For this review I painted Contrast, Speedpaints, Instant Colors, and Antithesis paints on this sheet of plasticard that I primed with Corax White primer. In terms of turquoise, The Army Painter only has a single colour, Plasmatic Bolt, which is similar to Aethermatic Blue, but much deeper and darker. Highlord Blue is a little lighter and more of a prussian blue than Ultramarines Blue, while Cloudburst Blue is very similar to Leviathan Blue. Magic Blue is a little darker and more intense than Talassar Blue, but with a little thinning it would be very similar. Hive Dweller Purple is also slightly darker than Shyish Purple, but dries much less patchy. Purple Alchemy is clearly darker than Volupus Pink and should perhaps be thinned with a little bit of Speedpaint Medium. Slaughter Red has slightly more prominent highlights, whereas Flesh Tearers Red is a little darker. Blood Red and Blood Angels Red are almost identical. Zealot Yellow is a little more orange than Iyanden Yellow, Fire Giant Orange a little more tomato red. The Speedpaint palette is very similar to the Contrast palette, even though there are only 24 paints (including Speedpaint medium), whereas Contrast has 35. Let’s take a look at the individual colours. You can see it in the paint swatch below – the results of Speedpaints are more homogenous, whereas there is a broader distribution between light and dark in Contrast paints. The Army Painter promises that Speedpaint is a real “one coat paint” and provide a consistent feel across the range. And many of the darker colours are rather flat and hardly create any highlights, like Dark Angels Green and Cygor Brown. Other colours are quite thin and feel more like washes, like Aethermatic Blue and Gryph-Charger Grey.
Some colours do exactly what they are supposed to, like Blood Angels Red and Iyanden Yellow – base colour, shading and highlights with one coat. I used Contrast glazes to shade this classic 2nd Edition Ultramarine, for example.īut we all know Contrast isn’t perfect. They’re also great for thinning into washes or glazes. But to save time on organic textures and smaller details like all those pouches and belts that won’t catch your attention, they are fantastic. Contrast has changed my painting quite a bit, even though I never actually use it for painting whole miniatures as advertised.