on trying this week is using black template to make better black power armour. My idea is to take 2 models, one primed black and one grey and just drybrush the heck out of them to get those edges to be much brighter than the surround, and then go over the whole thing with black templar to get rid of the chalkyness of the drybrushing, bring the colour back towards black, but keep those brighter edges. I've got high hopes for the technique!

I just kickstarted the Scale 75 instant colors, similar to Citadel’s contrast line. Excited to get my hands on it.

I've been using Contrast mainly to do accessories and terrain. Snakebite Leather, Apothecary White and Skeleton Horde are my most used. I've also found I can get some really cool effects layering Contrast over other colors. You can get a cool iridescent effect by wet-blending different Contrasts over a metallic base and I've used it to make a fun green/blue flame by layering Ultramarine Blue over a yellow base layer. (this is the one time that I've actually liked this particular paint color)

gryph-hound orange is really good too, it did an amazing job on the clothes on my IG since I went with a penal legion paint scheme.

I completely agree with what you said. I will add that militarum green is great, and the bubblegum effect is cool for screens and lights for Warplightning green.

I'm new to the hobby, and I only paint because of contrast paints!

They go into my SFX spot, like OSL or exotic weathering or eldritch horror mottling. I found that airbrushing them over large 5mm+ wide areas provides a smoother finish. As for defeating that white sediment, I have a ratted out old brush that I use to stir it up then shake it like a Polaroid picture.

I sometimes add medium to my contrasts and use them as shades too! They're incredibly versatile.

Great video! Thanks for the recommendations

I like how the skin colour of the contrast works well for some of my models, especially with the contrast medium to help smooth the paints to balance them over the surface of the models.

I have both Orks for 40k and Legions of Nagash for AoS...I completely agree about the browns for Contrast. The skeleton hordes is amazing for banging off decent tabletop standard skeletons. And the Orkskin( exact name eludes me right now) is great for the same but of course for the orks. I think contrast is a great tool for your kit but not the end all be all of painting.

My cadre of painters (varied experience levels) uses contrasts for all kinds of things, mostly to enhance other techniques. I, too, agreed with your assessment of the individual paints and have a small thing to add: Aethermatic Blue is amazing. Especially for Nighthaunts' ghostly parts followed up by a drybrush/layer of Ulthuan grey and white scar.