Adventures in Contrast: Círdan the Shipwright (first use of Contrast paints)

With my Orc Blood Bowl team completed, it's time to do something a little different.

The biggest painting news this year was the release of GW's new Contrast range of paints, which apparently paint your models for you whilst you listen to Black Library audiobooks. Or something. So I thought I should give them a try.

The background

Now, I'm not a naturally good painter (I got a D in my Art GCSE). I paint very slowly, and could do with some tuition from a good teacher to start improving my technique. But whilst I am slow, I do get there in the end. This is because I am neat, and have a very "colour by numbers" approach, making sure the base colours are all blocked out. Then I shade, sometimes layer, highlight, and sometimes highlight again, and the end results aren't bad. I might drybrush if I'm feeling fruity.

An example from a few years ago of my typical style

That means my technique typically starts dark and the model gets lighter as I highlight up, leading to a rather crisp look. This is great for power armour or other hard edges, but means I can struggle with more naturalistic models.

A dirty Space Knife-Ear I painted from around the same time

This means that for models with a lot of flesh - like my beloved orcs/orks - the flesh can be a bit blocky. Dark in the crevices, with blocks of much lighter green on top, like a form of cel shading. This looks good and vibrant, but isn't very natural-looking.

My hope is that Contrast paints can help me with this, so I don't have to resort to drybrushing rough things like fur to get a decent effect.

The model

A while ago GW did one of their Made to Order collections, and within it was the lovely Círdan the Shipwright model for a relatively cheap price. I have never painted a Lord of the Rings model before, and have no interest in the game, but given it's such an understated model I thought it would be a great thing to paint that is outside of my comfort zone.

Since then Contrasts came out, and this seemed a good place to test them out whilst also trying some speed-painting.

I added highlights to the front, but the back is pure Contrast/wash/glaze

How did I do him?

• Wraithbone undercoat
• Snakebite Leather for the jacket
• Black Templar with an Eshin Grey highlight for his shoe
• Asurmen Blue (old shade) and Guilliman Blue (old glaze) for the robe, then highlighted with Thunderhawk Blue and Fenrisian Grey
• Gryphonne Sepia (old shade) on the belt, with highlights of Ushabti Bone and Pallid Wych Flesh
• Darkoath Flesh on the skin, with Kislev Flesh, Flayed One Flesh, and Pallid Wych Flesh highlights, with a wash of Reikland Fleshshade to knock the colours back to something less Joker-faced
• Gyphonne Sepia (old shade) and Lamenters Yellow (old glaze) on the hair

This was a very interesting way to paint. I think I'd have done a better job using my usual approach, but it would have taken a lot longer. This guy took about two hours of brush time, ignoring waiting, and that includes the basing. That is frankly unheard of for me.

I'm disappointed in how the cloak turned out. It has a lovely colour and texture, but is wrong for something like this. Note I did use it undiluted out of the pot, which might have been a mistake.

So will I use Contrast paints again? Yes, I already have some other ideas for how to use them, but I need to get practice in as these are very different to what I'm used to.