Reaper Miniatures Does Xpress Colors

I've noted in a few of the recent posts that I picked up a few bottles of Vallejo's version of the contrast paint product they call Xpress Color. I originally found four at the local hobby store and was told that they were hard to get and keep in stock. After the holiday the jackpot was hit as the local hobby store had another 18 colors in stock. According to Vallejo's literature there's a total of 52, so I only have about half. Plus there are 8 "Intense" colors which I haven't seen on the store shelf - only in Vallejo's marketing literature.

Making a color swatch on a piece of paper isn't really possible so I figured it was best to see how these really performed on a model. Therefore I grabbed a handful or two of modern Bones from past Kickstarters that I was never going to actually use in a medieval fantasy game that I run.

All miniatures were airbrushed with a white primer.

Here's what I have so far...

Velvet Red - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Femme Fatale - 91011

Plasma Red - Reaper Miniatures Nightslip - 80027

Martian Orange - Reaper Miniatures Ellen Stone, Cowgirl - 80003

Nuclear Yellow - Reaper Miniatures Berkeley, Zombie Hunter - 80022

Imperial Yellow - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Houngan - 91010

Deep Purple - Reaper Miniatures Texas Ranger Female - 91004

Cardinal Purple - Reaper Miniatures Brotherhood of the Seal Human Monk of the Seal - 89035

Gloomy Violet - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Grifter - 91014

Storm Blue - Reaper Miniatures Sister Maria - 80028

Omega Blue - Reaper Miniatures Sascha Dubois - 80004

Mystic Blue - Reaper Miniatures Astrid, Female Bard Half-Elf - 77078

Caribbean Turquoise - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir Occult Detective - 91013

Copper Brown - Reaper Miniatures Deadlands Noir: Stone - 91009

Wasteland Brown - Reaper Miniatures Texas Ranger, Male - 91003

Dwarf Skin - Reaper Miniatures Deputy Wayne Tisdale - 80024

Plague Green - Reaper Miniatures Undead Outlaw - 91005

Lizard Green - Reaper Miniatures Stone - 91001

Troll Green - Reaper Miniatures Deadeye Slim - 80002

Snake Green - Reaper Miniatures Sam Ayers - 80030

Black Lotus - Reaper Miniatures The Black Mist - 80007

Space Grey - Reaper Miniatures Bonnie - 80025

Templar White - Reaper Miniatures Agatha Fox - 80026

I've put all these models on a little riser shelf on the side of where I paint so that I can reference them as needed. One note that I did notice after the paint dried that some of them had air bubbles in the paint with the Black Lotus color being the worst of the group. I'll need to watch and determine if that's something I'm doing or a characteristic of the paint itself.

Kickstarter paint total 182 + 22 paint sample figs = 204

Lost Mine of Phandelver - Redbrands

 

These were awesome 3d prints for the Redbrand gang and I had a good time detailing these out from a basecoat of airbrushing Scarlet Red on all the models (which went down very well). All paints were Vallejo and after using the airbrush I brought these six models onto the hobby desk to pick out the details. Tan for the flesh followed by Terracotta for the leather armor. Next was Leather Brown on the bags, Bestial Brown on the hair/beards and Gunmetal on the swords. The Redbrand Gang leader, I did a little more by using Wolf Grey to give him candy cane stripes on his pants.

This is part of the 3D Dungeon Labs Etsy shop purchase.

Sculpt: Excellent - these were fun sculpts to airbrush with lots of dynamic flowing robes/cloaks and as a group will look great on the tabletop.

3D Print: Excellent - well done - clean - no issues anywhere - very solid.

Fitness: Excellent - has the proper base and scale, and will look good as a unit on the tabletop.

Lost Mine of Phandelver - Giant Bugbears

 

I mentioned on the freebie miniature post where I delved into my first attempt at using contrast paints with Vallejo Xpress Color that I ordered some additional miniatures and had received that one as a freebie. The other items in that package which I hadn't shared until now are these super awesome giant bugbears. I had contacted Jonathan at 3DDungeon Labs on Etsy and asked him if he could scale up those bugbears to be 2x original size - as if they were magically enlarged. He set off to it and a bit later shipped me these freakin' amazing models.

I replicated exactly the paint process that I did for the original bugbears. These models are being used as an extension of the Phandelver starter set. Towards the end, there's a certain wizard that uses bugbears as henchmen and he escaped. He has come back to nag the party doing the Indiana Jones thing, when they make a discovery he's more powerful and takes the artifact away - totally pissing off the party, brahahaha!

