The Army Painter Speedpaint Starter Set - 10 x 18ml Speed Model Paint Kit Pre Loaded with Mixing Balls and 1 Brush- Base, Shadow and Highlight in One Miniature and Model Paint Set for Plastic Models

Product Information

As you can see, there is more of everything, plus 6 brand-new pastel and 10 metallic Speedpaints. I really like all the new greys, browns, and the expanded selection of skintones. Each of the bottles has two metal mixing balls inside, making it very easy to maintain the consistency of the paints. Using Speedpaint To come up with the 2.0 formula, The Army Painter collaborated with some well-known painters from the YouTube community. A brilliant approach to designing products in my opinion. Goobertown Hobbies, Dana Howl, and “Watch it paint it” were asked to provide their input, and even come up with a bunch of new colours themselves. Speedpaint 2.0 contains a more stable acrylic resin which forms a stronger bond. It is promised to no longer reactivate after a curing time of about 2 hours depending on the environment. Which means there should be a time window of at least 2 hours for blending and reactivation. Or shouldn’t it? Spoiler: yes but no. Let’s take a look at the individual colours. The Speedpaint palette is very similar to the Contrast palette, even though there are only 24 paints (including Speedpaint medium), whereas Contrast has 35. Let’s move on to brown and bone. Pallid Bone is a bit warmer and softer than Skeleton Horde, Hardened Leather is very similar to Goregrunta Fur, while Sand Golem is a warm light brown. Dark Wood is like a mix of Wyldwood and Cygor Brown. Crusader Skin is a bit more reddish than Guilliman Flesh.

The first thing to understand is that the latter two paint ranges have a very different formula than Contrast or Speedpaint. They are not based on dye, but on thinned acrylic pigments. Think of Citadel Nihiliakh Oxide or regular acrylic paints thinned with a lot of Contrast Medium. The new Speedpaints are initially available in the Mega Paint Set 2.0, which contains 50 paints, out on April 22 in 2023. A complete set and metallic paint set are following soon thereafter. In Summer there will also be a new starter set, and a Most Wanted set, which will have all of the original 24 Speedpaints but with the new formula. Unfortunately, the can of Matte White primer turned out to be defective, and had very low pressure. As it was going to take a bit of time to get a replacement can, I decided to press on ahead with it anyway. Hoplite Gold is my favourite, it’s more opaque than the other two, but still darkens in the recesses. As the paint pulls from the edges, the white primer shines through which creates a subtle highlight effect. It is a quite muted gold tone though, but the complete range has a few other gold tones I’m very eager to try. Broadsword Silver is a dark cool silver. It has less of a tint than the gold, I think it’s okay but not as good as the gold. Talos Bronze is more like a reddish copper tone and even more transparent, so I recommend adding a second coat. Unfortunately, this paint has a really weird sparkle effect. It looks okayish in real life, but under my bright studio lights the silver flakes stand out as if the pigments haven’t been blended properly.I have to admit that Contrast has changed my painting quite a bit, even though I never actually use it for painting whole miniatures as advertised. But to save time on organic textures and smaller details like all those pouches and belts that won’t catch your attention, they are fantastic. They’re also great for thinning into washes or glazes. I used Contrast glazes to shade my classic 2nd Edition Ultramarine, for example. The Army Painter recommend their Matt White Colour Primer, but for better comparison with Contrast I used Greyseer Spray Primer for both models, which is a light grey primer with a satin finish. The smooth satin finish allows the medium of Speedpaints and Contrast paints to spread more evenly. Nevertheless, the many flat areas of the Intercessors’ power armour will present quite a challenge for either paint. For my part, I wanted to approach this review not as a professional painter(which I’m definitely not) but more from the perspective of someone that’s on the newer side of the hobby. In other words, if you’re one of those people that has little to no experience painting miniatures but have been interested in painting up the miniatures in one of your board games, or maybe getting started with a tabletop skirmish game like Marvel Crisis Protocol. Shortly after we published our review, The Army Painter reacted with a video of their own. Providing some advice on how to reduce or avoid reactivation, for example by applying varnish before painting over. To me, it’s obvious that The Army Painter didn’t have the reactivation on their radar. Maybe they didn’t notice it during development, time pressure played its part, or they just didn’t think it would bother people (just my speculation, not facts). When applying, I noticed that Speedpaints are a bit thinner and runnier than Contrast, and the medium pushes the paint into the recesses more aggressively, which helps to create a smoother result even on flat areas. On the other hand, I found Contrast paints slightly easier to control because of their lower viscosity. I felt it was easier to put them on smaller details without accidentally spilling into adjacent areas.

