The bottom right corner roughly translates to "Come and try our new Game Color and Xpress Color paints by Angel Giraldez and Juan Hidalgo". In the comments section Juan made the following reply to a question:
Ian Stubbington wrote: ooh ooh Vallejo getting on the Contrast/Speedpaint Bandwagon ?
Juan Hidalgo wrote:Oh yeah and I took part in the development.
It would be nice to somehow split the difference between Scale 75's Instacolor and Contrast. Instacolor is the only one that actually shades well but are watery as hell and difficult to control. Speedpaint controls decently but just makes everything THAT COLOR so you still need more highlighting steps.
If Juan is on board, that's interesting, guy really knows his stuff when it comes to contrast and I've learned a lot from his videos.
Tips like starting from mid-grey undercoat + contrast for darker models has been a gamechanger, gives a really amazing dark shading + medium-dark base to then build up with a highlight or two for great results.
I've been using that more and more as the lighter undercoats give too much stark shading for a traditional 'build up from dark' process to work. It's a good middle ground between traditional and contrast method, I find.
Vallejo entering the game? Wow, took them long enough! Really intrigued.
Also, the same ad as Angel Giraldez introducing new Vallejo Game Colours. I'm really intrigued about them as well. From teases on Angel's facebook and twitter it seems they changed the formula. Hope the colours stayed the same.
I'll be picking up a few of these when they are released, Juan is definitely my favourite hobby content producer, I love what he does with Contrast paints. My own techniques have improved noticeably since I started watching his videos.
Juan really knows his stuff when it comes to Contrast paints and I would say I have learned more about their application/strengths/weaknesses from him than anyone else.
The only downside is I guess he won't be using Citadel Contrast much in his videos when these get released...
lord_blackfang wrote: I just put 8 Green Stuff World dipping inks in my cart... I'm not taking them out.
I just tested two, they are pretty decent.
I've seen the GSW inks, they look good but I'd rather wait and see what Vallejo's are like. I have trust in Juan to help them make a great product.
I'm still going to wait for the reviews first of course, I would have been really disappointed if I had pre-ordered The Army Painter or Scale75's versions.
Rocco Raspanti wrote:Very interesting! I might get some to try. I still find it a little funny that Vallejo too, for marketing reasons I guess, advertise this new product as something that recalls speed painting while a slow, pro painter will probably get the most out of it (just as contrasts)
Juan Hidalgo wrote:I KNOW!
Trust me I agree with you, I was asked for suggestions about the name and my feedback was to AVOID anything that implies speed, I had a long conversation about that but alas I'm just a tester and my input in that regard is not big at all.
So Juan was just a tester (and IMHO the best tester they could ask for) but did not contribute to the development beyond that
Juam Hidalgo wrote:Review next week, as soon as I get back from the freaks. That's where I will be getting the full set with the official bottles... Probably Tuesday or Wednesday, again, literally as soon a si can record it and edit it and light speed
Can't wait and I'll get it up in the OP as soon as I see it. Hopefully Juan's new baby lets him get it up quickly...
I found this image on their official Instagram. The new logo are cool. They also said that they are going to have some videos done during the presentations of the new paints, for both the new Xpress Colors and the revamped Game Colors.
vanvakaris wrote: I found this image on their official Instagram. The new logo are cool. They also said that they are going to have some videos done during the presentations of the new paints, for both the new Xpress Colors and the revamped Game Colors.
And can be found on their Facebook page along with the following pics:
Tannhauser42 wrote: I think a big question is will Vallejo sell the medium by itself, and how good will it be?
I don't see a reason why they wouldn't sell the medium by itself as they already sell mediums. I can go to Hobby Lobby and buy Thinner Medium, Glaze Medium, Metal Medium and Drying Retarder Medium from Vallejo (and they only carry a fraction of the Model Color line).
Flinty wrote: Hopefully they will bring their usual offering. Better than army painter and cheaper than Citadel
Those are not high bars
It actually is a high bar, and you know your statement is pretty dishonest. GW is the only company in this hobby that can sell you garbage for two to three times the asking price of a similar product from other competitors and people will still "Well Acktchyually" to defend it because of "Warhammer".
Flinty wrote: Hopefully they will bring their usual offering. Better than army painter and cheaper than Citadel
Those are not high bars
It actually is a high bar, and you know your statement is pretty dishonest. GW is the only company in this hobby that can sell you garbage for two to three times the asking price of a similar product from other competitors and people will still "Well Acktchyually" to defend it because of "Warhammer".
So you're saying that GW is overpriced but it's difficult to be cheaper than GW?
Flinty wrote: Hopefully they will bring their usual offering. Better than army painter and cheaper than Citadel
Those are not high bars
It actually is a high bar, and you know your statement is pretty dishonest. GW is the only company in this hobby that can sell you garbage for two to three times the asking price of a similar product from other competitors and people will still "Well Acktchyually" to defend it because of "Warhammer".
So you're saying that GW is overpriced but it's difficult to be cheaper than GW?
Where did I say it was difficult to be cheaper than GW?
GW can get away with insane prices due to how widespread the "Warhammer" brand is, lack of awareness of other brands, and how diehard many of the GW customers are.
Many products similar or better than the kits, paints, and tools GW makes sell for less, but people still buy the more expensive GW version because "Warhammer".
Being better than Army Painter, but being cheaper than GW is a spot many quite solid/better products sit in, so saying it is a low bar for something to be better than Army Painter but cheaper than GW is an unfair statement.
Gio wrote:How many colours will be available? And will they be price friendly?
Juan Hidalgo wrote:24 colours to begin with, no idea on price sorry
Dash227 wrote: @JuanHidalgo Miniatures Right I'm wondering if it's the same properties as Citadel. Meaning the Speedpaint has the reactivation issue, Citadel Contrast solves that. I'm hoping Vallejos doesn't have reactivation and you can use it just like contrast medium/paints.
Juan Hidalgo wrote:Do you think I would allow them to reactivate? Feth no, not on my watch.
Remember I've been working with them for a year on this
DR. mirage809 wrote:So as I understand it this is Vallejo's answer to Contrast? It looks very good. Finish appears to be a bit more matte than Contrast paints provide. Looking forward to more details.
Juan Hidalgo wrote:Way more matte and can be thinned with water without breaking apart
So I think everything has been answered already, but just in case:
Ask any question you want about the Xpress Color range and I will do my best to answer them
Yes I worked with Vallejo on this for about a year along other very talented people, I'm not a chemist though so I could only test and give input, all credit is for the people working behind the scenes in the lab. The formulation is quite amazing, to me, as good as Contrast in terms of application and effect but matter (which can be good or bad for you) and they are extremely stable when you dilute in water which means you can thin them down to the thinnest of glazes and won't break apart.
lord_blackfang wrote: What will set them apart from the others? Why get them if I already have 4 different lines of "Contrast"?
For me, personally, the fact they are not aquaphobic, unlike Citadel Contrast paints, is a big(ish) deal. If I can thin them with water, rather than medium, this saves a lot of time and effort but also means I can do more with them.
And the fact that they dry matte, and don't reactivate, has me very interested.
lord_blackfang wrote: What will set them apart from the others? Why get them if I already have 4 different lines of "Contrast"?
For me, personally, the fact they are not aquaphobic, unlike Citadel Contrast paints, is a big(ish) deal. If I can thin them with water, rather than medium, this saves a lot of time and effort but also means I can do more with them.
And the fact that they dry matte, and don't reactivate, has me very interested.
Fun fact, Contrast isn't aquaphobic, the GW contrast spray is. I thin them with water all the time, over Vallejo primer.
I have found that if you try to thin Contrast paints with water, for things like glazes, it really doesn't go well - the paint just splits apart. I have so far only been able to successfully make glazes using Lahmian or Contrast Medium.
StraightSilver wrote: I have found that if you try to thin Contrast paints with water, for things like glazes, it really doesn't go well - the paint just splits apart. I have so far only been able to successfully make glazes using Lahmian or Contrast Medium.
Ah well of course it's not going to keep its properties if the majority of your volume is water. This will be true for any brand.
I am able to make glazes using only water from Citadel non-Contrast paints, and other brands, it only seems to be Contrast that has this issue. It sounds like the new Vallejo Xpress paints can also be thinned with water which makes them a very useful tool.
The paints of my dream would have a longer drying time and lay down as smoothly as AP speed paints, but not reactivate or bleed as GW don’t.
I was liking speed paints for a while, but they’ve mostly left my workflow now due to the reactivating and bleeding issues.
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StraightSilver wrote: I am able to make glazes using only water from Citadel non-Contrast paints, and other brands, it only seems to be Contrast that has this issue. It sounds like the new Vallejo Xpress paints can also be thinned with water which makes them a very useful tool.
Contrast paints will spread over slick surfaces when AP speed paints won’t (for example, over a vibrant true metallic base like a tamiya spray metallic). That might be related to why they don’t like mixing wth water, as they must have a very low surface tension.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: The paints of my dream would have a longer drying time and lay down as smoothly as AP speed paints, but not reactivate or bleed as GW don’t.
I was liking speed paints for a while, but they’ve mostly left my workflow now due to the reactivating and bleeding issues.
Yeah same. GSW Dipping Inks allegedly hit that sweet spot, but most are a bit thinner than Contrast.
JHMiniatures wrote: So I think everything has been answered already, but just in case:
Ask any question you want about the Xpress Color range and I will do my best to answer them
Yes I worked with Vallejo on this for about a year along other very talented people, I'm not a chemist though so I could only test and give input, all credit is for the people working behind the scenes in the lab. The formulation is quite amazing, to me, as good as Contrast in terms of application and effect but matter (which can be good or bad for you) and they are extremely stable when you dilute in water which means you can thin them down to the thinnest of glazes and won't break apart.
Yes there is a Medium obviously.
What do you feel that these paints bring, that Contrast dont?
I have almost the entire Speedpaint line, but i barely use them because i much more prefer contrast.
Ignoring price and availability of vallejo(I love vallejo, they are my favorite brand, but i dont use then as much because they are hard to get) what makes these a worthwhile purchase over Contrast.
JHMiniatures wrote: So I think everything has been answered already, but just in case:
Ask any question you want about the Xpress Color range and I will do my best to answer them
Yes I worked with Vallejo on this for about a year along other very talented people, I'm not a chemist though so I could only test and give input, all credit is for the people working behind the scenes in the lab. The formulation is quite amazing, to me, as good as Contrast in terms of application and effect but matter (which can be good or bad for you) and they are extremely stable when you dilute in water which means you can thin them down to the thinnest of glazes and won't break apart.
Yes there is a Medium obviously.
What do you feel that these paints bring, that Contrast dont?
I have almost the entire Speedpaint line, but i barely use them because i much more prefer contrast.
Ignoring price and availability of vallejo(I love vallejo, they are my favorite brand, but i dont use then as much because they are hard to get) what makes these a worthwhile purchase over Contrast.
Well, you already know I also love Contrast, so it's not an easy question to answer, if you love contrast and own them all, maybe this line won't be the one to buy entirely.
That being said, we intentionally created some colours to be a copy of Contrast and others to be original to this line, so it's a great opportunity to get those missing pieces in the hue range.
As for properties, they apply as well as Contrast, because it's impossible to improve on perfection, but they are VERY matte and can be thinned down with water without breaking apart, so to me they are a more versatile tool specially for more experienced painters.
As you two asked the same question, this will answer it.
Irdiumstern wrote: How do they look over metalics? Saying that they dry very matte gives me some concerns in that direction.
I will be honest with you, haven't tried it but yeah I think you might be correct, probably not the tool for that kind of job but maybe mixing it with the metallic paint can work
As for properties, they apply as well as Contrast, because it's impossible to improve on perfection, but they are VERY matte and can be thinned down with water without breaking apart, so to me they are a more versatile tool specially for more experienced painters..
Does 'as well as Contrast' mean that they're blotchy on flat surfaces, though? I would hope for something more like Speedpaint coverage, but without the reactivation. That would certainly save me some money on sealer, which is how I'm getting around Speedpaint's little issue currently.
Garfield666 wrote: After the Army Painter Speedpaint disaster, this could be good.
Although I also like the regular AP paints and washes, so...
Speedpaint is not a disaster, you just need to know how to use it.
It's quirks are highly useful in the right circumstances. I use both Speedpaint and Contrast for different functions. The failed product is Scale 75's Potion series, because it is pissweak..
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stahly wrote: Vallejo entering the game? Wow, took them long enough! Really intrigued.
Vallejo is a paints only company and prides itself on getting their core competency right and producing the best quality product they can. I seriously doubt that were slow to react to Contrast paints, but they don't have the scale of economy to do anything ground breaking like GW can, so they generally react rather than innovate.
I suspect the reaction came swiftly, but they have taken their time to make sure their entry is a top tier product from day one. I expected Vallejo to join the contrast party, I expected them to arrive late and I expect their entry to be objectively superior when it comes.
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lord_blackfang wrote: I just put 8 Green Stuff World dipping inks in my cart... I'm not taking them out.
stahly wrote: Vallejo entering the game? Wow, took them long enough! Really intrigued.
Vallejo is a paints only company and prides itself on getting their core competency right and producing the best quality product they can. I seriously doubt that were slow to react to Contrast paints, but they don't have the scale of economy to do anything ground breaking like GW can, so they generally react rather than innovate.
