Goatboy’s Tabletop: The Army Painter Speedpaint Review
Goatboy here to take a close look at Army Painter Speedpaint and what they can do your army.
Today I’m not talking about the competitive nature of the game. This is about getting your army ready for an event. A lot of players are constantly tweaking their lists down to the last few days. This usually means needing to quickly get your army pieces painted so you don’t lose out on your 10 points per round. You of course could be like a lot of players where they just paint everything and have access to. Or you can be like myself at times where a wild whim will pull you down a rabbit hole of finding models, converting models, and finally painting models.
Hello Army Painter Speedpaints
This is where some of the new “fast/speed” paint products comes in handy. So today I want to do a little review of the newest Army Painter Speedpaints product. These paints are equivalents to the Contrast paint range from GW. Army Painter formulated their own “version” that matches some of the properties of Contrast. They also do some things that Contrast doesn’t do which is where I get excited about them!
To get this out of the way – Army Painter sent me a few test paints and even the Mega Paint set. I have used the dark red, black, brown, and flesh colors to try a few things out as I get my own personal Custodes army worked on. Overall I like the paints a lot and find them useful for a lot of different applications. They have some properties that I like more than the GW counterparts. But, there are some things I like on the GW side as well. Overall I think Speedpaint is an excellent addition to add to your paint sets. They are a good deal cheaper, come in easy to use bottles, and even come with their own mixer ball inside them. A lot of the time on the GW side the paints can start to separate a bit. So having a mixer ball already inside is a blessing.
Putting Speedpaint to the Test
I have some models I want to show how I used them but let me go into what I liked. These paints are not just a wash. They are more like a stain mixed with a wash. I really like that mixtur. I thought it “lined” the models a lot better than some of the Contrast options and was fairly easy to control. My test models I used a metallic undertone. I really like how these stain/washes can create a really unique bronze/gold look that isn’t just painted on straight gold. I end up doing a lot of bright metallics and utilize washes/speedpaints/contrast to create the darker metal I want. It is easier to start bright and bring down with shades/glazes/stains.
The other thing about Army Painter Speedpaint is they really pull towards the recesses which is a really neat thing. You can create those stark lines you want to see in a lot of models as a way to help them visually pop. A ton of people online are talking about how these things work and using it myself I can see it. Speedpaint can be very helpful and help you quickly get your models on the tabletop. You add a few minutes of highlighting and you start to get a very nice model extremely quickly. Which is the whole points of these paints.
Combining Techniques
Quick dipping is in a sense a very similar process to these paints. You do a very simple base coats of your sections. Then dip it in the brownish color. Finally, let the staining/move to the recesses create the layers of paint. These Speedpaints work in the same sort of way. But with a much more targeted process as you utilize specific colors to blend on top. I like having more control and these paints are less messy than dipping, and shacking off the excess.
Should You Pick up Army Painter Speedpaint?
Do you need to go out and buy all these paints right away? If you like that style of painting then YES – as these paints are cheaper, presentation is better, and the mixer ball pushes them into a much more exciting package. Do you need to go out and buy the Mega Paint set?
Unless you have no existing paints, I would suggest the Speedpaint Starter Set . This will get you enough of a palette that a beginner would want to use. Then just experiment with the different colors, and learn the fast techniques. When you reach the point of wanting those missing shades, then move up to the Speedpaint Mega Set. I really like how these things flow over metallic and will most likely continue to experiment in that direction but I think you can do as much with zenith highlighting as well.
In the end, paints are a tool and it is just great we have access to so many tools out there. I remember when I first started the tricks were glazes, screw on cap paints, and minwax dips you bought from the hardware store. Now you have so many color options, paint material options, and companies giving you neat products to try out.
Army Painter Speedpaint Examples
Example 1 – Custodes
I started this one off with brushed on Metallic for all the metal parts and then I did a grey seer for the non metallic bits. Then I used a Dark brown for all the metal and leather and a dark red for cloak and side fabric. I went back and did some highlighting on reds and leather as I should have used a different brown than the same for the metallic parts. Overall it didn’t take too long as I used a fan to help dry things faster and slowly built up the shades as needed. I wanted to do a really dark bronze armor for the Custodes. I think going a bit more red or even a Yellow shade might work better if you want to go shiny. In the end, I went with a Bolt gun like metallic too so I could have gone brighter.
Example 2 – Emperor’s Champion
This one was a black primer with a Grey zenithal highlight. I think I could have gone with more White to give a bit more variation but I used the Black Speed Paint to paint over and create a muted shade for the black armor. A few small highlights got added to bring it around and some regular washes on the Metallics and cloak. I was more so testing out an idea and I think I figured a few things out for the next time.
Example 3 – Grey Knights
This was a very simple scheme of a black prime, gun metal spray, and then a zenithal super bright silver spray afterwards. I threw a Speed Paint Black wash on top to heavily darken the metallic colors and then build the other tons on top of it to break it apart. It was very fast paint due to the nature of using a simple scheme to get the majority of the model completed. This is what I like about the Speed Paints – you can get a quick tone set done and utilize the extra time to figure out how to pop out some things. It is what I saw about most competitive army painting – figure out an overall simple base tone to build off of and pick a few things to really amp up.
Happy painting!
Promotional material was provided by The Army Painter
