Hey guys, many of you have rightly pointed out that you should use a STAINLESS STEEL ball-bearing or even a GLASS bead. This is correct and good practice. A Mild Steel ball-bearing will eventually corrode and potentially ruin your pot of paint. Thank you all for the feedback and the continued support. On top of that, stay safe everyone 😊 - Dunc and Rog
Army Painter or greenstuff world Mixing Balls confirmed work in GW and Vallejo paints... ebay stainless steel doesnt... dont cheap out bought mine from Mightyape (au/nz)
Andrew McGuire why? What does it do to the paint? The amount of lead that would ‘leak’ into the paint would be infintesimally small,and besides, if you varnish your figures, you’re not touching it? Just don’t suck your wet paint brush lol
I was not conviced by those paints thinking this is going to make painting way too easy and less challenging. Never been so wrong. I decided to go for the screamy blue, goblin green like and dark angeels green paints for my GW -LoTR phantom figs. the effect is just phenomenal ibb.co/bs9SK4N the link is a legit picture of my figs, not scam :c btw if anybody is interested in the exact lalette of colors feel free to ask :).
Gw: turns off comments to they're videos. Duncan: Gets literally hundreds of positive comments and helpful suggestions from his fans and tries to reply where he can. Thank you for being you and helping us all perfect our two thin coat philosophy over the years.
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou thin out thy Holy Paints. Then, shalt thou count to two. No more. No less. Two shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be two. Three shalt thou not count, nor either count thou one, excepting that thou then proceed to two. Four is right out. Once the number two, being the second number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Paints of Duncan towards thy model, who, being not in My sight, shall have a nice even coverage."
Duncan used to work in a GW in Derby before he went on to do all this, even then like 10 years ago you could tell he really loved what he was doing and always helped you out when you needed it. Nice to see him doing so well this far on. Keep it up mate!
I love your work. It’s also nice to see Contrast paints moving away from being presented as a way of being able to do all the work on their own to becoming a useful tool when combined with other products and techniques
Just in case you didn’t know. Fantastic painter Juan Hidalgo has a series called “ ‘Eavy contrast marines” where he blends contrast and regular paints with amazing effect
Something I noticed about the Warhammer Tutorials. We have tutorials for: Bloodthirster Lord of Change Great Unclean One And I think that’s it for the Chaos Greater Daemons. It’s not like we are keeping one a secret.
Using contrast I’ve found them to be quite different and a bit more difficult than GW’s initial marketing suggested. This video helped a lot, especially with in regards to medium strength/weaker contrast.
contrast has some brilliant uses. Wyldwood is another fantastic one to be used in place of earthshade (like the way guillimans fleshtone works instead of reikland) But GW marketed it completely assways. They marketed them as this wonderous device that turns a novice into a pro with one slapdash approach. Even their new contrast videos arent that good as they dont explain the work you have to do to get contrast to be effective.
After watching him paint the ultramarine with care, precision and two thin coats, i went back and watched the Ultramarine contrast video and seeing Peachy just slap it on but come out with a smooth model. I knew when i first watched that video is was rubbish (not Peachy's fault he was just doing what the powers that be told him) Duncan, great video, Id love to see more work with contrast paints as they really are a great tool.
Boy, that first point at 4:00 was SUPER helpful for me! I am really struggling to get a handle on these and totally jacked-up a plague Marine last night (thank goodness for tupperware and Simple Green!). Great video!
A lot of these things have I learned by the hard way. I wish I knew that you shouldn't go back before something have dried when I started to use contrast paints. This is a good guide for everyone starting with contrast paints! Thanks for sharing Duncan!
Wow, now I know why I had so many problems with Contrast Paints compared to the classic ones, despite Contrast being the supposedly beginner-friendly variant. That bit about not going back to areas you've already covered and applying a second coat instead of just going with one (as officially advertised) was very important. Great video, as always!
Drybrushing the Miniatures with white before using Contrasts gives a nice result. You get even get something that looks like edge Highlights. Not as controlled as real edge highlighting, but still a great result for about 10-15 mins per toy soldier.
It also works (with water too, but depends on the paint how well water does) with normal paints as well and it's something done on a bit of a more advanced level. It's called feathering. It is one of the ways one can fade a color, making the transition smooth
As a bit clumsy person, I was looking to Contrast Paints as something to give me an edge over my clumsiness. Thank you for helping me to understand how to work with them properly, especially that even with Contrast Paints, rule of "Two thin coats" still stays.
Wow, I sincerely never thought to cover contrast with a watered down coat of the shade you're going for. That's genuinely great information! I've stayed away from base-coating with it for so long, but might give it a try now.
please keep making videos duncan. you are the reason I actually kept painting, after picking up the hobby, 3 times previously in my life and walking away from it because I have absolutely 0 natural talent for these things. I am happy to say that after 5 years of watching your videos, I am now a very mediocre painter :)
I love the current GW but it is nice to see how Duncan can actually say to use water instead of medium now or like how a product is good or bad in certain ways rather than when in GW, it is usually how good the product is. I hope GW picks up on that as we all will probably love them even more for being to the point and sticking to the reality of their products. That being said, thumbs up to this video.
