What are contrast and speed paints, and when should I use them?

These paints were sold as a way to paint an army quickly and they genuinely do that, but they behave unlike anything else on the shelf and applying them like ordinary paint produces a mess. Understanding the mechanism — surface tension pulling paint off high points into low ones — tells you everything about where they work.

Step by step

1. Prime light.White, bone or a light grey. The effect depends on light passing through the translucent colour, hitting the pale primer and coming back. Over black primer there is nothing to reflect and the model reads as one dark tone. This is not a preference, it is a requirement.
2. Consider zenithal priming underneath.Black primer with white sprayed from directly above, then contrast paint over it. The paint picks up the pre-existing light-to-dark gradient as well as pooling in the recesses, and the result is far better than either technique alone.
3. Load the brush moderately and lay the paint on once.Enough to flow, not enough to flood. One pass. The paint needs to be free to move across the surface and find the recesses, which it cannot do if you are pushing it around.
4. Pull the excess off the flat areas.Immediately after applying, touch a clean dry brush tip to any pool sitting on a flat surface. It wicks the excess away and prevents the glossy tidemark that is the characteristic failure of these paints.
5. Do not brush back and forth.Working the paint breaks the film, drags pigment out of the recesses onto the raised areas, and leaves streaks. Lay it down and leave it. This is the hardest habit to break for anyone used to ordinary acrylics.
6. Use them where there is texture to work with.Cloth, fur, hair, wood, leather, chainmail, rope, rubble, feathers — anything with heavy sculpted relief. On these surfaces the result in one coat is better than most people achieve in three with conventional paint.
7. Avoid them on large smooth areas.Flat armour plate, vehicle panels and smooth skin have no recess to hold the shadow, so the paint has nowhere to go and dries as an uneven film with hard edges. Base coat those areas conventionally.
8. Finish conventionally where it helps.An edge highlight, a metallic detail and a matt varnish over the top take a contrast-painted model from acceptable to good in a few minutes, and none of that is undone by having used contrast paint underneath.

Tips

• Thinning contrast paint with its own medium rather than water keeps the flow properties. Water dilutes the pigment and the medium equally and the effect weakens dramatically.
• Two thin applications of the same contrast colour deepen it without losing the recess effect, which is more controllable than one heavy application.
• The finish is often satin or slightly glossy. A matt varnish at the end is worth it on almost every contrast-painted model.

Common mistakes

• Using them over black primer — The whole mechanism depends on light returning through the translucent film. Over black it does not, so both the shade and the highlight vanish and every colour comes out muddy.
• Brushing them back and forth like ordinary paint — It drags the pigment out of the recesses and onto the raised surfaces, which is precisely the opposite of what the paint is for, and it leaves visible streaks.
• Applying too much and leaving it — A pool that has nowhere to run dries as a glossy patch with a hard edge across a flat panel. Removing the excess with a dry brush tip while it is wet takes two seconds and prevents it.
• Expecting them to replace all painting — They are a base-and-shade step. Highlights, metallics and detail still need doing conventionally, and a model with only contrast paint on it looks unfinished next to one that has had five more minutes of work.

If it doesn't work

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