GW: Perfect Armies For Contrast
Games Workshop’s new Contrast Paints are just begging to hit the palette for these Armies.
The new Contrast Paints are coming to stores this weekend and we’re pretty excited to see what the community is going to do with them. They are a new tool for your hobby toolkit and are perfect for getting your Army Battle Ready.
That said, having played around with the Contrast Paints, we think there are some armies that are going to benefit even more than your average models. If you’re looking to start a new army (or finish one) and want to really play around with and/or take advantage of the Contrast line, here are the top armies to do just that!
Tyranids
- Organic tones work extremely well with shades
- Weird, Alien-looking colors
- Carapace and Bone look great with Contrast Paints
We think Contrast Paints work extremely well when it comes to Organic-looking tones. Tyranids are entirely organic and it’s a perfect fit. Many hobbyists who have tackled Tyranids will probably be familiar with using the “Shades-over-Base” colors to get that look already. With Contrast, you’re basically doing both the base color and shade in one step. That’s a massive time saver and the results look great!
Orks
- Ork Flesh with Green is a breeze
- Dirty, well used look
- Looks great on metal for some weird effects (grease/mud/blood/stains)
Orks are another army with a lot of exposed flesh – that flesh just happens to be green. On top of that, they aren’t all covered head-to-toe in armor, they were a lot of cloth and leathers. Furthermore, Orks are an army that really benefit from getting a little “sloppy” with the washes/inks/shades. Their weapons are salvaged and their armor is bolted and jagged – Contrast Paints will really get into those recesses and “muck it up” properly. And with all those darker shades, making a good looking “mess” is going to be a snap!
Chaos Daemons
- Otherworldly and Aetherial
- Lots of room to experiment
- ‘Loud’ color options
Personally, if were thinking about expanding into a Chaos Daemons army for 40k or AoS, the Contrast Paints would make my day. Few armies in the game offer such a broad range of color palettes to work with. You’ve got your dark colors with Khorne and Nurgle. You’ve got super-punchy brights with Tzeentch and Slaanesh. And you can really go nuts with those “otherworldly” colors in the Contrast range. Plus, they are all from the warp so that is even more reason to experiment with mixing colors via the Contrast Medium!
Death Guard
- Dirty, corroded, streaky, and blotchy looks
- Lots of greens/browns to work with
- Lots of Flesh-tones from sickly greens and yellows, to raw and irritated pinks/reds
Holy crap – where was Contrast Paints when the Death Guard got a revamp? Well it’s coming and it’s going to be a great time to paint up some Death Guard. As mentioned for the Chaos Daemons, the servents of Nurgle in particular is going to really get a lot of mileage out of Contrast. There are a lot of browns to use to get the right shade of “gross” you need. And the Poxwalker Flesh Contrast paint looks fantastic as a yellowish-green. I think painting an entire army of Death Guard is going to get a whole lot easier!
Slyvaneth
Ok, now that I have the Contrast Medium and Grey Seer in a pot I was able to really test out the paints. This guy has no highlights except for picking out the eye and the hair a slight bit with Grey Seer cause I went to dark on accident with it. Almost every color has Medium used pic.twitter.com/3JpGiRqWct
Advertisement— Mengel Miniatures (@MengelMinis) June 8, 2019
- Mix of “Spirit” and Wood
- Contrast makes painting both a breeze
- Organic and earthy tones
This one is courtesy of Mengel Miniatures and as you can see – WOW. Just WOW. Tyler is an excellent painter. Now that he’s been messing around with the Contrast Paints and the Contrast Medium to basically use them like Water Colors in a sense. By using the Medium in conjunction with the Contrast Paint while it’s still wet, he’s able to “lighten” the raised areas and get some amazing results. This might seem like a pretty advanced technique, but the Slyvaneth are a great army to experiment on using it thanks to their organic tones.
Nighthaunt
- Ghostly “Flowy” color
- Contrast perfect for Transitions from Dark to Light
- Matte Medium makes this stuff work like Water Color
If you were looking for a fast way to get your Nighthaunt army painted and on the tabletop, it doesn’t get much faster than Contrast. If I didn’t already have a paint scheme worked out and settled on, I would totally have gone with the Contrast line for painting my Nighthaunt army. Again, if you use the Contrast Medium like painters use water in water color, you can get those really fantastic highlights, wetblends, and tone-shifts on your miniatures. The Nighthaunt army would be another one that can really take advantage of these new paints.
Bonus: Funky Looking Necrons
Unfortunately, we don’t have any Necron pictures of this yet. However, we’ve been hearing about undercoating miniatures with metallics (like Leadbelcher or other silver colors) and applying Contrast over the top. The results have been pretty wild.
You almost get a pearlescent look to your miniatures. So if you want to have some truly funky looking Necrons, why not go with the metal undercoat and then pick a really far-out there Contrast Paint to go over the top?! Oh the possibilities…
Do you plan on picking up some Contrast Paints to work on an army with? Let us know how you plan to tackle them in the comments!