Water and medium aren't interchangeable - it depends on the purpose. Of course, you don't need to buy lahmium medium - any generic acrylic medium will do.
Wet blending with Contrast like this is great! One thing to be aware of though is that the stronger ones (Blood Angels Red is the one that gave me some headaches) will have enough time to skin at the edges even if you're diligent about swapping colors quickly. In that case I found it useful to have that layer of Contrast Medium where you intend the two colors to meet so that it's the medium that'll form an invisible edge during the seven or eight seconds it takes you to get the next color applied. Basically mixing the two techniques here.
I've started painting summer 2019 with absolutely no creative skills whatsoever. Thanks to your videos, I feel like I've achieved a level where I don't need to be ashamed of my models anymore. Thank you so much, Duncan!
Comments like yours is exactly why we do what we do. Thank you so much for your kind word MechMK1 and we are so glad we could help you on your hobby journey 😊
@@DuncanRhodesDRPA I'm really glad I got into the hobby. And also, great video. With the glaze over it, the contrast paint doesn't look like water paint anymore
Now that I can finally comment on one of your videos... I returned to the hobby in 2018, your videos assisted me in shaking off the rust, and elevating my painting. I'm getting to the point of being proud of my work now. Thank you Duncan.
We've all seen the quality of Duncan's work and his superb results. Great vid for techniques and for seeing clever visual results achieved straightforwardly It's also a great advert for tiny bottles of very expensive specialist paint. try working out the cost of just the ones used. Duncan is spot on, honest and faultless as a tutor Contrast paints are a pigment dense base with just the right amount of acrylic base thinner to achieve a particular effect over whatever you've put underneath.. Decent inks are cheaper pot for pot and you get 30ml in a proper bottle with a glass dropper! Luxury! Buy whatever you fancy, and then colors to mix, always include the pigment primaries magenta, cyan and yellow. Mix your color, add acrylic thinner/medium till the consistency matches the contrast paint you imagine, heavy, medium, thin like the ones Duncan uses like a heavy wash. If you want it to break more over the raised detail add a bit of flow improver by picking it up from a drop with a brush until you get the difference you want between recess and detail - take it slowly, you can add but not remove. If you're painting the base color on 50 marines then it's worth buying a GW contrast pot to use it straight from, otherwise try another way.
I really appreciate you explaining how the Contrast differs from the Shades. A lot of talk in other places how they do similar things, but knowing contrast 'grabs' where washes 'sink' is very useful.
Thanks for sharing these different techniques using contrast paints but also sharing some of the different properties of some of the paints. Keep up the great work👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
After 3 years working abroad I came home to find tons of unpainted models and stacks of citadel paints that had dried up. Having got the paints moist again and primed some models I realised that the my old way of base + recess shade + edge highlight + varnish was going to take me forever even during lockdown. GW grabbed my attention with their “one thick coat” line and I was about to plomp down the cash for a collection of contrast paints. Your video taught me that contrast paints actually need an extra degree of skill to manage and are more of a tool than a solution. I thinks it’s best that I just cut out the layering stage and do an all over coat of shade instead of recess and call that battle ready! UPDATE: Couldn’t resist the allure of having some table top ready Termagants in Leviathan colours so grabbed the appropriate Contrast paints and boy am I pleasantly surprised! They really do what they set out to do - get models appropriately ready to be viewed from above the table top in as short a sitting as possible. I think the one thick coat sales pitch doesn’t work though - I’m using my artifice brush to control it and to make sure I don’t have to go back back and touch up with Wraithbone. Honestly I never could apply shades properly and relied on the varnish effect of ard coat to dazzle - now the model looks pretty natural on the first pass!
Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy Thank you for replying! Means a lot after having watched all your vids since getting into the hobby! By way of another update i managed to paint up my Smurfs (Assault On Black Reach Box) and my Nids (Shield Of Baal: Deathstorm Box) - Ultramarines Blue and Shyish Purple were challenging to begin with but as i said your video showed the need to take a bit of extra care which is why I’m using an artifice brush for the minis. Also, instead of strokes with a loaded brush I’m doing quick but careful dabs with a loaded sharp tip (think of it as mimicking a tattooist) - that way i avoid the streaky brush stains or uneven pooling that occurs with the higher pigment contrast paints (Shyish etc) but forgo the need to start watering down with medium and thus adding an extra step. Ultimately neatness is key! I’m learning that the only way to speed up painting is to simply enjoy painting and have fun with the brush in hand because as the old adage goes, times flies when you are...a flying hive tyrant having fun lol. Thanks again and all the best with your new channel and beyond!
Of ALL the videos I’ve seen from Duncan, this is one far and away the best and most helpful as I am about to start painting my minis. I plan to have this on repeat as I paint!!!!