I suspect the reaction came swiftly, but they have taken their time to make sure their entry is a top tier product from day one. I expected Vallejo to join the contrast party, I expected them to arrive late and I expect their entry to be objectively superior when it comes.
From just a little way up this page:
Dash227 wrote: @JuanHidalgo Miniatures Right I'm wondering if it's the same properties as Citadel. Meaning the Speedpaint has the reactivation issue, Citadel Contrast solves that. I'm hoping Vallejos doesn't have reactivation and you can use it just like contrast medium/paints.
Juan Hidalgo wrote:Do you think I would allow them to reactivate? Feth no, not on my watch.
Remember I've been working with them for a year on this
So Juan's been working with Vallejo on this for a year as a tester and there's no telling how long they've been working on it before he was brought on board.
As for properties, they apply as well as Contrast, because it's impossible to improve on perfection, but they are VERY matte and can be thinned down with water without breaking apart, so to me they are a more versatile tool specially for more experienced painters..
Does 'as well as Contrast' mean that they're blotchy on flat surfaces, though? I would hope for something more like Speedpaint coverage, but without the reactivation. That would certainly save me some money on sealer, which is how I'm getting around Speedpaint's little issue currently.
I never had any issues with contrast on flat surfaces, it's all about technique.
Magic doesn't exist, you cannot lean onto one side with loosing something else
stahly wrote: Vallejo entering the game? Wow, took them long enough! Really intrigued.
Vallejo is a paints only company and prides itself on getting their core competency right and producing the best quality product they can. I seriously doubt that were slow to react to Contrast paints, but they don't have the scale of economy to do anything ground breaking like GW can, so they generally react rather than innovate.
I suspect the reaction came swiftly, but they have taken their time to make sure their entry is a top tier product from day one. I expected Vallejo to join the contrast party, I expected them to arrive late and I expect their entry to be objectively superior when it comes.
From just a little way up this page:
Dash227 wrote: @JuanHidalgo Miniatures Right I'm wondering if it's the same properties as Citadel. Meaning the Speedpaint has the reactivation issue, Citadel Contrast solves that. I'm hoping Vallejos doesn't have reactivation and you can use it just like contrast medium/paints.
Juan Hidalgo wrote:Do you think I would allow them to reactivate? Feth no, not on my watch.
Remember I've been working with them for a year on this
So Juan's been working with Vallejo on this for a year as a tester and there's no telling how long they've been working on it before he was brought on board.
As far as I know, they got me in because Angel Giraldez told them. Speaking about time, I think I joined about half way into the process at the very least.
A lot of people like to think that contrast medium is just flow improver, medium and water... Yeah f*ck no, it's extremely complicated, said by the Vallejo chemist team and I'm paraphrasing:
Irdiumstern wrote: How do they look over metalics? Saying that they dry very matte gives me some concerns in that direction.
I will be honest with you, haven't tried it but yeah I think you might be correct, probably not the tool for that kind of job but maybe mixing it with the metallic paint can work
thanks, I'll just have to give it a shot when they're here.
After the new round of Contrast colours costing me almost $30 of Canadian funny money for THREE pots, I’ll be all over these.
Vallejo is easy to get and plentiful around these parts. Them being a non-spilling dropper bottle, and likely half the cost? Yeah, it’s a no-brainer.
Looking forward to more videos on these JH. You sir are the King of Contrast.
For me the biggest strength of Contrast is that it is a paint with very strong hue that is meanwhile transparent. The whole ,It created shadows by pooling‘ is just marketing bs so noobs buy it and ruin models by slapping too much of this paint on it. It really shines when applied thin over a model with basecoat and zenithal highlight. And for this application all other brands I tried so far (Elixir Paints by Scale and Army paibter) sucked hard. Hoped are high that Vallejo do the job right
I love that it has a longer drying time than Contrast, Contrast dries so fast that you can't really go back over areas you have just brushed on without "tearing" the surface.
The video looks good, excited for these to be released!
Undead_Love-Machine wrote: I love that it has a longer drying time than Contrast, Contrast dries so fast that you can't really go back over areas you have just brushed on without "tearing" the surface.
The video looks good, excited for these to be released!
Yeah, that is indeed a great positive, and the video looks like it's going to be a good alternative
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
I mean, I find it a feature for some things, and they certainly coffee stain a lot less than regular contrasts, so there's something to be said about them.
Saying someone don't like them only because they have been testing another line of paints is a stretch, though.
I'm a Contrast addict and boy do I regret going all in on Scale75's Instants and AP's Speeds. Should have just filled in my Citadel collection for that money.
I'm willing to look at some of these that are different colors then what I have from the Contrast and Scale 75 as I'm pretty happy with both of those and don't see a reason to change things up. But there are some colors both don't have good representation of or do kind of poorly in my opinion (purples for example) so I'm always looking for stuff to augment what I have.
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
I actually love that podcast, but Rob picked an incredibly weird hill to die on regarding Speedpaints. (saying people who complain about re-activation are "using it wrong". And, yes, that is a quote. He's dumb as hell when it comes to paint).
Edit: to be fair I just double checked army painter's speedpaint website and they do officially recommend varnishing over speedpaint if you're going to apply any other acrylics over the top of them. I'm pretty sure I didn't see that when they first came out, but I could be wrong.
Edit: to be fair I just double checked army painter's speedpaint website and they do officially recommend varnishing over speedpaint if you're going to apply any other acrylics over the top of them. I'm pretty sure I didn't see that when they first came out, but I could be wrong.
No, it was added after release, when the reactivation issue became widely known.
I mean it's fine as long as people are aware, but the reactivation thing is pretty important for anyone not doing the literal bare minimum with those paints.
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
That's spikey Bitz, the national inquirer of warhammer
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
Well, they are wrong, the reactivation is a MESS, I really cannot understand how they let a product like that come to market.
Of course they are trying to spin it as a "feature" now, specially the fanboys (or more like GW haters) but the truth is that is far from it, it's a mistake they made and mark my words here: At some point in the future I BET YOU they are going to release the fixed version
Juan saying they dry slower is getting me a bit excited.
That's one of my biggest hates with the Contrast paints, you take a few seconds too long painting one area and when you go back to extend the paint in the other direction it's already started to dry and you get a coffee stain line. Or you wait too long to clean up pooling and get the coffee stains.
AP is far better for that in large part simply because it dries slower, but then comes with the penalty that it may reactivate later.
So if Vallejo's offering has the slow dry time of AP combined with the hard finish of the Contrasts, that sounds good to me.
I'm a bit worried about the comment that it dries very matte, as that's a situational thing, I'd rather the paint be not overly matte nor overly gloss, then push it one way or the other with varnishes if necessary.
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
I actually love that podcast, but Rob picked an incredibly weird hill to die on regarding Speedpaints. (saying people who complain about re-activation are "using it wrong". And, yes, that is a quote. He's dumb as hell when it comes to paint).
It's hard to see reactivation as anything other than a flaw. If it came with some magic chemical that reactivated it at will, then that would be a good thing, but just to reactivate all the time with little control over it, yeah, not so much.
It also doesn't reactivate smoothly, I tried to exploit the reactivation to do blending, but the reactivation isn't consistent and the for some colours it comes away in chunks when it reactivates.
A lesser spoken about thing with AP's offering is the bleeding, if you paint 2 colours next to each other, you can be careful and not overlap them, and then come back 10 minutes later and they've bled together. It's again very inconsistent, sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't, depending on the colours it may not matter or it may look ugly. On one model I spent some time painting details on a shield, then painted the body of the shield with AP speedpaint purple, and it bled out into the detail work I had done previously, quite annoying.
Edit: to be fair I just double checked army painter's speedpaint website and they do officially recommend varnishing over speedpaint if you're going to apply any other acrylics over the top of them. I'm pretty sure I didn't see that when they first came out, but I could be wrong.
Yeah, that came after people started complaining about it, lol.
AP released a faulty product. It has nothing to do with techniques. If you have to varnish after every step, there is no "speed" in Speedpaint.
I pump out many hundred figures a year for decades so I am rather fast with regular washing and drybrushing techniques. AP was my first taste of the Contrast-like stuff and a huge disappointment.
I will certainly try out some Xpress paints, but I will never go for a whole set at start.
I listend to the Long war Podcast in question.
Rob said pretty much that the reactivation issue was made up, because JHM wanted his video to be popular. That youtube needed it to be popular for him to suceed.
ignoring that a speedpaint video from him was anticipated, because he in the contrast king.
I believe I was the first to point out the reactivation issue in my review video (got 60k views), so definitely not Juan‘s fault.
I think all the very positive reviews of Speedpaint that came first either didn‘t experiment with them thoroughly enough or didn‘t use them in a way that makes reactivating a problem (no glazing, no painting over). An anti-GW bias might have also played its part…
stahly wrote: I believe I was the first to point out the reactivation issue in my review video (got 60k views), so definitely not Juan‘s fault.
I think all the very positive reviews of Speedpaint that came first either didn‘t experiment with them thoroughly enough or didn‘t use them in a way that makes reactivating a problem (no glazing, no painting over). An anti-GW bias might have also played its part…
I feel like it was mentioned in passing in someone's review, but yours might have been the first to really discuss it in detail and highlight it as a flaw.
Dana Howl put out a video saying the problem was "fixed" if you only used AP's medium to thin whatever paints you applied on top of them, however I tried that and they still reactivated.
I do still prefer AP over Contrast if I need to apply it to a large flat area because it's easier to get a smooth coat with the AP, but yeah, I find myself more and more buying Contrasts to replace my APs rather than buying APs to replace my Contrasts.
If XpressColor has a slower drying time, making it easier than Contrast to apply without the reactivation issue, then I think it's on to a winner.
Yea I guess you don't notice the reactivation issue if all you do is slap one coat all over a model. I guess wanting to use multiple colors on the same mini is "using them wrong"
stahly wrote: I believe I was the first to point out the reactivation issue in my review video (got 60k views), so definitely not Juan‘s fault.
I think all the very positive reviews of Speedpaint that came first either didn‘t experiment with them thoroughly enough or didn‘t use them in a way that makes reactivating a problem (no glazing, no painting over). An anti-GW bias might have also played its part…
I feel like it was mentioned in passing in someone's review, but yours might have been the first to really discuss it in detail and highlight it as a flaw.
Dana Howl put out a video saying the problem was "fixed" if you only used AP's medium to thin whatever paints you applied on top of them, however I tried that and they still reactivated.
I do still prefer AP over Contrast if I need to apply it to a large flat area because it's easier to get a smooth coat with the AP, but yeah, I find myself more and more buying Contrasts to replace my APs rather than buying APs to replace my Contrasts.
If XpressColor has a slower drying time, making it easier than Contrast to apply without the reactivation issue, then I think it's on to a winner.
Stahly was indeed the first one, if i said it was me I was wrong obviously.
Mine had more repercussion for some reason, and made AP change their marketing, which I'm very happy it did.
Also yeah the Dana's solution is BS, they still reactivate even if you use pure medium, the product is a dumpster fire.
Something interesting from Vallejo about the Game Color range on their Instagram account:
New Formula
Sustainable r-PET Bottles
Intense and Saturated Colors
Matt Finish
Vallejo Paint System BSL
It's that last one that's interesting. I'm assuming 'BSL' stands for 'Base, Shade, Layer'. They've had suggested paint triads in their Game Color pamphlet of regular paints but possible shades sound interesting.
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
Just googled it - saw it's the guy from Spiky Bitz. No need to bother taking any notice.
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lord_blackfang wrote: Yea I guess you don't notice the reactivation issue if all you do is slap one coat all over a model. I guess wanting to use multiple colors on the same mini is "using them wrong"
Too many of the current crop of YouTubers are just a wee bit too beholden to just trying to get their videos out first and keeping sweet with potential sponsorships rather than being in-depth or fully truthful in much besides their own self-promotion. Ninjon, who is usually at least bearable did a sponsored-by Army Painter video to show that good results can be achieved using their paints. And to be fair, he did do an excellent job, but he really had to work at it since the paints aren't particularly good/easy to use. I haven't seen him use their paints since then, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeX7ijTBuGM&ab_channel=Ninjon
The result of all this is that the only two Youtubers who I really fully trust when it comes to paints are Stahly and Juan, because of the no-bs, tell-it-like-it-is information that they give viewers. I also don't mind people like Tabletop Minions who doesn't do the promo thing like most of the rest of them, but most of the rest of them might have useful stuff on occastion, or entertaining bits, or good ideas, but have very little credibility when it comes to whatever they're promoting or reviewing/shilling at the time.
JHMiniatures wrote: I came here to post my video, glad to see it's already been done
You might want to have a listen to the latest episode of The Long War podcast. They don't mention you by name but they are basically saying that you only criticised Army Painter Speedpaints because of your connections to the Vallejo Xpress paint line.
It's obviously bs, they even refer to AP's re-activation issue as a feature rather than a flaw, so you can see how much their opinion is worth
Thanks for all of the videos by the way, your painting is an inspiration
Just googled it - saw it's the guy from Spiky Bitz. No need to bother taking any notice.