What the bugbears do is enlarge and become more than what the party can handle at the moment. The first time the models were on the table in the "standard" size and the party was like "no problem, we can take 'em", - then they doubled in size and I swapped in the new large ones, lmao!

On another note, if anyone wants to know why the rules say "The target's size doubles in all dimensions, and its weight is multiplied by eight.", just come over here and give these bad boys a lift (it's 2^3=8x).

Reaper Miniatures Frost Devil - 77324 or Contrast Paints to the Rescue

 

I have this great idea for tonight's Dungeons and Dragons session and I need four specific miniatures. Three of them are sitting on the painted shelf from other games, but one is sitting in a pile of Bones minis unpainted!

Vallejo Xpress Color paints to the rescue! However, with a new technique I've been hearing about for utilization with contrast paints - something called slapchop which is just the dumbest name ever and every streamer out there has their own version of it. 

Here's the Rick super speedy version - undercoat black, hit the crap out of the model with a white drybrush thinking about your light source. Then use your contrast paints and the black and white undercoat helps to give the darks and lights of the light source - so the paint gives depth in the recesses of the model and the undercoating your highlights and shadows from light.

Not the most beautiful paint job in the world, but certainly serviceable and I completed just in the nick of time with a painted model which is 1000x better than showing up with an unpainted model at the table. Note that I didn't properly base it - just tacked it on with some putty - I'll get it based properly later.

I call that a big win!

Kickstarter paint total 181 + 1 Frost Devil = 182

Reaper Miniatures Death Shroud - 3723 and Another Even More Contrast Paint

 

Like the ghost, I found another model that I could use a single Vallejo Xpress Color to use on the model - and like the ghost, the Death Shroud is a wonderful metal model - I just love metal models and this model has an awesome stance and flow.

I took what I learned from the ghost in regards to applying the paint and this time tried pulling the paint down so that it would pool more at the bottom and in the underneaths of the model. As I was being more deliberate with the technique of the brushstroke, I was more successful - not perfect, but definitely a better job of using the brush to guide the settling of paint.

Reaper Miniatures Lurien, Ghost - 3170 and Even More Contrast Paints

 

Back to the metal - I love metal - don't ever take my metal away! Just something nice about the feel and weight of a metal model that is lovely.

And back to the contrast paints - or as Vallejo call them Xpress Color. This time I wanted to try a metal model undercoated with white and I figured this ghost was perfect. No need to overthink this - just apply a single color.

This is another interesting experiment because the paint wants to dive into the depths of the model - which is fine but doesn't necessary mean that it's going to leave the highlights and shadows that you'd normally give a model thinking about the light source. On the other hand it does give the model character and depth with little to no effort. I was also able to manipulate the paint a little bit before it starts to set and dry. You can kind of pull it to thin it down in areas to give a lighter effect - but it's a bit tricky. Some areas I was successful on and others not so much.

Reaper Miniatures Owlbear - 77156 and More with Contrast Paints

 

This owlbear has been sitting on my desk based for quite awhile and I had the perfect experiment for it - some more playing around with Contrast Paints - I'm using Vallejo's version called Xpress Color. They're hard to find in stock and therefore I have a limited pallet of Brown, Blue, Green, and Grey. Which is fine as I don't want to go crazy in investing in a new paint line without doing some more testing. The first was the freebie woodland fey creature which was a 3d printed model.

This is my first attempt at trying it on a Bones model - this is the original white bones which came from one of the early kickstarters. I didn't do anything special to it - no primer, nothing - I just wanted to see what would happen if I started slathering this new paint directly over a bones model.

The end result is okay. The paint pools into the depths leaving it light on top and dark in the recesses. The painting was quick and what I learned from the first model is I had to be careful painting within the lines. So with that level of care I literally slapped paint on as quickly as possible to see what I could get - sort of the situation every DM gets into - the game's tonight and you just thought of this great idea and you need to grab that non-painted mini off the shelf and get it ready for tonight's game. Certainly within 30 minutes you can have a respectable mini to game with.

Kickstarter paint total 180 + 1 Owlbear = 181

Fat Dragon Games DRAGONLOCK: Stoneskull Tower Final

Finally finished! Painted up a couple of layers as were needed by the game module. The roof I drybrushed it with Scorpion Green and the gargoyles grey, and the dome gold.