I discovered that Contrast paints are great for wet blending soon after I tried them out. I got a box of easy to build termagants and one of poxwalkers to be my test subjects and a few of the paints. I was pretty vanilla with the termagants, one color for the skin, one for the chitin plates, the works. For the poxwalkers, I decided to get creative.I was painting their skin with a normal skin tone and was getting to the mutated tentacles and I went "well, those tentacles are usually a pinkish color, what if I tried to make a smooth transition?" It worked perfectly. I laid down the two paints, then started smudging the edge between them with the brush. I was amazed. Wet blending was something i never quite managed to do with traditional acrylics, but Contrast paints make it almost insultingly easy. I also used the same technique to darken those bone protrusions they have on the tip. I'm definitely taking them out again when it's time to paint some more Nurgly goodness. I'm also thinking of painting an Alpha Legion kill team by layering a Contrast teal over a silver basecoat. Or maybe I'll get one of those fancy-pants color-shifting paints. There's still a lot of time to think about that. My main army is T'au, though, so for that I haven't found much use for Contrast paints. A lot of smooth, flat panels, not the kind of surface Contrast paints excel on.
I was struggling to get my Contrast Paints to do what I wanted them to do. In frustration, I looked for a tutorial online. Found this one. ... It helped so damn much, I wish I had seen this a year ago, when I started using Contrast paints. I was using them so damn clumsily, but now? Now they're actually fun and great to use. Thank you for this tutorial. It's concise, helpful and done amazingly well. :)
Thank you for a great video! Today you've talked a lot about "strong and weak" colors, so maybe you can make a comparison of all of Citadel Contrasts, defining which one is the strongest and which is the weakest of them? I'm sure it will be really useful for everyone! Thank you again!
That last bit where Duncan mixed the paints on the model is the closest model painting has ever gotten to wet-on-wet painting, and I love an intersection of Duncan and Bob Ross.
Very good tutorial. I usually go with white base+some pre shading, using a bit of dark tone or strong tone from army painter. Makes the recesses stand out a lot
Having finally received all 80 issues of my Warhamer 40K Conquest collection and just starting to build and paint this is such a timely 'how to' - thank you so much!
Woah! This showed me my mistakes I was doing. I could never figure out how to use Contrast. I treated it as a wash. Always moving it around and stuff and got so upset I shelved the pots I bought. (Didn't want to throw em away cause a waste!) Thanks Duncan!
video/sound/graphics & editing quality here is genuinely unexpectedly super professional. double props to whoever is responsible. ofc the content is great also!
Something i've found super simple but effective is after you base a skeleton for example in skeleton horde then put plain contrast medium in all the shadowy areas like the ribcage or the lower legs, underarms and then a touch of snakebite leather feathered out from the dark points makes this really subtle definition that doesnt teastain like a wash and makes things like Tomb Kings look a lot more aged and sunbeaten if you follow this up with a drybrush/highlight only of the upper parts where sun would beat down on the bone.
My partner has just bought me my first Warhammer set to try out. Waiting for the paints to arrive to try out these techniques on my first miniatures. I'm trying to remain confident in my ability to pick this up, but videos like this help us newbies so much. Wish me luck!!
@@hyakushiki9438 this is exactly what I'm hoping will happen. In this stressful time, a hobby like this is just what I need. It's a pity I had such a nightmare finding the smallest selection of paints!
@@hyakushiki9438 this is exactly what happened. I spent 4 hours on one miniature, figuring out how to put it together, glue it and prime it before painting. Here is my final result. Not bad considering I've not picked up a brush since school 20 years ago. photos.app.goo.gl/j5VLPuXaCoih97Qf7
@@hyakushiki9438 Loved it, and learned a hell of a lot. Things went wrong, things went right. I'm looking forward to getting the next one to look better!
So happy this showed up in my recommended! I loved watching you at GW. I'm glad you no longer need to follow what I assume was their guidelines. I'm also glad you can pick what minis you want to paint, not just GW
This was actually more informative than the GW videos put together. I've tried it all before with similar success but had I had this video available for me when the paints came out I would have saved some needless stress. A great video for beginners.
Thank you Duncan. You have shown that this set of paints it's just another tool that can give great results in the hands of people that know what they are doing. .. or that follow good tutorial channels on youtube!
Thank you for the instruction - I’ll use it today after work...hmmm, maybe at lunch - shoot, will try it during my morning break (advantages and disadvantages of working from home).
Cheers Duncan for the in-depth view at where most folk went wrong when these paints came out first without proper showability from GW . But I still prefer Vallejo which I have stacks of.
I've found you can alter the tone of metallics with contrast washing. I actually like to use some of the browns to give it a dirty or worn. I love experimenting with the blues and greens over silver for my idoneth deepkin armor.