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lord_blackfang wrote: Yea I guess you don't notice the reactivation issue if all you do is slap one coat all over a model. I guess wanting to use multiple colors on the same mini is "using them wrong"
Too many of the current crop of YouTubers are just a wee bit too beholden to just trying to get their videos out first and keeping sweet with potential sponsorships rather than being in-depth or fully truthful in much besides their own self-promotion. Ninjon, who is usually at least bearable did a sponsored-by Army Painter video to show that good results can be achieved using their paints. And to be fair, he did do an excellent job, but he really had to work at it since the paints aren't particularly good/easy to use. I haven't seen him use their paints since then, though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeX7ijTBuGM&ab_channel=Ninjon
The result of all this is that the only two Youtubers who I really fully trust when it comes to paints are Stahly and Juan, because of the no-bs, tell-it-like-it-is information that they give viewers. I also don't mind people like Tabletop Minions who doesn't do the promo thing like most of the rest of them, but most of the rest of them might have useful stuff on occastion, or entertaining bits, or good ideas, but have very little credibility when it comes to whatever they're promoting or reviewing/shilling at the time.
Funny you mention that video of Ninjon. You know what? Army Painter offered me making the same video for quite a lot of money (at least to me) in fact they wanted to make at least three videos with me fully paid for.
I rejected the money after receiving the paints and trying them out. Yes, I COULD get an excellent paintjob out of them but I would have been misrepresenting then to my audience because being a fully paid video and subjected to peer review, I wouldn't have been able to give my honest opinion and they are not a good product at all.
As with any range of course there are some decent paints there but they are few and far between.
That being said the AIR range is AMAZING, SO GOOD. I mean, at this point I would just scrap the old paints and just sell the air range, they are that good.
Yeah, I used to really like the old/original Army Painter paints - the ones with the paint splatter on the label. They were pretty similar to Citadel/Vallejo/etc and nice to use.
Later, I bought the mega-set of new colours, but on arrival I found that they changed the formula to the awful gel-based medium. No idea why they downgraded their product so significantly, but I just don't use them because they're trash. I stil use their lione of Washes ("Tones") since they're still good products.
Ninjon really walked the line and basically came up with "you can use any paints with enough effort" rather than outright endorsing them, though the truth is that they're simply a sub-par tool and savings aren't enough to recommend them over other brands.
I've heard positive things abouit their Air range, but at this point I have a ton of Vallejo Model/Game/Air/Mecha, Citadel, Monument, AK 3rd Gen/etc.. so I don't know if they're ultimately worth bothing with. Do you have a video on them so I can see things like opacity and how they perfrom with a brush for painting/blending/glazing/etc?
Azazelx wrote: Yeah, I used to really like the old/original Army Painter paints - the ones with the paint splatter on the label. They were pretty similar to Citadel/Vallejo/etc and nice to use.
Later, I bought the mega-set of new colours, but on arrival I found that they changed the formula to the awful gel-based medium. No idea why they downgraded their product so significantly, but I just don't use them because they're trash. I stil use their lione of Washes ("Tones") since they're still good products.
Ninjon really walked the line and basically came up with "you can use any paints with enough effort" rather than outright endorsing them, though the truth is that they're simply a sub-par tool and savings aren't enough to recommend them over other brands.
I've heard positive things abouit their Air range, but at this point I have a ton of Vallejo Model/Game/Air/Mecha, Citadel, Monument, AK 3rd Gen/etc.. so I don't know if they're ultimately worth bothing with. Do you have a video on them so I can see things like opacity and how they perfrom with a brush for painting/blending/glazing/etc?
No, sorry but I've been extremely impressed so far. Might do one at some point but for the time being my to do list of videos is full
No, sorry but I've been extremely impressed so far. Might do one at some point but for the time being my to do list of videos is full
No problem. I've got a bunch of Game Air paints but they're ...uneven in quality for brush paints. How would you compare the AP Air to Model Air overall?
Also - maybe it'd be worth contacting them for those sponsored videos to do them with AP Air if the paints are good/excellent instead of their regular line?
I always found most GW centric podcasts and channels to be essentially shills for the most part, and or just plain wrong about most things what certain communities want (also boring because I'd rather see a non GW model every once in awhile). Listing to that particular episode just felt like some sort of weird jealousy going on. Jilted stans or something.
No, sorry but I've been extremely impressed so far. Might do one at some point but for the time being my to do list of videos is full
No problem. I've got a bunch of Game Air paints but they're ...uneven in quality for brush paints. How would you compare the AP Air to Model Air overall?
Also - maybe it'd be worth contacting them for those sponsored videos to do them with AP Air if the paints are good/excellent instead of their regular line?
Pretty sure I burned that bridge with my Xpress Color affiliation
More fool them if they take that attitude. At this point, you and Stahly are really the only "paint reviewers" who are trustworthy to call it like it is.
Squidmar also did a good job with his "tournament", breaking down aspects of paint in a more granular manner, but I didn't see anything from him on SP reactivation, and then you've got the masses who ignored it, didn't test them fully enough or are outright apologists for it via "it's a feature, not a bug".
Not exactly people I'd trust when they review a paint range...
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BlackoCatto wrote: I always found most GW centric podcasts and channels to be essentially shills for the most part, and or just plain wrong about most things what certain communities want (also boring because I'd rather see a non GW model every once in awhile). Listing to that particular episode just felt like some sort of weird jealousy going on. Jilted stans or something.
Most of the YTers I see these days in that category are essentially using their paint videos to advertise whatever Patreon or Kickstarter is their sponsor of the day these days. Spiky Bitz is the epitome of the whole "bitter ex" thing in his (one-sided) relationship to GW so I skip his content entirely. GW has a lot of flaws, but it gets tiresome when people make hating GW the central point of their online personality (often while at the same time spending literally thousands of currencies on GW stuff). There's a fair few posters on here who make that their gimmick and it's as tiresome as the White Knight GW-can-do-no-wrong Stans. I don't have time for gaming podcasts, though - I already listen to too many hours of wrestling stuff that takes up my podcast time.
There are a few YT-ers who still put out videos I enjoy, but I avoid the ones who make GW-hating or GW-stanning (is that a word, now?) their major gimmick.
I have been a big defender of AP for while. There are a few bad paints in there, like their reds.
But I'm adoring their air range, their matte white air is great.
I'm loving colored Metallica.
And while I still use contrast more, I don't hate speed paints and a few find their way in from time to time
Vallejos new game colour too? Is it a full revamp? new formulas? do they match old ones colourwise or completely new?
As much as I appreciate the one trick pony of contrasts or express for me the bread and butter of painting is Vallejo model colour or game colour.
Azazelx wrote: More fool them if they take that attitude. At this point, you and Stahly are really the only "paint reviewers" who are trustworthy to call it like it is.
Squidmar also did a good job with his "tournament", breaking down aspects of paint in a more granular manner, but I didn't see anything from him on SP reactivation, and then you've got the masses who ignored it, didn't test them fully enough or are outright apologists for it via "it's a feature, not a bug".
Not exactly people I'd trust when they review a paint range...
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BlackoCatto wrote: I always found most GW centric podcasts and channels to be essentially shills for the most part, and or just plain wrong about most things what certain communities want (also boring because I'd rather see a non GW model every once in awhile). Listing to that particular episode just felt like some sort of weird jealousy going on. Jilted stans or something.
Most of the YTers I see these days in that category are essentially using their paint videos to advertise whatever Patreon or Kickstarter is their sponsor of the day these days. Spiky Bitz is the epitome of the whole "bitter ex" thing in his (one-sided) relationship to GW so I skip his content entirely. GW has a lot of flaws, but it gets tiresome when people make hating GW the central point of their online personality (often while at the same time spending literally thousands of currencies on GW stuff). There's a fair few posters on here who make that their gimmick and it's as tiresome as the White Knight GW-can-do-no-wrong Stans. I don't have time for gaming podcasts, though - I already listen to too many hours of wrestling stuff that takes up my podcast time.
There are a few YT-ers who still put out videos I enjoy, but I avoid the ones who make GW-hating or GW-stanning (is that a word, now?) their major gimmick.
Thanks, man, appreciate it. I‘m just trying to be authentic. Being positive, but still pointing out all the pros and cons and hopefully avoiding any bias.
When we need to paint multiple figures in a fast way, Xpress Color is the ideal choice, these matt colors are specifically formulated to paint miniatures in a fast and easy way.
The main characteristics are its excellent capillarity that allows the color to flow easily over the miniature surface, settling on all the reliefs and more intensely in the crevices of the figure, creating a contrast effect with a single layer of paint.
It’s recommended to apply Xpress Color on a white or grey primed or painted surface. The color will create light areas on the reliefs, saturated mid-tones and intense shadows in the crevices of the figure.
Like all our products, they are very versatile and can be applied over any color in the range to create soft shading and contouring effects, to create glazes or filters and to blend transitions between color tones.
Xpress Color can be mixed together, or can be diluted with Xpress Medium to modify or create new shades.
Vallejos new game colour too? Is it a full revamp? new formulas? do they match old ones colourwise or completely new?
As much as I appreciate the one trick pony of contrasts or express for me the bread and butter of painting is Vallejo model colour or game colour.
Tell us more things Sir Hidalgo. Please
Completely new formulation, full revamp of the line as far as I know but most colours should be the same.
The new formulation makes them matter and they have way better coverage.
There will be new inks, new washes and new fluorescent colours too
Vallejos new game colour too? Is it a full revamp? new formulas? do they match old ones colourwise or completely new?
As much as I appreciate the one trick pony of contrasts or express for me the bread and butter of painting is Vallejo model colour or game colour.
Tell us more things Sir Hidalgo. Please
Completely new formulation, full revamp of the line as far as I know but most colours should be the same.
The new formulation makes them matter and they have way better coverage.
There will be new inks, new washes and new fluorescent colours too
That's great news. Seems like I need to keep an eye for another 80 new VGC paints then.
I hope they keep the prices manageable as aways and that the new pots are still high quality.
Vallejos new game colour too? Is it a full revamp? new formulas? do they match old ones colourwise or completely new?
As much as I appreciate the one trick pony of contrasts or express for me the bread and butter of painting is Vallejo model colour or game colour.
Tell us more things Sir Hidalgo. Please
Completely new formulation, full revamp of the line as far as I know but most colours should be the same.
The new formulation makes them matter and they have way better coverage.
There will be new inks, new washes and new fluorescent colours too
That's great news. Seems like I need to keep an eye for another 80 new VGC paints then.
I hope they keep the prices manageable as aways and that the new pots are still high quality.
Hit the book in the upper right corner. It will give you a chart of all of the Xpress Color paints along with the reformulated Game Color paints including the Metallics, Inks, Fluorescents, Washes, Special FX and Auxiliary Products.
Quick question: is the Vallejo Game Air still going to exist or not?
I only see Game Color paints and a few variants (Metallic, Ink, Wash, Special FX, Fluo) on their new website.
Aenar wrote: Quick question: is the Vallejo Game Air still going to exist or not? I only see Game Color paints and a few variants (Metallic, Ink, Wash, Special FX, Fluo) on their new website.
That new website is only for their updated Game Color and Xpress Color paints. The website for everything else is at https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/
Note that it does look like they've discontinued the 'Heavy' Game Color paints, but those were just rebranded Model Color paints so it's not really a big deal.
Aenar wrote: Quick question: is the Vallejo Game Air still going to exist or not?
I only see Game Color paints and a few variants (Metallic, Ink, Wash, Special FX, Fluo) on their new website.
That new website is only for their updated Game Color and Xpress Color paints. The website for everything else is at https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/
Note that it does look like they've discontinued the 'Heavy' Game Color paints, but those were just rebranded Model Color paints so it's not really a big deal.
Oh I know that, the "old" website shows them. I am wondering whether they will continue selling the old Game Air range as well or not.
I would have to stockpile a few bottles in that case
As I mentioned the NEW website is for the NEW paints. The Game Color paints not being there is no indication one way or the other of them being discontinued.
Are they supposed to look that drab? One of the things I liked about the game color line was their more vibrant hues. Also looks like there's no equivalent for Livery Green, a staple of glowy stuff for me.
After seeing the full range, on the website, I imagine that they'll compliment my scale75 instant colours quite nicely.
(And I'm especially impressed with the way they seem to layer well.)
Note that it does look like they've discontinued the 'Heavy' Game Color paints, but those were just rebranded Model Color paints so it's not really a big deal.
Is there a chart for which Model Colors are the Heavy Colors? Heavy Warm Grey and Heavy Cold Grey are staples for me.
Note that it does look like they've discontinued the 'Heavy' Game Color paints, but those were just rebranded Model Color paints so it's not really a big deal.
Is there a chart for which Model Colors are the Heavy Colors? Heavy Warm Grey and Heavy Cold Grey are staples for me.
I assume you are going to do your famous swatch samples on the Xpress colors. Do you think you will get samples before the planned release in November?
I assume you are going to do your famous swatch samples on the Xpress colors. Do you think you will get samples before the planned release in November?
I'm not Stahly, but Vallejo asked me for a list of people to send samples to. Stahly is number 1 on that list.
I cannot promise anything, but I will try to make sure they do send him a set pre-release
We are not aware of Vallejo prices around the world, as inland taxes, exchange currency is out of our control. We are always very competitive when compared to other brands so new Game Color prices will not differ from current available prices, and we also grant superb quality products because you deserved!
Still no news on the Xpress Colors prices. There is also a paint set scheduled for January 2023.
That was a positive review, matt finish, less thick viscosity than contrasts means a better control, dropper bottles and diluted in water.... Well not sure whats not to like so far.
NAVARRO wrote:That was a positive review, matt finish, less thick viscosity than contrasts means a better control, dropper bottles and diluted in water.... Well not sure whats not to like so far.