To find out which Speedpaints reactivate and which do not, I painted all of them on my trusty sheet of plasticard and let them dry for over 24 hours, to make sure that really all of the medium has evaporated. I’m using Spaceship Exterior Warpaint to paint over the left halves, and Corax White over the right halves, which are both very light greys. As you can see, no matter which Speedpaint I’m painting over, the paint reactivates and discolours my acrylic paint. Neither Warpaints or Citadel paints make a difference. While painting the miniatures, I found that I had pretty good brush control of the Speedpaints. On the occasion that I felt I had too much pigment pooled up, I could easily remove it with a dry brush.

What Is Speedpaint?

As these are going to be Orks of the Bad Moons Klan, they feature yellow paint on armor and details. At this stage, I have only used Speedpaint colors. With the Matte White primer, the Speedpaint doesn’t seem to have worked as well as with the Wraithbone. I can only assume that was a result of the defective can of spray paint. Here are some closer pictures of the two models, for comparison’s sake: So before I start this Speedpaint 2.0 review with my honest thoughts on the new Speedpaint formula, I would like to start with a brief recap of why Speedpaint divided the hobby community. The original formula Speedpaint was released on February 22. They were hotly anticipated as they were the first real alternative to Games Workshop’s popular Contrast paints. The Army Painter’s marketing fuelled the hype as they boldly claimed the paints to be even better than the other one-coat paints on the market. And indeed, Speedpaint had a more homogeneous consistency and pigmentation. The flow properties were slightly better than many of their Contrast counterparts. Perhaps most importantly, they were more affordable. However, after the initial YouTube hype died off, painters like Juan Hidalgo and I pointed out that dried Speedpaints reactivate and dissolve when you paint over them with a wet brush or paint. When applying, I noticed that Speedpaints are a bit thinner and runnier than Contrast paints, and the medium pushes the paint into the recesses more aggressively, which helps to create a smoother result even on flat areas. On the other hand, I found Contrast paints slightly easier to control because of their higher viscosity. I felt it was easier to put them on smaller details without accidentally spilling into adjacent areas. This also gave me an opportunity to use the only 3 colors in the Speedpaint Starter Set that I hadn’t yet used, to see how they looked. Those last paints were Crusader Skin, Hive Dweller Purple, and Fire Giant Orange. Speedpaint VS Contrast Paint The Army Painter recommend their Matt White Colour Primer, but for better comparison with Contrast, I used Grey Seer Spray from Games Workshop for both models, which is a light grey primer with a satin finish. The smooth satin finish allows the medium of Speedpaints and Contrast paints to spread more evenly. Nevertheless, the many flat areas of the Intercessors’ power armour will present quite a challenge for either paint.

Magic Blue is a little darker and more intense than Talassar Blue, but with a little thinning it would be very similar. Highlord Blue is a little lighter and more of a prussian blue than Ultramarines Blue, while Cloudburst Blue is very similar to Leviathan Blue. In terms of turquoise, The Army Painter only has a single colour, Plasmatic Bolt, which is similar to Aethermatic Blue, but much deeper and darker. For this review I painted Contrast, Speedpaints, Instant Colors, and Antithesis paints on this sheet of plasticard that I primed with Corax White primer. I photographed them under 5500K neutral light to reproduce the colours as authentically as possible.I decided to try one additional Ork painting test, this time using a paint-on primer, the Pro Acryl White primer. This was the end result: The results of using brush-on primer. Image by Paul Benson. Some of our readers are probably familiar with Citadel Contrast Paint, which is a product somewhat similar to The Army Painter Speedpaint. However, there are some key differences between these products worth pointing out: The Army Painter bills Speedpaint as “truly a one-coat painting solution.” The paint is formulated with a resin medium. The Speedpaint’s pigment sinks into the recesses of a miniature, giving you shade, a base color, and highlights, all in one coat of paint. I have some models I want to show how I used them but let me go into what I liked. These paints are not just a wash. They are more like a stain mixed with a wash. I really like that mixtur. I thought it “lined” the models a lot better than some of the Contrast options and was fairly easy to control. My test models I used a metallic undertone. I really like how these stain/washes can create a really unique bronze/gold look that isn’t just painted on straight gold. I end up doing a lot of bright metallics and utilize washes/speedpaints/contrast to create the darker metal I want. It is easier to start bright and bring down with shades/glazes/stains. Overall, I was very impressed with the Speedpaint Starter Set. When used with an even, smooth coat of spray primer, a single application of each color gave nice depth and tone. The included brush was great in applying the paint, and the inclusion of metal mixing balls in the bottles was a welcome addition.