Love that glaze technique. I really messed up with contrast on a squad of space marines and now know how to fix them. Never new why my paint finish was blotchy until now
You can get some pretty cool effects by painting some other contrasts over metals as well. For instance, I use the wet technique to mix Plaguebearer Flesh and Snakebite Leather on top of a layers of Ironbreaker to get this aged looking metal, but so that the color is specifically uneven, since metal doesn't exactly get a uniform patina as it ages. I'm doing a similar thing with the Indomitus Necrons. I base the metal parts in Canoptek Alloy, then when that is dry I go over it with Talassar Blue to give it this somewhat cobalt look instead of the flat blue of power armor. I really like how contrasts let the metallic quality show through the color, but it doesn't look like you just tried to mix color with metallic pigment.
This really helped me smooth out out my contrast work, I struggled to get a smooth finish on space marine shoulder plates and this really helped! Thanks!
Hey guys, many of you have rightly pointed out that you should use a STAINLESS STEEL ball-bearing or even a GLASS bead. This is correct and good practice. A Mild Steel ball-bearing will eventually corrode and potentially ruin your pot of paint. Thank you all for the feedback and the continued support.
On top of that, stay safe everyone 😊
- Dunc and Rog
Or just use air rifle bullets. They’re lead and you can buy a tin of 300 for less than the price of a pack of 20 ball bearings.
Army Painter or greenstuff world Mixing Balls confirmed work in GW and Vallejo paints... ebay stainless steel doesnt... dont cheap out bought mine from Mightyape (au/nz)
Andrew McGuire why? What does it do to the paint? The amount of lead that would ‘leak’ into the paint would be infintesimally small,and besides, if you varnish your figures, you’re not touching it? Just don’t suck your wet paint brush lol
Andrew McGuire Fair enough dude. I have used air rifle pellets for years and have never had an issue.
Lead absolutely does corrode. There isn't enough in play here to hurt you, but it isn't good for your paints.
Now this almost sounds like WarhammerTV. The only difference is usage of AP brush. Oh, and comment section isn't closed!
He also isn't using lahmian medium on the glaze but instead uses water.
And Duncan gets to keep the $ (or £ I guess) from RUclips.
GW: contrast can be done with one coat. Duncan: 2 THIN COATS!
Two thin coats, two thin coats!!
That’s why he’s here! 😉👍🏻
He said the thing!
i wanted to write the same thing! :-) 2 Thin Coats!!! ^^
Reminds me of that picture of him looking horrified under the “one thick coat” tag line
Duncan, thank you so much for showing the people how to actually use contrast!
Our pleasure :-)
@@DuncanRhodesDRPA Phenomenal video. Really opens up my painting potential. Thank you so so much👊
People are using it as an ink for their airbrushes, works really well.
I was not conviced by those paints thinking this is going to make painting way too easy and less challenging. Never been so wrong. I decided to go for the screamy blue, goblin green like and dark angeels green paints for my GW -LoTR phantom figs. the effect is just phenomenal ibb.co/bs9SK4N the link is a legit picture of my figs, not scam :c btw if anybody is interested in the exact lalette of colors feel free to ask :).
@@ketxyz Looks great dude !
Gw: turns off comments to they're videos.
Duncan: Gets literally hundreds of positive comments and helpful suggestions from his fans and tries to reply where he can.
Thank you for being you and helping us all perfect our two thin coat philosophy over the years.
Thank you for the kind word Rebecca we truly appreciate them.😊
And the Lord spake, saying, "First shalt thou thin out thy Holy Paints. Then, shalt thou count to two. No more. No less. Two shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be two. Three shalt thou not count, nor either count thou one, excepting that thou then proceed to two. Four is right out. Once the number two, being the second number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Paints of Duncan towards thy model, who, being not in My sight, shall have a nice even coverage."
CoolStoryBob
Nice monty python holly grail
Yes.
Amen
Ave Imperator
"Say the line, Duncan!"
"...Two Thin Coats."
"Yaaaaaaaaay!"
do the roar
WHAT?
DUNCAN!
COATS!
WHAT? GENESEEDS? DUNCAN?
"THIN YOUR PAINTS OR I SHALL THIN YOUR RANKS!"
I like how he’s showing that this paint is significantly more useful than it was marketed.
This is how our local gw store manager showed us how to use it
When I finally get to leave the house, Duncan will be responsible for more of my GW purchases as his own entity than he was as a GW employee.
Citadel product lines: Smart Patrick
Warhammer product lines: Dumb Patrick
As a beginner, this is extremely useful. Thank you!
Glad it was helpful Jose 😊
Duncan used to work in a GW in Derby before he went on to do all this, even then like 10 years ago you could tell he really loved what he was doing and always helped you out when you needed it. Nice to see him doing so well this far on. Keep it up mate!
God have missed this voice! You taught me so much in the early days- thank you
Hi Robert. Thank you so much for the support 😊
@@DuncanRhodesDRPA You're welcome and likewise!