I'm looking forward to these. I've got some old school 25mm 18th Century minaitures for an Imagi-Nations project that are pretty shallow in detail. These paints could be perfect for those.
Thanks for being so responsive Juan! It's great to have the ear of someone involved in the process. The vid of you painting the blood bowl ogre was great. An excellent showing of what they're capable of in the hands of a skilled painter.
Your work is only new to me, but i've been steadily working my way through your youtube channel and I've already picked up few a useful things. Looking forward to more of your work with the Xpress paints.
Snrub wrote: Just saw these. They're looking really promising!
Thanks for being so responsive Juan! It's great to have the ear of someone involved in the process. The vid of you painting the blood bowl ogre was great. An excellent showing of what they're capable of in the hands of a skilled painter.
Your work is only new to me, but i've been steadily working my way through your youtube channel and I've already picked up few a useful things. Looking forward to more of your work with the Xpress paints.
Honestly, a ballpark idea of a release date would be really useful, as I'll happily buy any set (the largest size set is probably what I would go for though) but I need to know if I need to put £60-100 aside at the moment, or if I can wait till after christmas.
Like many I presume hobby spending is going to be cut down massively in the medium term in the UK, so just want a little heads up so I can plan accordingly...
endlesswaltz123 wrote:Honestly, a ballpark idea of a release date would be really useful, as I'll happily buy any set (the largest size set is probably what I would go for though) but I need to know if I need to put £60-100 aside at the moment, or if I can wait till after christmas.
Like many I presume hobby spending is going to be cut down massively in the medium term in the UK, so just want a little heads up so I can plan accordingly...
Snrub wrote:Yeah a release date would be handy. Got a birthday not too far in the future and a set would make for an present.
'Xpress Color' is a pre-existing brand name for a cosmetics line by Indola.
I didn't know this but searching the name brings me up those links to the pre-existing product line.
Not only is that unhelpful for both companies but as Xpress is not an actual word Vallejo are treading on another companies branding, this can get legal.
Xpress is used everywhere in many products and brands. My own Google search on "xpress color" didn't even return any results regarding a cosmetics line on the first page. The first result was a print shop in Florida, followed by Vallejo's new paint line, and an Amazon listing for a Samsung color printer.
I think Vallejo is safe to use it.
'Xpress Color' is a pre-existing brand name for a cosmetics line by Indola.
I didn't know this but searching the name brings me up those links to the pre-existing product line.
Not only is that unhelpful for both companies but as Xpress is not an actual word Vallejo are treading on another companies branding, this can get legal.
It is not too late to add an E.
Trademarks are rather specific for a certain category of products. There's no problem for two different companies both selling products under the Xpress brand, so long as they are different products (as in cosmetics on one hand and paint made for miniature painting on the other).
News from Angel Giraldez on the Game Color new formulation. At the 1:22 mark of the video, he mentions that an advantage of the new formulation is that it takes longer to dry to more easily blend colors.
That video really sold nicely the triad colour potential.
We can see also the consistency of the paint quite well and IMO a very good balance between coverage and dilution. That pigment is holding very well even diluted.
Lovely skin tones.
Vallejos game colour just got upgraded by the looks of it. Very promising product.
After a year of work and testing, I'm very proud to present you the FULL RANGE of Vallejo Xpress Color. This is a worldwide exclusive showcase of the amazing new Contrast alternative from Vallejo,watch the video to answer all your questions and see all the colours in action.
Thanks for a great review! I need at least 8 of those colors. Shame there is no bone color there as I need some for my skellies.
BTW how long do you need to shake the bottle to be sure they are properly mixed?
Shadow Walker wrote: Thanks for a great review! I need at least 8 of those colors. Shame there is no bone color there as I need some for my skellies.
BTW how long do you need to shake the bottle to be sure they are properly mixed?
Shadow Walker wrote: Thanks for a great review! I need at least 8 of those colors. Shame there is no bone color there as I need some for my skellies.
BTW how long do you need to shake the bottle to be sure they are properly mixed?
I'm excited about the "dries slower" thing, it seems I can never get done what I need to get done with contrasts before they start drying, which leads to coffee stains, so definitely want to see what I can do with these.
It might just be my eyes or the photography, but do these show through more of the underlying colour than contrasts? It just seems the end results are a bit pale and desaturated compared to contrasts (though I'm aware contrasts vary a lot from one colour to the next).
I'm excited about the "dries slower" thing, it seems I can never get done what I need to get done with contrasts before they start drying, which leads to coffee stains, so definitely want to see what I can do with these.
It might just be my eyes or the photography, but do these show through more of the underlying colour than contrasts? It just seems the end results are a bit pale and desaturated compared to contrasts (though I'm aware contrasts vary a lot from one colour to the next).
It was decided to lean on to the weak side of things to allow painters to do another layer of they wanted a more intense look.
It's not a decision I would have liked but I had no saying in that. You can blame Angel Giraldez
Thanks to Juan for the Color Chart, very informative. And seeing the colors dry, they are more beautiful than it seemed on the video will still wet. I specially like the Space Grey, Templar White and Black Lotus.
I'll have to go check out those two videos. Not excited by longer drying times, (and definitely not excited by the smaller bottles) but at this stage I don't use Model Colour all that much anyway.
Regardless, I'm going to have to stock up on the ones I like/need/use a lot.
Azazelx wrote: I'll have to go check out those two videos. Not excited by longer drying times, (and definitely not excited by the smaller bottles) but at this stage I don't use Model Colour all that much anyway.
Regardless, I'm going to have to stock up on the ones I like/need/use a lot.
Longer drying times means smoother results, so it's a good thing in the end, as for the bottles, they are the same size as the old ones 18ml
The lack of a bone is disappointing, and the black will probably want to go over a light grey primer if you're looking for black rather than dark grey.
If the range expands, I'd also like to see a red in between the slightly orange Plasma Red and the darker Velvet, and a mid grey in between Space Grey and Black Lotus. A darker blue would also be nice to replace my Contrast Leviadon Blue, which has next to no actual contrast.
Overall, though, the colour range for an initial range drop looks pretty good, and the finish looks great.
JHMiniatures wrote: It was decided to lean on to the weak side of things to allow painters to do another layer of they wanted a more intense look.
It's not a decision I would have liked but I had no saying in that. You can blame Angel Giraldez
I think I would have preferred more intensity in one coat, though perhaps these will be more conducive to underpainting than Contrasts/Speedpaints? And maybe they'll do better over metallics also?
So perhaps it's nice to have something that's not identical to Contrasts and Speedpaints in that regard, though I will admit I was mostly just hoping for them to be like Contrasts with slower drying times
Velvet red looks like the colour I've been waiting all of my life for, I'll be picking that up alongside two purples and two greens.
Strange that there aren't more browns in the initial release, the ones shown are both very "reddy".
Depending on how I feel about them I'll probably pick up the rest of the range at some point, unless there's some kind of issue that pops up, although I have no idea what that might be.
Undead_Love-Machine wrote: Velvet red looks like the colour I've been waiting all of my life for, I'll be picking that up alongside two purples and two greens.
Strange that there aren't more browns in the initial release, the ones shown are both very "reddy".
Depending on how I feel about them I'll probably pick up the rest of the range at some point, unless there's some kind of issue that pops up, although I have no idea what that might be.
Yeah, I noticed there's not much in the way of leathery browns, and the only skin is on the red side.
JHMiniatures wrote: Vallejo has listened to your feedback and we are already working on 20 more colours
This time I WILL take part in the selection and I will make sure we fill all the gaps
Another 20, that is wide. So please include, a second Caucasoid flesh tone, a Mongoloid flesh tone and two Negroid flesh tones please. Black flesh tones and oriental flesh tones are very much overlooked, the only company going all in with a set is Army Painter, and while that set is great it is not a contrast set.
You also need at least two more natural wood/leather tones, with the above flesh tones also filling the gaps.
The set above has lots of heraldic colours, but very few natural colours.
Please ask the boffins at Vallejo if it is possible to metalise contrast paints. again Army Painter do a set where there is a glitter pigment you can add to other paints to make them fabulous. Maybe you could add something or paint Xpress Color over a metal. Failing that please consider making Xpress versions of colours for NMM. Steely grey etc.
Let's the speculation begin:
1) Bone/papirus, an obvious missing
2) Sand
3-4) Two extra Greys, maybe one more light (stone) and other more darker (basalt)
5-7) Three extra Browns. One chocolate, one caramel and one peanut (more pastel light desaturated)
8) Burgundy/Wine to make the royal capes easy
9) Ice. a lighter blue to simulate the ice color
10-11) Another purple and another violet to give more options
12) Teal turquoise
13-14) Two extra blues, one of them Indigo (darker) and cerulean (more desaturated one)
15-17) Three extra greens, one the neutral warm green (similar to Troll green but warmer), another darker green and another lighter (but not yellowish)
18) A redish-skin tone
19) An oriental skin-tone
20) African skin-tone
JHMiniatures wrote: Vallejo has listened to your feedback and we are already working on 20 more colours
This time I WILL take part in the selection and I will make sure we fill all the gaps
Another 20, that is wide. So please include, a second Caucasoid flesh tone, a Mongoloid flesh tone and two Negroid flesh tones please. Black flesh tones and oriental flesh tones are very much overlooked, the only company going all in with a set is Army Painter, and while that set is great it is not a contrast set.
Hmm... Triads for flesh have always been pretty easy to find.
Some great sets for non caucasian skin here.
Azazelx wrote: I'll have to go check out those two videos. Not excited by longer drying times, (and definitely not excited by the smaller bottles) but at this stage I don't use Model Colour all that much anyway.
Regardless, I'm going to have to stock up on the ones I like/need/use a lot.
Longer drying times means smoother results, so it's a good thing in the end, as for the bottles, they are the same size as the old ones 18ml
Wait.. longer drying times for the new Model Colour? or Xpress Colour (when compared to contrasts?) or both?
Another 20, that is wide. So please include, a second Caucasoid flesh tone, a Mongoloid flesh tone and two Negroid flesh tones please. Black flesh tones and oriental flesh tones are very much overlooked, the only company going all in with a set is Army Painter, and while that set is great it is not a contrast set.
You also need at least two more natural wood/leather tones, with the above flesh tones also filling the gaps.
I think asking for 1/5 of the new range to be explicitly named as skintones is probably unlikely. I agree that a couple of other names flesh tones is a good idea, but I think it stands that you don't need a paint to be named "skintone" for it to be useful for that purpose. And that's without mixing paints or contrasts (or Xpress paints!)
A few of those paints have "skin" or "flesh" in their names, but just as many don't. (Plus my skin-tone-ish Citadels and Coat'D'Arms' and P3s are in another container, and yet others in their range cases). My go-to for Caucasian flesh highlights is VMA Sand, along with several others that live on the paint desk.
Azazelx wrote: Wait.. longer drying times for the new Model Colour? or Xpress Colour (when compared to contrasts?) or both?
Model Color paints are not being changed or receiving new paints at this time (as far as we know). The reformulated Game Color paints have a longer drying time than the previous line. As for the Xpress Color, I do believe Juan said in his review that they have a longer working time than the Contrast paints.
Personally, I would like to see an Xpress Color version of Ratling Grime to dirty up some of the mechanical bits in the Battlemechs that I'm painting and would prefer a matte finish.
EDIT: Juan has posted a review (no video) of the new Game Color paints on his YouTube channel
Juan Hidalgo wrote:just got a full set of the New Vallejo Game Color range and I knew I had to paint something special with them. This bust by Maxime Penaud was perfect.
I believe we are in front of one of the best paints ranges in the market. They have MASSIVELY improved the range.
The main improvements are:
- Ultra Matte finish
- Exceptional coverage
- Incredible stability, can be thinned down to insanely thin glazes without breaking
- Longer working time, so you can blend them and feather them like a dream
- Incredible saturation and vibrancy
They also have, a new full set of inks including a WHITE and also an Ultra Matte varnish, not that the paints need it but it's always something great to have.
All in all, I believe that these are the best paints ever made by Vallejo.
Azazelx wrote: Wait.. longer drying times for the new Model Colour? or Xpress Colour (when compared to contrasts?) or both?
Model Color paints are not being changed or receiving new paints at this time (as far as we know). The reformulated Game Color paints have a longer drying time than the previous line. As for the Xpress Color, I do believe Juan said in his review that they have a longer working time than the Contrast paints.
Typo - I meant Game Colour rather than Model Colour, so thanks for the info on both those and the Xpress. I haven't had a chance to watch that video yet. I guess the new Game Colour may have to be used as a specific tool rather than a workhorse paint for me going forward. It'll depend on how long it takes to dry in practise. I've certainly started stockpiling my go-to existing colours as I don't want to have to change my painting methods when doing certain things.
I don't mind if the drying time for the new Game Colour range is a bit longer, as long as they have the same coverage for us crazy people who live by one thick coat instead of 33,462,345 thin coats of glazing, and as long as the finish doesn't change for those of us who like a natural unvarnished paint finish.
I don't think I've ever used a standard hobby acrylic and thought "gee, I wish this would dry faster" So I'm not too worried about that. But if the coverage is still good and the finish is the same as my existing models painted with Game Colour, eek.
mrFickle wrote: Anyone put off by the 17ml bottles? I think you’ll get through these pretty quick. GSW went with 70ml I think
Isn't 17ml pretty much the standard for non GW?
