I went to a Warhammer store today to see what the hype was about. It seems there’s a new paint range every week so when I first heard about them, I almost needed ophthalmic surgery from rolling my eyes so hard but after watching a few videos on them I was a bit intrigued.
First I have to say that I prefer to use artist acrylics. Not because I think they’re better for miniature painting (in a lot of ways, they’re not). But because I don’t want to maintain 2 separate paint collections for miniature painting and canvas painting. Having this preference means I’m usually very indifferent each week when another new hobby paint range is announced. But I really wanted to see if the coverage and self leveling properties lived up to the extensive hype.
They had paints in the store to test but I was told they won’t be available for purchase until the 26th of October (pre orders start the 10th of October). They will be available individually as well as in sets and (if I remember correctly), single pots will be around 6€ (in Germany).
The paints I used all covered very well over black. Even lighter colors like white and the ochre yellow I tried (sorry I didn’t even bother to look at the color names because I knew they’d just make me mad and I wouldn’t remember them anyway). They did need a second coat for perfect coverage over black but the first coats were pretty impressive and probably enough depending on what effect you’re going for.
The self leveling was really impressive. Despite the paint being a bit thick in consistency, you really can apply them straight from the pot and they’ll just level out. Maybe that’s nothing new for hobby paints but my beloved heavy body acrylics are designed to NOT do this. And even artist fluid acrylics don’t really do this all that well. I worked in several layers and still didn’t get any texture build up.
They have a satin finish that leans ever so slightly toward matte. They have a smooth texture but not too much shine and glare so they’re not distracting to work with. It feels like a very nice sweet spot. I’d want to apply a final matte varnish but I can’t imagine needing matte coats in the WIP stages.
I tried using their “shading medium” to get a glaze consistency but I kept not thinning down enough. I think that speaks to the strong coverage and pigmentation and is just something that takes getting used to. When I did thin down enough, they did seem to glaze well.
The paints did seem to dry out on the palette quickly but I was in a Warhammer store - the last places left on earth where wet palettes have yet to be discovered. So maybe this was more a matter of using a dry palette. They didn’t seem to dry out on the model crazy quickly.
I didn’t try the 5 step pentad system as I just don’t like painting that way. But I experimented a little with mixing and it was fine. Not amazing, not a muddy mess, but just fine. I’m accustomed to knowing exactly which pigments I’m mixing so I didn’t have unrealistic expectations for paints which don’t list their pigments. But yeah, it was fine.
Overall I was impressed. And I was very skeptical going into it. I will definitely buy a pot of white. It really is good. I’m thinking I might also piece together a set of split primaries (a warm and a cool version each of red, yellow and blue) and experiment from there.