What a great guide, quick someone from GW should hire this guy! 😉
He unironically worked there before and left to do his own thing xD
Jeannot2073 really?! I wouldn’t have guessed! 😉😉😉
@@Jeannot2073 Give this man a medal
@@Jeannot2073 -> The joke
-> You
@@Jeannot2073 whoosh
I love your work. It’s also nice to see Contrast paints moving away from being presented as a way of being able to do all the work on their own to becoming a useful tool when combined with other products and techniques
Just in case you didn’t know. Fantastic painter Juan Hidalgo has a series called “ ‘Eavy contrast marines” where he blends contrast and regular paints with amazing effect
@@benbaker5415 he's doing Alpha legion next and I'm so excited!
Something I noticed about the Warhammer Tutorials.
We have tutorials for:
Bloodthirster
Lord of Change
Great Unclean One
And I think that’s it for the Chaos Greater Daemons.
It’s not like we are keeping one a secret.
@@cloud4an You ruined it!!!!
Where?
duncan : what you can do is apply two thin coat
me: HE SAY ITTT !!!! HE SAY ITTT !!!
Duncan's power to use two thin coats is stronger than GW's marketing
Yessssss! :D
Shading gold with the gulliaman flesh is a mega tip. Thanks!
I'd love to see a comparison against Reikland flesh shade, they seem like they'd be very similar
Using contrast I’ve found them to be quite different and a bit more difficult than GW’s initial marketing suggested. This video helped a lot, especially with in regards to medium strength/weaker contrast.
I agree. I think Contrast paints are great, but not for the reason they're marketed. Personally, I prefer using them for glazing and shading.
contrast has some brilliant uses. Wyldwood is another fantastic one to be used in place of earthshade (like the way guillimans fleshtone works instead of reikland) But GW marketed it completely assways. They marketed them as this wonderous device that turns a novice into a pro with one slapdash approach. Even their new contrast videos arent that good as they dont explain the work you have to do to get contrast to be effective.
After watching him paint the ultramarine with care, precision and two thin coats, i went back and watched the Ultramarine contrast video and seeing Peachy just slap it on but come out with a smooth model. I knew when i first watched that video is was rubbish (not Peachy's fault he was just doing what the powers that be told him)
Duncan, great video, Id love to see more work with contrast paints as they really are a great tool.
This convinced me to try contrast more so than any ad from GW themselves
Yeah of course, it's much easier to trust a third party than the company selling the stuff.
Boy, that first point at 4:00 was SUPER helpful for me! I am really struggling to get a handle on these and totally jacked-up a plague Marine last night (thank goodness for tupperware and Simple Green!). Great video!
A lot of these things have I learned by the hard way. I wish I knew that you shouldn't go back before something have dried when I started to use contrast paints.
This is a good guide for everyone starting with contrast paints!
Thanks for sharing Duncan!
Our pleasure Anton. Glad it helped 😊
Ebay Miniature Rescue noticed that contrast paints can strip off acrylic inks (specifically FW Ink).
Wow, now I know why I had so many problems with Contrast Paints compared to the classic ones, despite Contrast being the supposedly beginner-friendly variant. That bit about not going back to areas you've already covered and applying a second coat instead of just going with one (as officially advertised) was very important. Great video, as always!
When he said 2 thin coats, it was like a wonderful punch to the face. God, I love this channel.
Finally, comment section isn't closed and we can tell you how much we appreciate your invaluable help!
Drybrushing the Miniatures with white before using Contrasts gives a nice result. You get even get something that looks like edge Highlights. Not as controlled as real edge highlighting, but still a great result for about 10-15 mins per toy soldier.
I never thought of using Medium like that!
Same here
me too
It also works (with water too, but depends on the paint how well water does) with normal paints as well and it's something done on a bit of a more advanced level. It's called feathering. It is one of the ways one can fade a color, making the transition smooth
An alternative (if you do not own contrast paints or medium and want to get the same effect) would be glazing.
As a bit clumsy person, I was looking to Contrast Paints as something to give me an edge over my clumsiness. Thank you for helping me to understand how to work with them properly, especially that even with Contrast Paints, rule of "Two thin coats" still stays.
Glad we could help!
Duncan is a True war gamer, its great seeing the side of him thats all about the different aspects of the hobby. Different paints, games etc
Love listening to this guy talking about paints.
Wow, I sincerely never thought to cover contrast with a watered down coat of the shade you're going for. That's genuinely great information! I've stayed away from base-coating with it for so long, but might give it a try now.
Glad it was helpful!
please keep making videos duncan. you are the reason I actually kept painting, after picking up the hobby, 3 times previously in my life and walking away from it because I have absolutely 0 natural talent for these things. I am happy to say that after 5 years of watching your videos, I am now a very mediocre painter :)
That's great to hear and glad we could help 😊
I love the current GW but it is nice to see how Duncan can actually say to use water instead of medium now or like how a product is good or bad in certain ways rather than when in GW, it is usually how good the product is. I hope GW picks up on that as we all will probably love them even more for being to the point and sticking to the reality of their products. That being said, thumbs up to this video.