So you buy more of them. To me its better to do that, and have all your paint pots able to use existing racking systems, rather than another bottle size to deal with.
mrFickle wrote: Anyone put off by the 17ml bottles? I think you’ll get through these pretty quick. GSW went with 70ml I think
If it keeps the price per pot down, I don’t mind. Might have to buy multiples of the main 1 or 2 colours a large army, but it’s nice to be able to get a wider range of colours without breaking the bank, and if you only play skirmish games with no more than a few dozen models you likely won’t run out anyway.
Contrast pots are 18ml, they only look bigger than dropper bottles because they're wider and use the taller flip-tops. So no, nobody will be put off by the 17ml bottles for nearly half the price
I saw in the thread that US availability for Xpress is expected around December - I might have missed, but when is the new formula Game Color expected?
KipCujo wrote: I saw in the thread that US availability for Xpress is expected around December - I might have missed, but when is the new formula Game Color expected?
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Is there a summary of changes for the new Game Color vs old Game Color?
So far, the only review I've seen is the video from Angel Giraldez. In it he mentions that an advantage of the new color is that they take longer to dry so you can more easily blend colors. He's also painting over a black undercoat and ut looks like the flesh colors he's using have decent coverage.
Vallejo has kept the same product codes from the old line to the new for the same paints (e.g., the current Magic Blue has the product code 72.021 as does the reformulated Magic Blue). Those paints should match up from what Vallejo was saying on their Facebook page but as usual we will need to have the paints in hand to see if that is the case.
I'm expecting them to behave differently - at least a little. New forulation is new, and a change in drying time is at least one behavioural change so it's certainly possible that there will be others (and I spend enough time waiting for paint to dry as it is - I'm on Dakka typing in this thread right now because I'm waiting for same.
As such, I've been stockpiling the VMC paints that I use for specific purposes in specific ways (especially those I use to drybrush).
Azazelx wrote: I'm expecting them to behave differently - at least a little. New forulation is new, and a change in drying time is at least one behavioural change so it's certainly possible that there will be others (and I spend enough time waiting for paint to dry as it is - I'm on Dakka typing in this thread right now because I'm waiting for same.
As such, I've been stockpiling the VMC paints that I use for specific purposes in specific ways (especially those I use to drybrush).
How thick of a layer are you applying that you have to wait for paint to dry? Aside from washes/contrasts/inks I don't think I ever have to wait for paint to dry.
For drybrushing, I'm actually wondering if the new paints will be better. You don't actually want a completely dry brush when doing drybrushing, there's a very narrow window of moisture where drybrushing works well, too dry and it'll start turning powdery, so a slower drying time may mean that you can stay in that window for longer. On the flip side, if the paint is too thin and not pigment dense enough, the slow drying time may just make it harder to find the window in the first place.
I don't actually use a whole heap of Game Colour paints (got bucketloads of Model Colour, not too many Game Colours), so I might just stock up on a few that I use a lot and then if it turns out the new formulation is better I'll have wasted my money
@JHMiniatures
1) Could you please tell how Xpress look using other primers than white (including ones like AP color primers)?
2) Do I need to prime again when using Xpress when by mistake I apply some other color on the mini's part intended for another Xpress color? For example, let's say my SM is intended to be all yellow with blue shoulder pads, and during painting my brush with yellow goes a little over yet untouched shoulder pad. Should I reprime that part of the shoulder pad or can I paint over the yellow Xpress with blue Xpress once the yellow is fully dried?
How thick of a layer are you applying that you have to wait for paint to dry? Aside from washes/contrasts/inks I don't think I ever have to wait for paint to dry.
Not thick at all. Depending on the paint, sometimes straight, but usually thinned with medium or water. It doesn't dry in three seconds or anything, so I have to wait unelss I'm blending.
For drybrushing, I'm actually wondering if the new paints will be better. You don't actually want a completely dry brush when doing drybrushing, there's a very narrow window of moisture where drybrushing works well, too dry and it'll start turning powdery, so a slower drying time may mean that you can stay in that window for longer. On the flip side, if the paint is too thin and not pigment dense enough, the slow drying time may just make it harder to find the window in the first place.
I don't actually use a whole heap of Game Colour paints (got bucketloads of Model Colour, not too many Game Colours), so I might just stock up on a few that I use a lot and then if it turns out the new formulation is better I'll have wasted my money
I've been painting a long time, so I already know how to drybrush for different effects but thanks for the guide. Point being that new paints will be new, so your dice-rolling call on hoping they work the same or better. I bought a stockpile of those colours I want to stay identical in case they're not. Because sometimes new versions of "the same" paints aren't exactly the same at all -see Original Army Painter Warpaints > Current Army Painter Warpaints, Every iteration of Citadel's Paints and Washes, right up to the "new" Shades. See below...
You might prefer one or the other, or even both for different uses (as I do), but they're certainly not identical - either in effect and several have slight colour differences or consistency changes that may or may not matter to you when painting an army..
Spoiler:
I'm expecting the new VGC to be good paints, but not identical to the current ones - hence I'm grabbing the ones that I want to keep exactly the same (within batch variations), and the new versions will add to my options.
Well, this is the first set of 'fast' paints that I might actually try out. GW's were too expensive/inconsistent, Scale75's had terrible coverage/opacity, and AP's the notorious reactivation problems. Going to wait for more reviews though, at least a couple months after general release to let any of the skeletons shake free from the closet.
The national inquirer of warhammer, Spikeybitz, decided today to put out a hitpiece on both JH and vallejo, saying they conspired to tank speedpaint.
https://spikeybits.com/2022/11/vallejo-army-painter-speedpaint-xpress-paints.html I don't believe it at all, but I wanted to put this here so people know they did.
It quite frankly stupid.
Basically Rob is saying that the reactivation issue with AP Speedpaints is not a fault, as they were intended as a "one coat solution", and if you want to paint over them then just use varnish between coats(!).
He is accusing Juan (in a roundabout way) of deliberately attacking the Speedpaint line because of his ties to the upcoming Vallejo Xpress paint line. Juan posted something on social media a while back saying that he is struggling financially, Rob uses a screenshot of this to suggest "motive" for Juan's actions(!)
Rob realy does come across as a complete dill weed here.
It's not the first time that Rob has done this (attack Juan), ironically I'm getting the strong impression that Army Painter has some kind of deal with Spiky Bitz, as you would have to be either an imbecile or a paid shill to see APs reactivation issue as anything other than a major flaw.
Edit: Holdup, I didn't type "dill weed". Dakka, please don't put Americanisms in my mouth
Edit #2: Having read the rest of the Spikey Bitz article I've decided to never listen to their podcast or go to their site again. I've got no problem with Kenny or Wyatt, but Rob is just completely unlikeable
Ghaz wrote: Spikeybitz and their issues with Juan have been covered back on page 3 and it dosn't look like they've changed. No need to rehash it again.
That's right buddy, it was me who first bought it up.
Maybe there is a need to bring it up again, considering that Spikeybitz have just doubled down on their accusations. It's clear that it's a personal attack at this point.
The article was published today, so it seems relevant? This isn't about the previous podcast episode. Doubling down on the wrong objective.
*reads article*
I'm confused; does SpikeyBits think Juan is a paint chemist? Because nobody is just whipping up a range of commercial paints (let alone one that an international brand like Vallejo would market) in their basement alone. This whole thing reads like tilting at windmills. Kind of hilarious actually, and a bit sad too. :(
I'm baffled by the claim that customers were using SpeedPaints the 'wrong way' when no one was informed ahead of time that they would only be usable as single layer application. It's not unreasonable to expect a product to be behave like acrylic when all the other products in its category do.
Fire_Forever wrote: The article was published today, so it seems relevant? This isn't about the previous podcast episode. Doubling down on the wrong objective.
*reads article*
I'm confused; does SpikeyBits think Juan is a paint chemist? Because nobody is just whipping up a range of commercial paints (let alone one that an international brand like Vallejo would market) in their basement alone. This whole thing reads like tilting at windmills. Kind of hilarious actually, and a bit sad too. :(
I'm baffled by the claim that customers were using SpeedPaints the 'wrong way' when no one was informed ahead of time that they would only be usable as single layer application. It's not unreasonable to expect a product to be behave like acrylic when all the other products in its category do.
It's almost like Rob is being paid to promote/defend AP
Ghaz wrote: Spikeybitz and their issues with Juan have been covered back on page 3 and it dosn't look like they've changed. No need to rehash it again.
That's right buddy, it was me who first bought it up.
Maybe there is a need to bring it up again, considering that Spikeybitz have just doubled down on their accusations. It's clear that it's a personal attack at this point.
My thread, so no we don't need to bring it up in a thread that's about Vallejo's new Xpress and Game Color paints and not who Spikeybitz is feuding with this week.
Ghaz wrote: Spikeybitz and their issues with Juan have been covered back on page 3 and it dosn't look like they've changed. No need to rehash it again.
That's right buddy, it was me who first bought it up.
Maybe there is a need to bring it up again, considering that Spikeybitz have just doubled down on their accusations. It's clear that it's a personal attack at this point.
My thread, so no we don't need to bring it up in a thread that's about Vallejo's new Xpress and Game Color paints and not who Spikeybitz is feuding with this week.
Ghaz wrote: Spikeybitz and their issues with Juan have been covered back on page 3 and it dosn't look like they've changed. No need to rehash it again.
That's right buddy, it was me who first bought it up.
Maybe there is a need to bring it up again, considering that Spikeybitz have just doubled down on their accusations. It's clear that it's a personal attack at this point.
My thread, so no we don't need to bring it up in a thread that's about Vallejo's new Xpress and Game Color paints and not who Spikeybitz is feuding with this week.
I've said my piece, don't have a tantrum
Don't drag my thread off-topic with posts that violate the forum rules.
You created the thread, you don't own the thread. It's a News and Rumour thread about a company (which as far as i'm aware you neither own nor are employed by) and it's products. You created this thread in a public space with the intention of getting said publics opinions. This isn't your personal P&M blog where you might have a modicum of control over what gets posted there. You don't have any say in who posts what in this thread nor do you get to decide what's considered off-topic. If you don't like something someone's posted, then hit the yellow triangle and let the MODs sort it out.
You created the thread, you don't own the thread. It's a News and Rumour thread about a company (which as far as i'm aware you neither own nor are employed by) and it's products. You created this thread in a public space with the intention of getting said publics opinions. This isn't your personal P&M blog where you might have a modicum of control over what gets posted there. You don't have any say in who posts what in this thread nor do you get to decide what's considered off-topic. If you don't like something someone's posted, then hit the yellow triangle and let the MODs sort it out.
Yes, it is. This has been clarified by the mods before that the creator of a thread does have some say in a thread, especially if others are trying ot drag it off-topic (as your post is).
JHMiniatures wrote: Vallejo has listened to your feedback and we are already working on 20 more colours
This time I WILL take part in the selection and I will make sure we fill all the gaps
Another 20, that is wide. So please include, a second Caucasoid flesh tone, a Mongoloid flesh tone and two Negroid flesh tones please. Black flesh tones and oriental flesh tones are very much overlooked, the only company going all in with a set is Army Painter, and while that set is great it is not a contrast set.
Hmm... Triads for flesh have always been pretty easy to find.
Some great sets for non caucasian skin here.
I have the Army Painter Skin Tones boxset, and it covers me for non-contrast usage.
A contrast set for painting non-Caucasoid skintones would be a plus. Multiple skintones also serve double usage for other natural colours, as with a range covering Negroid and Caucasoid skin you also cover parchment, cloth and a lot of wood colours also.
I think asking for 1/5 of the new range to be explicitly named as skintones is probably unlikely. I agree that a couple of other names flesh tones is a good idea, but I think it stands that you don't need a paint to be named "skintone" for it to be useful for that purpose. And that's without mixing paints or contrasts (or Xpress paints!)
Not as ridiculous as you might at first think, five human skintones also covers a lot of other uses.
A few of those paints have "skin" or "flesh" in their names, but just as many don't. (Plus my skin-tone-ish Citadels and Coat'D'Arms' and P3s are in another container, and yet others in their range cases). My go-to for Caucasian flesh highlights is VMA Sand, along with several others that live on the paint desk.
It is a developing trend not to have a single labelled skin tone in your range.
I am a big fan of Daley-Rowney FW Acrylics. Very good inks with heavy pigmentation in decent 30ml dropper bottles at a low price.
Their main customers are schools, and so got negative feedback when the only fleshtone in their range was distinctly Caucasoid and labelled 'Flesh Tint'. While that was overly woke I do in part understand offence taken as the idea that flesh colour = Caucasoid is insensitive. 'Flesh Tint' is now called 'Peach Pink'.
When I got some I thought there was a mistake in the order, and other addition to the range to collect (it is well worth getting them all). Nope, same paint, different name.
I think asking for 1/5 of the new range to be explicitly named as skintones is probably unlikely. I agree that a couple of other names flesh tones is a good idea, but I think it stands that you don't need a paint to be named "skintone" for it to be useful for that purpose. And that's without mixing paints or contrasts (or Xpress paints!)
Not as ridiculous as you might at first think, five human skintones also covers a lot of other uses.
It doesn't really matter what they're named, but currently it looks like only one of the Xpress paints so far is something that could be used as a skin tone, and that one is very red/pink even for caucasian skin, so another 3 or 4 (regardless of whether they're named "skintone" or not) would be pretty reasonable.
