I ordered some additional miniatures from 3D Dungeon Labs and besides the two extra giant spiders they also sent me a freebie miniature of this wood fey/sprite or pan creature. It was the perfect opportunity to utilize some new contrast paints which I'd picked up from the local hobby store. I previously had picked up four of Vallejo's "contrast" paints they call Xpress Color. I believe Games Workshop was the originator of the contrast paint type a few years back. I had some friends tinker with the stuff creating a WH40k army or parts of one but none of them stayed with the paint line.
There were only 4 colors of the Vallejo Xpress Color in stock and the local hobby store said they had a difficult time keeping stock because they'd sell out almost immediately. I was able to pick up a brown, grey, green, and blue. That's enough basic colors to do something with. Well that something came about with this model.
I remember reading that these types of paints work best on a white or grey primer. I still had an old can of white primer and therefore shot this model up with it. Then I went to town on the model with the Vallejo Xpress Color.
First up was the green and using this paint I did what I'd normally do - load up the brush and start inside out - meaning I'd start on the face first and work my way out. Normally this is good because you can be a bit "messy" and then "clean" by painting over any messes as you work towards the outer part of the model.
I made two mistakes immediately. I put too much paint on the brush and hence the face and the upper body received too much green paint and I slobbered on other areas of the model which become issues later on. The Xpress Color is a bit if an ink and paint had a baby but it really acts more like an ink. The paint works with very little on the brush on top of a white foundation. It's very transparent and pools into the recesses like an ink. This thick and thin of the paint give it its contrast - where it pools has a darker color than the flat of a model. I noticed also that as it dries, it stretches the paint pulling the paint towards the ends and thinning out the middle.
Mistake 1 - you'll notice that the face is too dark compared to the body - I slobbered too much on the face and so the paint didn't have the ability to pull into recess and pull towards the end. The solution is to use very little of the paint over a solid white primer.
Mistake 2 - I'm used to slobbering paint initially and then cleaning up that slobber with another color. This is displayed in the hair of the model and the sash across the back. I initially did some brush strokes slobbering on the green and quickly realized how fluid this paint actually was and how little I needed to use and that because of the translucent effect the paint needed over white primer that this was going to cause a problem. The solution and understanding is that this is a very technical paint and black lines generate where paint overlaps - which is a very cool effect because essentially it does the black lining for you! This effect is noticeable on the front of the model where the brown meets the green or the blue of the sash has a black line between it and the green of the body or the brown of the pan flute. You can also see on the back of the model where the green was slobbered all over the sash and the blue on top just turns into big splotches of black. Therefore the trick is to stay "within the lines" and have a slight overlap between two colors to generate a thin black line for higher contrast.
Once the green was done and I started to learn some lessons, I then pulled out the brown and did up all the wood on the creature - the legs, hands, shoulder pads, and antlers. I made sure to use only a little bit of the paint at a time and being very careful technically to only put paint on the right parts. I found myself dabbing and spreading more than actually painting.
Next came the blue which I used on the sash and the shoulder pad decorations. And finally I used the grey on the hooves,
Some thoughts...
* the paint over a solid and smooth white primer is going to generate a very dynamic model
* very little paint goes a long way
* keep washing the brush, dry it into a point with a twirl, then dab into the paint - do this often but do not leave water on the brush as normal
* the contrast is between crevice and flat - not as the sun shines which we've been taught as mini-painters to do for the past two decades
* the brightness and shading of the sun can be accomplished by moving the paint around or placing a second layer - so for example, I placed more brown at the bottom side of the antlers once I figured out how the paint worked
* the grey was too translucent - it needed two coats
* it's a fast way of painting - this entire model took an hour and I probably could have done it in less time as I was learning the paint
* it's a very technical paint - you can't be sloppy and you can't change your mind unless you repaint a section white
* there's no blending or layering - it's a very different thought process
* I would not teach a beginner using this paint - however an intermediate painter can use this paint to quickly paint highly dynamic models
Overall it's an interesting paint line - I'm going to keep dabbling with it and probably pick up some more colors within the paint line.
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