He would say to use water when doing GW tutorials
@@NikumbaUK I meant for contrast paints, not the normal ones. Apologies for not clarifying.
Water and medium aren't interchangeable - it depends on the purpose. Of course, you don't need to buy lahmium medium - any generic acrylic medium will do.
He literally uses contrast medium. Water and medium are not interchangeable - that's not a GW thing, that's a painter thing
This is the first real explanation on what these are and how to use them. Well done Duncan.
Thanks jingles009 and thank you for the support.
The last tip with the contrast medium is gold... PURE gold duncan.
That trick with glazing over two thin coats of contrast paint is golden, and just what I've been looking for. Thanks Duncan!
Wet blending with Contrast like this is great! One thing to be aware of though is that the stronger ones (Blood Angels Red is the one that gave me some headaches) will have enough time to skin at the edges even if you're diligent about swapping colors quickly. In that case I found it useful to have that layer of Contrast Medium where you intend the two colors to meet so that it's the medium that'll form an invisible edge during the seven or eight seconds it takes you to get the next color applied. Basically mixing the two techniques here.
I've started painting summer 2019 with absolutely no creative skills whatsoever. Thanks to your videos, I feel like I've achieved a level where I don't need to be ashamed of my models anymore.
Thank you so much, Duncan!
Comments like yours is exactly why we do what we do. Thank you so much for your kind word MechMK1 and we are so glad we could help you on your hobby journey 😊
@@DuncanRhodesDRPA I'm really glad I got into the hobby. And also, great video. With the glaze over it, the contrast paint doesn't look like water paint anymore
I love the long form nature of your videos now and it feels so much more honest without GW's marketing department looming over.
The lord of two thin coats. I love it. Thank you for this.
Duncan! Didn’t think I’d see you back on RUclips. Good to see you again, keep painting man you rock.
This is a better advertisement for contrast than anything GW has put out. Great video!
Now that I can finally comment on one of your videos... I returned to the hobby in 2018, your videos assisted me in shaking off the rust, and elevating my painting. I'm getting to the point of being proud of my work now. Thank you Duncan.
Just when I thought I was getting good, Duncan breaks me down and lifts me back up again. Love the channel, bro.
Quick explanation, quick demonstration and repetitive instructional phrases to keep us all on track...👌🏻
We've all seen the quality of Duncan's work and his superb results.
Great vid for techniques and for seeing clever visual results achieved straightforwardly
It's also a great advert for tiny bottles of very expensive specialist paint. try working out the cost of just the ones used.
Duncan is spot on, honest and faultless as a tutor
Contrast paints are a pigment dense base with just the right amount of acrylic base thinner to achieve a particular effect over whatever you've put underneath.. Decent inks are cheaper pot for pot and you get 30ml in a proper bottle with a glass dropper! Luxury!
Buy whatever you fancy, and then colors to mix, always include the pigment primaries magenta, cyan and yellow.
Mix your color, add acrylic thinner/medium till the consistency matches the contrast paint you imagine, heavy, medium, thin like the ones Duncan uses like a heavy wash. If you want it to break more over the raised detail add a bit of flow improver by picking it up from a drop with a brush until you get the difference you want between recess and detail - take it slowly, you can add but not remove.
If you're painting the base color on 50 marines then it's worth buying a GW contrast pot to use it straight from, otherwise try another way.
then use them exactly as Duncan suggests!
I really appreciate you explaining how the Contrast differs from the Shades. A lot of talk in other places how they do similar things, but knowing contrast 'grabs' where washes 'sink' is very useful.
Glad it was helpful!😊
Fantastic, simple and effective overview on how to use contrast paints.
Glad it was helpful!
I just love the way Duncan splains things 👍
You're definitely the best RUclips tutor for painting minis right now! Keep it Duncan!
Thanks for sharing these different techniques using contrast paints but also sharing some of the different properties of some of the paints. Keep up the great work👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
That ball bearing trick was simple and yet so so awesome!
After 3 years working abroad I came home to find tons of unpainted models and stacks of citadel paints that had dried up. Having got the paints moist again and primed some models I realised that the my old way of base + recess shade + edge highlight + varnish was going to take me forever even during lockdown. GW grabbed my attention with their “one thick coat” line and I was about to plomp down the cash for a collection of contrast paints. Your video taught me that contrast paints actually need an extra degree of skill to manage and are more of a tool than a solution. I thinks it’s best that I just cut out the layering stage and do an all over coat of shade instead of recess and call that battle ready! UPDATE: Couldn’t resist the allure of having some table top ready Termagants in Leviathan colours so grabbed the appropriate Contrast paints and boy am I pleasantly surprised! They really do what they set out to do - get models appropriately ready to be viewed from above the table top in as short a sitting as possible. I think the one thick coat sales pitch doesn’t work though - I’m using my artifice brush to control it and to make sure I don’t have to go back back and touch up with Wraithbone. Honestly I never could apply shades properly and relied on the varnish effect of ard coat to dazzle - now the model looks pretty natural on the first pass!
