Sean's 2023 adventures

[Stewart 46A]

They look good Sean, how many figures to go?

Hope to see your Mexicans on the 25th

Stewart

[John Watson]

You could always put a brownish contrast or wash over the green.
John

[Sean Clark]

I'm coming down for the 25th Stewart. Not sure if it'll be Government of Rebels yet.  The Rebels are the army box Martin did last year and are as follows:

2 x 11 foot
2 x 13 cavalry
2 guns

Might need to place a quick order for a couple of extra bits. The trouble is I bought most of my Mexico last year and I'm not sure where it all is 😁

[Leman (Andy)]

Your paint scheme has certainly brought out the folds in the castings.

[Colonel Kilgore]

What primer / undercoat did you use, Sean?

Simon

[Sean Clark]

Cracking on with the Northern Rebels for Mexico. This lot amounts to two mounted units of 13 bases each (10 extra bases coming from additions. There are also 4 single bases of bombers.

[Sean Clark]

To be honest Simon, because these were icebreakers, I used cheap white acrylic paint from The Works painted on. Now I've got the bug again  I'll be spraying them using Halfords White primer.

[Stewart 46A]

Hi. Sean
I have a rebel and government force so should have a few spar bases

Stewart

[Colonel Kilgore]

To be honest Simon, because these were icebreakers, I used cheap white acrylic paint from The Works painted on. Now I've got the bug again  I'll be spraying them using Halfords White primer.

Well they worked very well, Sean. I'd read online that the choice of primer was important for the Contrast Paints to behave properly. Stynylrez (my current favourite - two coats brushed on) primer (white or grey) apparently works well with Contrast Paints too.

Simon

[Leman (Andy)]

Indeed Sean. I have seen painting tutorials extolling the virtues of zenithel priming, but I have had great results just using Vallejo grey primer, then contrast, then regular paints for detail and a very few highlights, mainly flesh, white and armour. This speeds up painting enormously and is more than adequate for a gaming figure, as opposed to a competition figure.

[Sean Clark]

Simon,

I think the marketing hype when Contrast arrived suggested that the primer mattered. It doesn't in my experience.

Andy,

I think it is a nice new type of paint to add to our reportoire. Vallejo have their own version which is very good apparently at half the cost and the new Army Painter Speed Paint 2.0 sounds like they've fixed the reactivation issue. I use a lot of Army Painter paints so will be giving them a try.

[Leman (Andy)]

Be interested to know how you get on with the Speed Paints Sean. I bought the initial batch of 10 to see how they went. Very impressed at first, until i started using adjacent paints and highlights. What a disaster. I should really just bin them as a failed experiment.

[Sean Clark]

Yes that was a real mis-step, especially them blaming the painters for not using the paints properly!

The 2.0 release seems to have fixed it. There are several videos where they are reviewed  and no issues have arisen. The preorder is live now and I think release is sometime in April.

[Colonel Kilgore]

I'd missed that Vallejo had brought out their range of contract paints, Sean.

But now I know that it's called Vallejo Xpress Color, even if it doesn't seem to be that widely stocked in the UK yet.

The Vallejo range seems to be somewhat smaller than Games Workshop's one, but at a similar price point to Army Painter's, if I've got that right?

Simon

[Sean Clark]

Yep. On initial glance the colours are more fantasy based than military.  Pendraken did say they stocked them but seem to be out of stock of most at the moment.