Osorios wrote: I recently bought my first contrast paints, imperial fist and baal red; while they are lovely, they are expensive.
My experience with Vallejo game color and model color paints is that they are very good.
I'm looking forward to buying some of these xpress colors.
I am too, but if you want cheap and can't wait there isn't much wrong with Army Painter Speedpaints, despite the moaning you hear. The reactivation can be an advantage dependant on application, and can be cured with varnish, mixing with regular AP pains, or as Juan told us Contrast Medium as a simple fix-all.
Or you could try Warcolours Antithesis range, another solid product line and woefully overlooked.
The only range of 'contrast' I do not recommend is Scale 75 Instant Colors, it works but does an inferior job.
Osorios wrote: I recently bought my first contrast paints, imperial fist and baal red; while they are lovely, they are expensive.
My experience with Vallejo game color and model color paints is that they are very good.
I'm looking forward to buying some of these xpress colors.
I am too, but if you want cheap and can't wait there isn't much wrong with Army Painter Speedpaints, despite the moaning you hear. The reactivation can be an advantage dependant on application, and can be cured with varnish, mixing with regular AP pains, or as Juan told us Contrast Medium as a simple fix-all.
Or you could try Warcolours Antithesis range, another solid product line and woefully overlooked.
The only range of 'contrast' I do not recommend is Scale 75 Instant Colors, it works but does an inferior job.
I've been having good luck with the SpeedPaints, but I am the kind of painter they seem to have been intended for (one color per night and I might have several days between painting) as I don't do fancy blends, glazing, or any of that other fancy stuff.
Maybe I would have cared about being a better painter but after you have a guy show up with the same army he has won 5 separate painting competitions over 2 years blow out your local painting/tourney event, I'm kind of a "screw it" mentality.
Juan is kind of acting as a bit of an ambassador when it comes to the new Vallejo range, so I do think it's important that developments are covered in full in case anyone is coming to Dakka for clarification of anything that has been said elsewhere.
But the suggestion that he's been shilling or that any of this has been a coordinated attack by Vallejo and Juan is absurd and insulting both to him and to our intelligence.
Juan is an enthusiast for contrast-style paints. That's why he covered the Speedpaints and their reactivation issue (even coming up with ways to "fix" it in one video), and that's why Vallejo sought his expertise for their range. The two things are related only as far as Juan is effectively an expert in this field.
He even said earlier in this thread, I believe, that designing paints like this is going to be a compromise one way or another, with "improvements" in one range over another being only incremental at best. Kind of his point all along is that the Army Painter range isn't actually bad because it reactivates. It just does. The Xpress colours and GW contrasts do not. And that's that.
In the end, Juan is an incredibly skilled painter who wants to pass his expertise along to the rest of us. And Spikeybits is.... well.. Just one look at the site would suggest that maybe, possibly, perhaps, they rely on adverts for the revenue.
As for Vallejo, correct me if I'm wrong, but they produce a pretty extensive range of artists products, their miniature paints range being a slice of that (although I imagine still pretty sizeable). As a company I seriously doubt they felt their place in the market was being radically threatened or usurped by Army Painter (and I'm not trying to diss them, but they're a much smaller, more specialised company, we're talking about niches within niches here) such that they needed to pay someone to mount an assassination based on information that was *checks notes* true in the first.. place... uh.
There will definitely be a box set for the Xpress paints, if not all of them then a smaller amount of the colours they perceive will be most popular.
If the set is released at a discount it might be worth buying rather than the few paints that I had originally intended to get with the intention of getting a feel for them.
Dunno about a boxed set for the new VGC, maybe a splash release?
Am I rembering correctly that the release time is Nov/Dec? Do we have anything more solid?
ekwatts wrote: Juan is kind of acting as a bit of an ambassador when it comes to the new Vallejo range, so I do think it's important that developments are covered in full in case anyone is coming to Dakka for clarification of anything that has been said elsewhere.
But the suggestion that he's been shilling or that any of this has been a coordinated attack by Vallejo and Juan is absurd and insulting both to him and to our intelligence.
Juan is an enthusiast for contrast-style paints. That's why he covered the Speedpaints and their reactivation issue (even coming up with ways to "fix" it in one video), and that's why Vallejo sought his expertise for their range. The two things are related only as far as Juan is effectively an expert in this field.
He even said earlier in this thread, I believe, that designing paints like this is going to be a compromise one way or another, with "improvements" in one range over another being only incremental at best. Kind of his point all along is that the Army Painter range isn't actually bad because it reactivates. It just does. The Xpress colours and GW contrasts do not. And that's that.
In the end, Juan is an incredibly skilled painter who wants to pass his expertise along to the rest of us. And Spikeybits is.... well.. Just one look at the site would suggest that maybe, possibly, perhaps, they rely on adverts for the revenue.
As for Vallejo, correct me if I'm wrong, but they produce a pretty extensive range of artists products, their miniature paints range being a slice of that (although I imagine still pretty sizeable). As a company I seriously doubt they felt their place in the market was being radically threatened or usurped by Army Painter (and I'm not trying to diss them, but they're a much smaller, more specialised company, we're talking about niches within niches here) such that they needed to pay someone to mount an assassination based on information that was *checks notes* true in the first.. place... uh.
I don't know what is going on here. But my You Tube feed yesterday showed a short clip about Juan standing against attempts to cancel him on the platform. The comments section below was supportive but evident that some people were trying to troll him.
Juan, if you are reading this. You are welcome here. Nothing you likely don't already know, but it is best to say it nonetheless.
Juan's had a raft more followers off the back of it and seemed to be taking it in good humour yesterday (not to mention AP themselves tacitly being supportive of him). The instigator seemed to manage to dig even more of a hole for their already turgid reputation and had no visible support so it all seemed to come out well enough in the wash.
In terms of the Xpress, I'm very much looking forward to them. Speedpaints just don't seem to be what I'd want from this corner of the painting range, they all just look a bit 'washed out' by comparison though I absolutely get their appeal when used as (apparently) intended.
Yeah, if it wasn't obvious, I would also like to point out that Juan has my full support (for whatever that's worth!). The guy is an absolute gem in the hobby landscape and has done a far better job of teaching me the properties of the paints I buy and use than the manufacturers themselves ever have.
Yeah, if I had to pick between "Juan, one of the kindest and most generous and most skilled painters in the hobby, secretly being part of a big conspiracy" and "Army Painter, renowned for shoddy products that don't do what they claim, releasing a shoddy product that doesn't do what they claim", I know what my money is on.
Ian Sturrock wrote: Yeah, if I had to pick between "Juan, one of the kindest and most generous and most skilled painters in the hobby, secretly being part of a big conspiracy" and "Army Painter, renowned for shoddy products that don't do what they claim, releasing a shoddy product that doesn't do what they claim", I know what my money is on.
I don't even have to guess who is in the right since I went all in on the Speed Paint mega set and know first hand the issues are real.
At this point I don't even get how AP stays afloat when it's barely cents cheaper than S tier paints like AK.
Juan's Eavy Contrast videos have massively helped me regarding my own use of contrast paints, I'm sure that his forthcoming videos using Xpress paints will be equally as helpful. I really can't wait to try them, I'm sure that the slower drying time will really be a big plus, as that is Contrast's biggest weakness IMHO.
I'm pleased for him that the community has come out and been mostly supportive of him after the assassination attempt from Those Who Shall Not Be Named, hopefully the exposure will mean that more people start viewing his videos
Ian Sturrock wrote: Yeah, if I had to pick between "Juan, one of the kindest and most generous and most skilled painters in the hobby, secretly being part of a big conspiracy" and "Army Painter, renowned for shoddy products that don't do what they claim, releasing a shoddy product that doesn't do what they claim", I know what my money is on.
Has Army Painter being doing that though. I am finding it hard to believe that company is toxic, though the internet is a big place and I could easily miss the words.
Surely this is due to fanbois trolling people who upset them, it fits the bill for the low IQ squad. Nothing (I have found) that Juan has done or said was to humiliate Army Painter, but some will take any commentary they find unpositive to be a threat of some kind.
You created the thread, you don't own the thread. It's a News and Rumour thread about a company (which as far as i'm aware you neither own nor are employed by) and it's products. You created this thread in a public space with the intention of getting said publics opinions. This isn't your personal P&M blog where you might have a modicum of control over what gets posted there. You don't have any say in who posts what in this thread nor do you get to decide what's considered off-topic. If you don't like something someone's posted, then hit the yellow triangle and let the MODs sort it out.
Yes, it is. This has been clarified by the mods before that the creator of a thread does have some say in a thread, especially if others are trying ot drag it off-topic (as your post is).
And you're not a mod. Let the mods do their job and use their own interpretation of the rules. This is a thread in News and Rumours, not your personal blog, as Snrub said.
I mean, if we had a duplicate thread about Xpress Colour then the mods would lock it down duie to duplication, so don't try that kind of flex on a board that you don't own or moderate.
My own take on it is that Rob and SpikyBitz is a gakky clickbaity website that leeches off GW consumers while gaking on the company that their existence is dependant on, so it's no surprise that they'd do something gakky and clickbaity like this.
I think asking for 1/5 of the new range to be explicitly named as skintones is probably unlikely. I agree that a couple of other names flesh tones is a good idea, but I think it stands that you don't need a paint to be named "skintone" for it to be useful for that purpose. And that's without mixing paints or contrasts (or Xpress paints!)
Not as ridiculous as you might at first think, five human skintones also covers a lot of other uses.
A few of those paints have "skin" or "flesh" in their names, but just as many don't. (Plus my skin-tone-ish Citadels and Coat'D'Arms' and P3s are in another container, and yet others in their range cases). My go-to for Caucasian flesh highlights is VMA Sand, along with several others that live on the paint desk.
It is a developing trend not to have a single labelled skin tone in your range.
Developing where? I appear not to have noticed it, unless maybe Duncan's Paints and those TT Combat ones lack labelled skin tones?
I think one of the issues is that caucasuan skin is an odd colour. Not quite sand, not quite salmon, and often not that useful for many other things. Once you get more brown or tanned, skin tones are more generically useful across a wide variety of things. I do think it's useful to have some though, especially for newer painters who will more naturally gravitate to paints with "flesh" in the name - and as I said a default of "paint African people's skin with Scorched Brown, highlighted with Bestial Brown" ain't a good look.
Unless you mean to not have only one? On that I agree it's just good business and went into that already (in this thread I think?) I'm not sure what "Mongoloid" flesh looks like. I work with many people from all parts of Asia (Japan, China, Vietnam, Burma, Phillipines) - not to mention Islanders from NZ, Samoa, etc) and their overall skin tones really aren't much different to others that can be found around the world. I've certainly never seen a "yellowish" skin as old racist media would have it.
I am a big fan of Daley-Rowney FW Acrylics. Very good inks with heavy pigmentation in decent 30ml dropper bottles at a low price.
Their main customers are schools, and so got negative feedback when the only fleshtone in their range was distinctly Caucasoid and labelled 'Flesh Tint'. While that was overly woke I do in part understand offence taken as the idea that flesh colour = Caucasoid is insensitive. 'Flesh Tint' is now called 'Peach Pink'.
When I got some I thought there was a mistake in the order, and other addition to the range to collect (it is well worth getting them all). Nope, same paint, different name.
Ahh... interesting take on it. I also have a nice little collection of DW inks. In an extensive range I'd have thought it more useful to have a good number of them named, even if they were more generically named - different markets, though - as Art students can probably figure these things out a bit better than the average newbie to model painting, that can skew a lot younger. I'm not a fan of "woke" in it's current form, but I think avoiding only having caucasian skin as the only skin tone in a range would be a smart thing to do. And I'm sure the current crop of young art students skew a little more woke than most of us here.
I think asking for 1/5 of the new range to be explicitly named as skintones is probably unlikely. I agree that a couple of other names flesh tones is a good idea, but I think it stands that you don't need a paint to be named "skintone" for it to be useful for that purpose. And that's without mixing paints or contrasts (or Xpress paints!)
Not as ridiculous as you might at first think, five human skintones also covers a lot of other uses.
It doesn't really matter what they're named, but currently it looks like only one of the Xpress paints so far is something that could be used as a skin tone, and that one is very red/pink even for caucasian skin, so another 3 or 4 (regardless of whether they're named "skintone" or not) would be pretty reasonable.
I'd certainly go for more that can be used over the current one, and probably another two named ones. Ending up with Light/Mid/Dark (fit the current one in there where it best fits). Maybe "Ruddy" as well.
Ian Sturrock wrote: Yeah, if I had to pick between "Juan, one of the kindest and most generous and most skilled painters in the hobby, secretly being part of a big conspiracy" and "Army Painter, renowned for shoddy products that don't do what they claim, releasing a shoddy product that doesn't do what they claim", I know what my money is on.
To be clear, this latest round of nonsense wasn't 'Juan vs Army Painter'... it was Spikeybits trying to manufacture drama. Army Painter weighed in to support Juan, and that would seem to be the end of it.
So that would seem like a good point to move the discussion away from internet drama and back to the new Xpress Color and Game Color releases.
Nobody should be clicking on Spikeybits articles, EVER! they're clickbait at the best of times, and this is the worst kind
I hope Xpress come out soon, I'm tired of hearing how they'll revolutionize the industry again just like the last 7 brands have "revolutionized" the industry, but then I'm always looking to add more paints to my bag o tricks
I've just noticed that Darksphere has the xpress colours available to pre-order for release on the 30th. There doesn't appear to be a box set, which is surprising.