That's awesome Anthony 😊
Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy Thank you for replying! Means a lot after having watched all your vids since getting into the hobby! By way of another update i managed to paint up my Smurfs (Assault On Black Reach Box) and my Nids (Shield Of Baal: Deathstorm Box) - Ultramarines Blue and Shyish Purple were challenging to begin with but as i said your video showed the need to take a bit of extra care which is why I’m using an artifice brush for the minis. Also, instead of strokes with a loaded brush I’m doing quick but careful dabs with a loaded sharp tip (think of it as mimicking a tattooist) - that way i avoid the streaky brush stains or uneven pooling that occurs with the higher pigment contrast paints (Shyish etc) but forgo the need to start watering down with medium and thus adding an extra step. Ultimately neatness is key! I’m learning that the only way to speed up painting is to simply enjoy painting and have fun with the brush in hand because as the old adage goes, times flies when you are...a flying hive tyrant having fun lol. Thanks again and all the best with your new channel and beyond!
Great video Duncan, would love to see a video of your opinions on paint brushes from all different brands.
Of ALL the videos I’ve seen from Duncan, this is one far and away the best and most helpful as I am about to start painting my minis. I plan to have this on repeat as I paint!!!!
Excellent, was always disappointed that warhammer TV always used either all contrast or none.
This is.... not even remotely true.
They tend to do half contrast, half traditional, or partly either-or.
Annoys me because you have to get it in order to paint something their way.
That was only in the contrast vs classic video series
I discovered that Contrast paints are great for wet blending soon after I tried them out. I got a box of easy to build termagants and one of poxwalkers to be my test subjects and a few of the paints. I was pretty vanilla with the termagants, one color for the skin, one for the chitin plates, the works. For the poxwalkers, I decided to get creative.I was painting their skin with a normal skin tone and was getting to the mutated tentacles and I went "well, those tentacles are usually a pinkish color, what if I tried to make a smooth transition?"
It worked perfectly. I laid down the two paints, then started smudging the edge between them with the brush. I was amazed. Wet blending was something i never quite managed to do with traditional acrylics, but Contrast paints make it almost insultingly easy. I also used the same technique to darken those bone protrusions they have on the tip. I'm definitely taking them out again when it's time to paint some more Nurgly goodness.
I'm also thinking of painting an Alpha Legion kill team by layering a Contrast teal over a silver basecoat. Or maybe I'll get one of those fancy-pants color-shifting paints. There's still a lot of time to think about that. My main army is T'au, though, so for that I haven't found much use for Contrast paints. A lot of smooth, flat panels, not the kind of surface Contrast paints excel on.
I was struggling to get my Contrast Paints to do what I wanted them to do. In frustration, I looked for a tutorial online. Found this one. ... It helped so damn much, I wish I had seen this a year ago, when I started using Contrast paints. I was using them so damn clumsily, but now? Now they're actually fun and great to use.
Thank you for this tutorial.
It's concise, helpful and done amazingly well. :)
Thank you for a great video!
Today you've talked a lot about "strong and weak" colors, so maybe you can make a comparison of all of Citadel Contrasts, defining which one is the strongest and which is the weakest of them?
I'm sure it will be really useful for everyone! Thank you again!
Duncan you are the hero we need right now 🙌 This range has been in need of a video like this since launch... Much appreciated!! 😁
That last bit where Duncan mixed the paints on the model is the closest model painting has ever gotten to wet-on-wet painting, and I love an intersection of Duncan and Bob Ross.
This is the best Contrast Paints use I've seen so far. Duncan, you rock my good sir.
Very good tutorial. I usually go with white base+some pre shading, using a bit of dark tone or strong tone from army painter. Makes the recesses stand out a lot
Having finally received all 80 issues of my Warhamer 40K Conquest collection and just starting to build and paint this is such a timely 'how to' - thank you so much!
Our pleasure Alan.
Duncan, this is easily the best Contrast Paint instructional video I have seen. I instantly shared it with my hobby club - thanks!
My favorite use of contrasts is easily making colored metal - paint chosen color over leadbelcher.
I've been painting tyranid carapaces using blue, green or purple contrast over Retributor Gold. Gives a nie "shiny metalic beetle" effect.
Woah! This showed me my mistakes I was doing. I could never figure out how to use Contrast. I treated it as a wash. Always moving it around and stuff and got so upset I shelved the pots I bought. (Didn't want to throw em away cause a waste!) Thanks Duncan!
video/sound/graphics & editing quality here is genuinely unexpectedly super professional. double props to whoever is responsible. ofc the content is great also!
Thank you. The guy responsible is Roger, the silent part of the our two man team.
Something i've found super simple but effective is after you base a skeleton for example in skeleton horde then put plain contrast medium in all the shadowy areas like the ribcage or the lower legs, underarms and then a touch of snakebite leather feathered out from the dark points makes this really subtle definition that doesnt teastain like a wash and makes things like Tomb Kings look a lot more aged and sunbeaten if you follow this up with a drybrush/highlight only of the upper parts where sun would beat down on the bone.
