One of my future planned projects is ECW in 15mm.
My plan is to paint using some speed methods, such as black washes and Contrast paints.
I have experimented on my 20mm Arab-Israeli figures; my main reservation was the lack of a strong delineation between areas that you get with a black undercoat method.
So my experiment was to take 6 identical miniatures but prepare them differently.
Two each were undercoated in white, grey and black. One each of the white and grey got a wash in a mix of Pledge Revive it (previously Klear), water and black ink. The black figures were drybrushed in white for one and grey for the other.
Step one undercoats
Step three common basic colours
Step four all colours except coat and scarf - variations hat / trousers
Step five all basic colours variations in coat 3 blue, 3 red
The white undercoat gives brightest colours; all will benefit from normal acrylic white and some highlights and hair touched in. Still not decided which appeals the most. I'm coming to the conclusion Contrast paints are useful, but need extra work to look really good. They do speed up the basic colour blocking in and are produce less fatigue, as you are not concentrating as much.
Good experiment! I am a die-hard black primer man, myself.
ReplyDeleteJonathan, me too but I'm not averse to trying something new.
ReplyDeleteNeil
Always worth trying an experiment every now and again. It will be interesting to see whether you persist with the contrast paints.
ReplyDeletePeter, I'm still undecided; they do work and give a perfectly reasonable wash effect but I'm still toying with additional work. My test showed that the black, grey and black wash figures are a bit too dark - I think however that simply adding white and flesh highlights will lift them. This raises the issue of whether it would just be quicker to work from black undercoat so is it saving any time? I think it IS quicker as the highlights are confined to specific areas - I also toyed with some Egyptians. Flesh fine but uniforms needed a little lifting as did helmets. Time will tell.
ReplyDeleteNeil
I always thought that with smaller figures it was better to go brighter; so the white base should be good. Though I’ve tried it and found it to be a pain to add shadows so went back to black.
ReplyDeleteI’m interested in trying out some speed paints one day. 😀
Stew, I switched to a black undercoat many many years ago. It adds a deep shadow / delineation, doesn't have white showing where you missed bits and tones down very bright acrylic colours.
ReplyDeleteThe problem was that even on 15mm I was ending up with a base colour plus one to two highlights. Looked great, took forever.
I have been almost entirely painting Spencer Smiths with just a base coat, leaving black lines. The only highlights were flesh, but most colours ended up with another coat to correct mistakes and touch up bits missed or poor coverage.
The Contrast paints act like a heavy wash so it's a completely different style. They only work on white, cream or grey primer.
Neil