I've been having a small break with my family to decompress and relax a bit. Let me address the SB issue here:
This is NOT me Vs AP, in fact I've been talking to Adam from AP regularly since the article came out and trust me they have nothing to do with this and are as shocked as everyone else about this.
Also regarding AP centric creators, Goobertown approached me privately to show his support and offer a friendly invitation to talk if I needed to. He is a fantastic guy and I'm sure Dana, John and the rest are too. It's very important to make one thing VERY clear, this is A FABRICATED CONTROVERSY.
Regarding my review, I stand by it and I think (and AP did too) that it was both fair and positive, in fact I said they are BETTER than contrast for a single coat application. What most people miss now because thanks to that review AP updated the literature of that product, is that I pointed out what I considered and still consider a flaw in a product (you can call it property and that's fair) that WASN'T DISCLOSED by the manufacturer at the time. Reactivation is only a problem if you don't know about it.
As for SB and my response, I stand by all I said, wrote on a piece of paper stuck to a plinth and printed on a shirt. I will always stand up to bullies, I will always fight back with all the strength and speed I can. It's important to understand I didn't start this, I don't want this but if I'm forced to defend myself I will end it.
These people know suing them is just not worth it, that's why they get away with all that crap, they are used to people not standing up to them, but I did and the community stood with me, he found out what happens when you feth around. He is accusing me of rallying my audience against him (which I literally never did, people are just TIRED), funny when he did that first to me, also funny that he literally has more social media presence and following than me and still no one stands by his side.
Finally, thanks to all of you that stood by my side you have no idea how much that means to me and you have no idea how much I love you all. I've moved on, deleted all my spiteful (although fair) answers and just want to keep painting and making content that's valuable and positive for the hobby.
Just for clarity, I wasn't suggesting that AP had a beef with Juan.
Just that this is absolutely not the first dodgy product line from AP. I must have bought at least 20 cans of AP primer or varnish over the years and have had a problem with every last can at some point or another, despite trying every possible internet trick to make them work properly.
Looking forward to your next video Juan, keep up the good work
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ian Sturrock wrote: Just for clarity, I wasn't suggesting that AP had a beef with Juan.
Just that this is absolutely not the first dodgy product line from AP. I must have bought at least 20 cans of AP primer or varnish over the years and have had a problem with every last can at some point or another, despite trying every possible internet trick to make them work properly.
20 cans? I have to ask, why did you keep buying them?
I think one of the issues is that caucasuan skin is an odd colour. Not quite sand, not quite salmon, and often not that useful for many other things. Once you get more brown or tanned, skin tones are more generically useful across a wide variety of things. I do think it's useful to have some though, especially for newer painters who will more naturally gravitate to paints with "flesh" in the name - and as I said a default of "paint African people's skin with Scorched Brown, highlighted with Bestial Brown" ain't a good look.
While long pre-woke I do believe this was the reason we saw Elf Flesh and Dwarf Flesh in the old Citadel range.
Unless you mean to not have only one? On that I agree it's just good business and went into that already (in this thread I think?) I'm not sure what "Mongoloid" flesh looks like. I work with many people from all parts of Asia (Japan, China, Vietnam, Burma, Phillipines) - not to mention Islanders from NZ, Samoa, etc) and their overall skin tones really aren't much different to others that can be found around the world. I've certainly never seen a "yellowish" skin as old racist media would have it.
That is it. It is bad business both ways. It is bad business to only have one human skin colour in your hobby range, it is a poor colour composition to do that. Sacrifice a secondary blue or a secondary red to get in an extra earth tone is a good idea, the 'boring' colours are the most useful.
However it is VERY bad business now to imply that human flesh is one colour, even if below skin this is true, and even if this oversight was accidental. Either have several paints labelled as human skin or none at all.
This is what Daley-Rowney found out.
I am a big fan of Daley-Rowney FW Acrylics. Very good inks with heavy pigmentation in decent 30ml dropper bottles at a low price.
Their main customers are schools, and so got negative feedback when the only fleshtone in their range was distinctly Caucasoid and labelled 'Flesh Tint'. While that was overly woke I do in part understand offence taken as the idea that flesh colour = Caucasoid is insensitive. 'Flesh Tint' is now called 'Peach Pink'.
When I got some I thought there was a mistake in the order, and other addition to the range to collect (it is well worth getting them all). Nope, same paint, different name.
Ahh... interesting take on it. I also have a nice little collection of DW inks. In an extensive range I'd have thought it more useful to have a good number of them named, even if they were more generically named - different markets, though - as Art students can probably figure these things out a bit better than the average newbie to model painting, that can skew a lot younger. I'm not a fan of "woke" in it's current form, but I think avoiding only having caucasian skin as the only skin tone in a range would be a smart thing to do. And I'm sure the current crop of young art students skew a little more woke than most of us here.
Daler-Rowney did not confide this to me, but the FW Acrylics is a well established product line, times are indeed changing and schools are trending towards woke in the UK. I asked my supplier why he didn't advertise for the wargaming market, as the product he sells is superior and at a better price. I only knew about them from a review here:
I bought them on the strength of that review and was instantly converted. Next to no one knows about them. My supplier kindly replied that while he does sell to hobbyists, he is constantly cycling stock in vast numbers to schools. I asked about the extra product line, and was informed that Peach Pink was a recent renaming due to pressure from clients, the only one Daler-Rowney has done. I did not need to ask why.
Not as ridiculous as you might at first think, five human skintones also covers a lot of other uses.
It doesn't really matter what they're named, but currently it looks like only one of the Xpress paints so far is something that could be used as a skin tone, and that one is very red/pink even for caucasian skin, so another 3 or 4 (regardless of whether they're named "skintone" or not) would be pretty reasonable.
Agreed, so long as they are there. One solution could be small print on the bottle for those colours with specific purposes, as there likely will be several. So a bottle of 'Dark Earthtone' could have in small print 'tanned leather, dark flesh, peat soil' as suggested uses. While 'Red Earthtone' could have in small print below 'ruddy flesh, rawhide' etc. I think this would help with the entire range, with heraldic colours mentioned, traditional colours like madder mentioned, whether a white ir tined or not etc.
In any case I would be very disappointed with less than ten earthtones out of the entire range of 43, with many of those doubling as a flesh colour.
I'd certainly go for more that can be used over the current one, and probably another two named ones. Ending up with Light/Mid/Dark (fit the current one in there where it best fits). Maybe "Ruddy" as well.
and as I said a default of "paint African people's skin with Scorched Brown, highlighted with Bestial Brown" ain't a good look.
Back to this. At Salute 2020, which occured only last year in London (Covid), a hobby group was showcasing Speedpaint on Army Painter's behalf. They were not employees just hobbyists like you and me. But they got hands on with the new range six months before release and we could sit and paint and try them out. I was too late for that, I had other things to do first and didnt get around to paint, but I did get to talk to them about painting and saw samples or minis left behind, and saw the range.
I asked at the time about non-Causcasoid skin tones and whether Army Painter covered them. I was told about the Flesh Tone set which had colour triads for three different skin groups and respective inks for all three. I took that on board and later managed to source them, they are very good.
But I also got a hot tip, so counter intuitive I would never have guessed it. When painting a very dark skin African, like a Zulu or West African, undercoat in green and paint straight over the green with a suitable dark brown paint, Dryad Bark is recommended for this. The combo makes it more real. I was shown pictures of some Zulus painted this way.
JHMiniatures wrote: It's very important to make one thing VERY clear, this is A FABRICATED CONTROVERSY.
This is very true. Out of all the various parties that have been dragged into this story by SpikeyBits, the only bad actor throughout has been Spikeybits themselves. None of the other parties "involved", whether it be Juan, Vallejo or AP, bear any ill will toward each other, and have come out in support of each other.
And that's that.
Now, back to the truly important business at hand, we need to know when Juan intends to redo his entire series of Space Marine chapter paintjob videos using Xpress Colours. Starting with Thousand Sons. An entire squad, perhaps?
On point of the paints, is this really an issue, or is it just one mans opinion? I've never had any of these paints do that for me, so I am genuinely asking.
As to the "wash-paints" themselves, I use art inks, just in case anyone wants real good colors to work with with no issues. THIS has never been an issue.
On point of the paints, is this really an issue, or is it just one mans opinion? I've never had any of these paints do that for me, so I am genuinely asking.
As to the "wash-paints" themselves, I use art inks, just in case anyone wants real good colors to work with with no issues. THIS has never been an issue.
Insaniak, mentioning Speedpaint and Contrast here is fair, so long as it is in cross reference to this new product, in quality, availability, or value for money.
Naturally we do not have too much to say at the moment, but if this thread lives long enough people will be wanting to post comparisons and personal experiences. I hope you see fit to review your dictat at that time.
I am too, but if you want cheap and can't wait there isn't much wrong with Army Painter Speedpaints, despite the moaning you hear. The reactivation can be an advantage dependant on application, and can be cured with varnish, mixing with regular AP pains, or as Juan told us Contrast Medium as a simple fix-all.
Or you could try Warcolours Antithesis range, another solid product line and woefully overlooked.
The only range of 'contrast' I do not recommend is Scale 75 Instant Colors, it works but does an inferior job.
I bought all of the Antithesis range. They're ...usable, but not my favourites to use. I'm happy to pay a little more for Contrast, and have picked up the GSW Dipping Inks. I'll buy the Vallejo when they come out, and if the new/reformulated Army Painted ones actually don't reactivate, I might even pick them up as well. Maybe.
I've been having good luck with the SpeedPaints, but I am the kind of painter they seem to have been intended for (one color per night and I might have several days between painting) as I don't do fancy blends, glazing, or any of that other fancy stuff.
Maybe I would have cared about being a better painter but after you have a guy show up with the same army he has won 5 separate painting competitions over 2 years blow out your local painting/tourney event, I'm kind of a "screw it" mentality.
Honestly, people paint for different reasons. I paint for pleasure and to have well painted models. I don't do tournaments. Other people are happy with the basics on their models so they can play and have it look good, and others just want to have a legal army for tournaments and such. Any of those reasons are fine, as painting is a related but distinct part of the hobby to playing games. Much like PC building and playing PC games.
Army Painter was always originally presented as "get stuff painted quick and easy" products, and they worked really well as that (and more!) until they changed their paint formulation years ago and have been kinda staggering around like unfocused drunks since then.
In the end, Juan is an incredibly skilled painter who wants to pass his expertise along to the rest of us. And Spikeybits is.... well.. Just one look at the site would suggest that maybe, possibly, perhaps, they rely on adverts for the revenue.
Spikybitz is a trash website. By that, I mean they rely a lot of simple, trash articles along with clickbait and ragebait to get attention and clicks (and thus, ad revenue). I trust Juan (and Stahly!) and other people I know who have purchased the Speedpaints much more than Army Painter themselves or any of the incredibly compromised army of YouTubers that they've hired. And I trust Spikybits not at all.
I don't know what is going on here. But my You Tube feed yesterday showed a short clip about Juan standing against attempts to cancel him on the platform. The comments section below was supportive but evident that some people were trying to troll him.
Juan, if you are reading this. You are welcome here. Nothing you likely don't already know, but it is best to say it nonetheless.
Agreed! Juan - feth those guys. Perhaps you can get more followers out of this childish behaviour as Naomi/Sword & Steele did a year or two ago. I'd never heard of her before that, but Steisland Effect and now I'm a subscriber.
Kalamadea wrote: Nobody should be clicking on Spikeybits articles, EVER! they're clickbait at the best of times, and this is the worst kind
I hope Xpress come out soon, I'm tired of hearing how they'll revolutionize the industry again just like the last 7 brands have "revolutionized" the industry, but then I'm always looking to add more paints to my bag o tricks
I don't think they're going to especially "revolutionise" anything. They will add more colours to my palette of this style of paint though. Any behavioural differences (aside from reactivation! ) that they have will just make them better or worse for certain things/effects
While long pre-woke I do believe this was the reason we saw Elf Flesh and Dwarf Flesh in the old Citadel range.
If we're being honest, there was still a problem for anyone who would think about it with only having Elf Flesh, Dwarf Flesh and Bronzed Flesh in the range, though - Rings of Power controversies aside, there's also an implication there that all elves and dorfs were also light-skinned. I guess it was a product of its time, as WD only had models painted in caucasian skin tones aside from the rare other models like the Pygmies(!). The original fleshing out of the Salamanders chapter had them with dark brown skin before that was reconned into coal black in what I thought was a rather baffling move.
That is it. It is bad business both ways. It is bad business to only have one human skin colour in your hobby range, it is a poor colour composition to do that. Sacrifice a secondary blue or a secondary red to get in an extra earth tone is a good idea, the 'boring' colours are the most useful.
However it is VERY bad business now to imply that human flesh is one colour, even if below skin this is true, and even if this oversight was accidental. Either have several paints labelled as human skin or none at all.
This is what Daley-Rowney found out.
I think we're basically in agreement, the only difference really being in that you'd add more that are explicitly named as flesh/skin tones than I would. I think three-four in total for a smallish range would be enough (so 2-3 new ones rather than 5).