My partner has just bought me my first Warhammer set to try out. Waiting for the paints to arrive to try out these techniques on my first miniatures.
I'm trying to remain confident in my ability to pick this up, but videos like this help us newbies so much. Wish me luck!!
Good luck! I just painted for the first time over the weekend. I sat down and four hours flew by, you’ll have a blast!
@@hyakushiki9438 this is exactly what I'm hoping will happen. In this stressful time, a hobby like this is just what I need. It's a pity I had such a nightmare finding the smallest selection of paints!
@@hyakushiki9438 this is exactly what happened. I spent 4 hours on one miniature, figuring out how to put it together, glue it and prime it before painting. Here is my final result. Not bad considering I've not picked up a brush since school 20 years ago.
photos.app.goo.gl/j5VLPuXaCoih97Qf7
Chris Davies That looks great!!! Congratulations!! Did you have fun?
@@hyakushiki9438
Loved it, and learned a hell of a lot. Things went wrong, things went right. I'm looking forward to getting the next one to look better!
Duncan, really this is a great "set" of tutorials contrast and layering as well as creating wet blend transitions. Thanks.
Glad it was helpful Phil 😊
You succeeded in making contrast paints look both fun and skillful
So happy I found this! I loved Duncan's videos when he was at GW. Thank you Duncan!
So happy this showed up in my recommended! I loved watching you at GW. I'm glad you no longer need to follow what I assume was their guidelines. I'm also glad you can pick what minis you want to paint, not just GW
Absolutely fantastic approach to the grading effect with the paint medium. Great knowledge, thanks for sharing!
This was actually more informative than the GW videos put together. I've tried it all before with similar success but had I had this video available for me when the paints came out I would have saved some needless stress. A great video for beginners.
Thank you Duncan. You have shown that this set of paints it's just another tool that can give great results in the hands of people that know what they are doing.
.. or that follow good tutorial channels on youtube!
I'm about to paint some Skinks with contrasts over my lunch break. Happy to have this video, thank you so much!
My daughter loves using contrast on her Seraphon.
@@jsm1978 With an undercoat of wraithbone, you can get very bright lizards using contrasts
Mostly finished the Contrasts on 40 Saurus Warriors, and it's been a breeze even doing patterns on their scales! Now just to tackle all that gold...
FINALLY
A good tutorial on contrast !
Thank you for the instruction - I’ll use it today after work...hmmm, maybe at lunch - shoot, will try it during my morning break (advantages and disadvantages of working from home).
Really helpful informative video with a wide variety of techniques never thought of for contrast paints
We love you Duncan. Clan Duncan forever!!
Cheers Duncan for the in-depth view at where most folk went wrong when these paints came out first without proper showability from GW . But I still prefer Vallejo which I have stacks of.
I've found you can alter the tone of metallics with contrast washing. I actually like to use some of the browns to give it a dirty or worn. I love experimenting with the blues and greens over silver for my idoneth deepkin armor.
gulliman flesh on gold is an golden tipp! thank!
Love that glaze technique. I really messed up with contrast on a squad of space marines and now know how to fix them. Never new why my paint finish was blotchy until now
I would never have thought to use a watered down contrast over gold or silver. Thanks for sharing!
Was instantly inspired to sit and paint using contrast after this video, I haven't tried the mixing like that and it works so well!
You can get some pretty cool effects by painting some other contrasts over metals as well. For instance, I use the wet technique to mix Plaguebearer Flesh and Snakebite Leather on top of a layers of Ironbreaker to get this aged looking metal, but so that the color is specifically uneven, since metal doesn't exactly get a uniform patina as it ages.
I'm doing a similar thing with the Indomitus Necrons. I base the metal parts in Canoptek Alloy, then when that is dry I go over it with Talassar Blue to give it this somewhat cobalt look instead of the flat blue of power armor. I really like how contrasts let the metallic quality show through the color, but it doesn't look like you just tried to mix color with metallic pigment.
So spun out when I didn't hear the WHOOOOOSH transition. Glad you're still making videos!
This really helped me smooth out out my contrast work, I struggled to get a smooth finish on space marine shoulder plates and this really helped! Thanks!
Glad it helped!
Would love it if Duncan were to make a video listing which contrasts were stronger/weaker!
This is the exact video I was looking for on contrast paints
This is the most insightful video about contrast paints on YT, and there are a lot of those! Thanks Duncan, learned something new again :)
I'm glad you're back.
Gotta say, I love looking at that super crisp focus on those shoulders.
I love your dun-CAN do attitude!.
Thank you so much for showing the use on gold! I've been hoarding the old GW Chestnut wash for one of my armies and now I have a modern replacement.
Thanks for the video. You're way of quickly and clearly explaining techniques is marvelous.
Brilliant instructions from a talented artist. You have earned my subscription!