Daler-Rowney did not confide this to me, but the FW Acrylics is a well established product line, times are indeed changing and schools are trending towards woke in the UK. I asked my supplier why he didn't advertise for the wargaming market, as the product he sells is superior and at a better price. I only knew about them from a review here:
Back in the day I used to use WInsdor & Newton inks for washes and what we'd now call contrast. I found out about the Daler Rowney via Les Bursley's "make your own washes" tutorial here on Dakka over a decade ago (and they're good, as you know!) https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/261541.page
Thanks for the vid link - I'll check it out later. Vince has some good stuff in his vids.
Agreed, so long as they are there. One solution could be small print on the bottle for those colours with specific purposes, as there likely will be several. So a bottle of 'Dark Earthtone' could have in small print 'tanned leather, dark flesh, peat soil' as suggested uses. While 'Red Earthtone' could have in small print below 'ruddy flesh, rawhide' etc. I think this would help with the entire range, with heraldic colours mentioned, traditional colours like madder mentioned, whether a white ir tined or not etc.
In any case I would be very disappointed with less than ten earthtones out of the entire range of 43, with many of those doubling as a flesh colour.
I don't think it's realistic that Vallejo will dedicate 1/4 of their new line to earth tones. My own solution is that I don't use any brand as a one-stop and also mix colours (including of contrasts). I'm ok with mixing things like skin and hair tones because of the huge variation between individuals so it's not like unifirms that are often much more specifcally uniform - and nobody's going to create a perfect Feldgrau in contrast-style paints anyway!
The idea of listing alternate uses isn't really realistic for the small labels (mostly given over to branding and instructions + "do not drink") but I do think it'd be excellent idea for the flyers found in Vallejo's paint sets and the inevitable Xpress paint set(s).
Back to this. At Salute 2020, which occured only last year in London (Covid), a hobby group was showcasing Speedpaint on Army Painter's behalf. They were not employees just hobbyists like you and me. But they got hands on with the new range six months before release and we could sit and paint and try them out. I was too late for that, I had other things to do first and didnt get around to paint, but I did get to talk to them about painting and saw samples or minis left behind, and saw the range.
I asked at the time about non-Causcasoid skin tones and whether Army Painter covered them. I was told about the Flesh Tone set which had colour triads for three different skin groups and respective inks for all three. I took that on board and later managed to source them, they are very good.
But I also got a hot tip, so counter intuitive I would never have guessed it. When painting a very dark skin African, like a Zulu or West African, undercoat in green and paint straight over the green with a suitable dark brown paint, Dryad Bark is recommended for this. The combo makes it more real. I was shown pictures of some Zulus painted this way.
Very interesting. What lightness and intensity of green are we talking about as recommended to use? You can reference the citadel colour palette for an answer, since it's easly found/referenced by most people. Dryad Bark is a dark brown, though...?
Ghaz wrote: Angel Giraldez showing off the new Game Color Metallics:
Well, THOSE aren't Xpress Colour! That's an off-topic post by your own metric!
But it fits with the overall wider discussion that multiple people here are having - as do the other brands and the self-destructive post by that website. As long as the conversation doesn't entirely devolve into these tangents (like a long discussion on painting metal) then it should be cool - which is the entire point we were making earlier.
Orlanth wrote: Insaniak, mentioning Speedpaint and Contrast here is fair, so long as it is in cross reference to this new product, in quality, availability, or value for money.
Naturally we do not have too much to say at the moment, but if this thread lives long enough people will be wanting to post comparisons and personal experiences. I hope you see fit to review your dictat at that time.
Gotta agree with Orlanth again. They're all relevant as they are all variations on a (relatively new) theme or have a relevance to the discussion - just as Orlanth and I discussing Raler-Downey Ink naming conventions when compared to Vallejo's is. And even Ghaz posting a link to a video that's for a different product (even if it is from the same company!)
Kalamadea wrote: Nobody should be clicking on Spikeybits articles, EVER! they're clickbait at the best of times, and this is the worst kind
I hope Xpress come out soon, I'm tired of hearing how they'll revolutionize the industry again just like the last 7 brands have "revolutionized" the industry, but then I'm always looking to add more paints to my bag o tricks
I don't think they're going to especially "revolutionise" anything. They will add more colours to my palette of this style of paint though. Any behavioural differences (aside from reactivation! ) that they have will just make them better or worse for certain things/effects
I think something revolutionary could be if they have a long enough drying time and a favourable consistency to blend them.
I played around blending the AP paints and it wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be, while Contrast paints dry too fast to try anything like that.
Orlanth wrote: Insaniak, mentioning Speedpaint and Contrast here is fair, so long as it is in cross reference to this new product, in quality, availability, or value for money.
Naturally we do not have too much to say at the moment, but if this thread lives long enough people will be wanting to post comparisons and personal experiences. I hope you see fit to review your dictat at that time.
Gotta agree with Orlanth again. They're all relevant as they are all variations on a (relatively new) theme or have a relevance to the discussion - just as Orlanth and I discussing Raler-Downey Ink naming conventions when compared to Vallejo's is. And even Ghaz posting a link to a video that's for a different product (even if it is from the same company!)
Yes, to be clear - discussion comparing the different ranges is valid. Discussion specifically about a given range, like Speedpaint's reactivation issue, is better done in the relevant thread.
Note thaf the original post does mention ‘new Game Color’ paints. It wasn’t until some time later that we learned that it was a reworking of the entire line. That is why they were not mentioned in the thrred title due to limited space but they were always a part of the discussion in this thread.
I hope the expanded range of Xpress Colours have more skintones / earthtones. They're absolutely my most used colour family.
Did anyone else find that new metallics video extremely distracting with the constant picture-in-a-picture clips? Gave up and skipped to the end to see what the final result would be and it doesn't look bad at all. Wonder how they'll stack up against Metal Colors.
To add to the colour naming convention pile, P3 did a rather cheeky runaround the whole issue by naming their fleshtones with in-game factions like Idrian Flesh and Khardic Flesh.
Game colour review is totally on topic and what I expect to see on this topic what I dont expect to see and has been flagged by mods too is
- Speedpaints and the other ridiculous site.
So yes I come here for the VGC and Xpress since both of these are the new offers from Vallejos.
ITS GREAT you guys use dips and stuff from other brands but open those debates on other treads please. Its difficult to go through a thread about Vallejo when you keep flooding it with whatever alternatives floats your boat post spam!
I bought all of the Antithesis range. They're ...usable, but not my favourites to use. I'm happy to pay a little more for Contrast, and have picked up the GSW Dipping Inks. I'll buy the Vallejo when they come out, and if the new/reformulated Army Painted ones actually don't reactivate, I might even pick them up as well. Maybe. .
I decided not to buy Warcolours as their formatting led to an all or nothing approach, if I buy blue 5, I will get the itch to buy blue 1-4. I dont want that itch. I was going to make an exception for Antithesis, but then Speedpaint was on special offer and I bought the Speedpaint Mage Set twice.
Warcolours is a small Cypriot company and access is lobsided, so I mention them to keep the option alive.
I bought my army Painter and Citadel paints from Alchemist Workshop in the UK, decent level of discount, topped up both from covid stock of e-businesses going under, some at high discount.. I bought Vallejo from Griffin Gaming. I bought the entire Contrast range from Alchemist relatively early, and when the range was expanded, post getting all the Speedpaints, twice, I paid for the upgrade bundle.
Steep entry to complete the range, and frankly by this stage is was completionism. But I was quickly glad I did. Full range of Contrast and Speedpaint grants a high palette of anything other than metals. Oddly enough I rarely use them for intended purpose, but over a single basecoat to replace layering.
I will be buying the new Xpress Color, and likely buy the lot because that is how I roll. Is that necessary, likely not, but it will widen the palette. The problem I might encounter is that I will have to think carefully over existing projects. I am working through my WHFB armies, painfully slowly, and if I start a faction with Speedpaint or Contrast, can I afford to retire either from my repertoire in favour of Xpress Color? I don't think so. We know nothing about mixing yet and the existing colour ranges do not overlap, each companies colours are subtlely different, I expect Xpress Color to have the same issue. At least with Old Citadel, (I still have some), Game Color and Army Painter main paint range there is a lot of overlap, I can start an army with Ultramarines Blue, Mithril Silver, Chaos Black and Goblin green base, 90's style and finish/add to/touch up the same army today with Army Painter and Vallejo Game Color alternatives. I don't think the same will be true of Contrast painted minis. I suspect it will be an all or nothing.
Agreed! Juan - feth those guys. Perhaps you can get more followers out of this childish behaviour as Naomi/Sword & Steele did a year or two ago. I'd never heard of her before that, but Steisland Effect and now I'm a subscriber.
I was completely unaware that Sword & Steele were having trouble, I subscribed long ago, but dont watch them often.
The original fleshing out of the Salamanders chapter had them with dark brown skin before that was reconned into coal black in what I thought was a rather baffling move.
The original Salamanders were blonde hair aryan types, or maybe that was just the officers. Consider the optics of that.
I much prefered the Vulcan was African to Vulcan was alienesque. As the Imperium is mostly Caucasian soup, it makes more sense for those who go it alone and have a distinctly different moral culture to also be ethnically distinct, either African, or Norse etc. It might be just enough to keep the bullgak away.
Back in the day I used to use WInsdor & Newton inks for washes and what we'd now call contrast. I found out about the Daler Rowney via Les Bursley's "make your own washes" tutorial here on Dakka over a decade ago (and they're good, as you know!) https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/261541.page
Thanks for the vid link - I'll check it out later. Vince has some good stuff in his vids.
I discovered by own form of Contrast two decades back, I called it the Dark Pastel technique, it was extremely crude.
The name had meaning, the baseline formula was one part paint, one part black paint and two parts water. I called that the baseline as you had to then add any of the three to the mix from baseline to get the colour with a workable consistency.
I called it Dark Pastel because the paint was diluted down to a pastel watercolour consistency by water dilution then brought back down in tone via the black paint.
Results were very mixed, it worked well on scales and fur, badly on flat surfaces, it worked well with Citadel Blood Red and other select colours, badly with any yellow.
I did the Descent Journey in the Dark dragons in under ten minutes each, to well above tabletop quality. I still have them.
I took my technique to Salute in 2008 and IIRC 2009 and talked about it. I found a new technique, so share. I made it clear that it does work but only on certain conditions, however when it does work it is transformative, and makes a excellent cover with minimal time and layering with only modest skill (I am an average painter, but a good innovator). It was absorbed as a selective technique, excellent in a narrow range of paint and surface combinations. The clincher was the ability to get excellent results quickly, with minimal skill, an eye opener.
I still wonder if this was the pebble that got the Contrast avalanche rolling. Citadel were there.
I did have some inks, from the old 80's Citadel dropper bottles, I still have about half left, I did use them for a boost, but did not record exact composition. Never though to entirely replace the heavy water dilution with them though but relied on the 50% black to do the job.
I don't think it's realistic that Vallejo will dedicate 1/4 of their new line to earth tones.
I do.
Let us start with four human flesh tones, which is the compromise position I am reading in the thread. Light, medium, dark and ruddy.
Then add bone and sand for six.
Bark, leather, and two soils a clay brown and a light grey brown for ten.
I think that leaves ample room if we limit to 40, which we are not.
Six 'heraldic' colour wheel colours.
Four other variations each of blue, red, and green.
A swatch of four camo colours (also mostly green and grey green)
Black, white and three greys.
A second purple, second yellow and a second orange.
That is forty.
We need some cross colours like aquamarine/turquoise which we can pad out with, maybe a third yellow.
Easily doable. However what we see often is a vast range of reds, nice colours to be sure but largely wasteful in the range. Browns are boring, but a wider range of earthtones is in my opinion essential.
But I also got a hot tip, so counter intuitive I would never have guessed it. When painting a very dark skin African, like a Zulu or West African, undercoat in green and paint straight over the green with a suitable dark brown paint, Dryad Bark is recommended for this. The combo makes it more real. I was shown pictures of some Zulus painted this way.
Very interesting. What lightness and intensity of green are we talking about as recommended to use? You can reference the citadel colour palette for an answer, since it's easly found/referenced by most people. Dryad Bark is a dark brown, though...?
I am sorry but I don't remember where I put the notebook I took to Salute. is. I took down notes. I do remember the Dryad Bark was specific, but also specific to Zulus, who are darker than most Africans. IIRC the exact green is actually less important, I do vaguely remember then saying so to me asking the same question as you.
Spoiler:
But last night I stumbled on a clue when looking at info on ancient colour palettes for a post on the Speedpaint thread.
The renaissance old masters used green as an undercoat for human flesh, and this was presumably more often Caucasian too.
A lot of renaissance era art was unfinished and we have undercoated angels on church walls and canvasses in vaults. With green faces.
Incomplete art was a big issue back then, the better the artist the more work they got and the more work they got the more work they started to secure the income stream, and consequently the less they finished.
On aside there are also here are a lot of 'captures' in vaults under medieval Italian cities, captures are half completed sculptures.
Michelangelo had and still has a particularly impressive Pile of Shame. Here is one of his minis left on the sprue.
So don't feel bad.
Back to your question, try an ordinary modest earthy green.
Another review of the new Game Color paints from Adeptus Stammtisch. Starting at about the 10:45 mark he tests the reformulated Dead White over red and it looks like it has good coverage (unfortunately it's not the best shot):
Kalamadea wrote: Nobody should be clicking on Spikeybits articles, EVER! they're clickbait at the best of times, and this is the worst kind
I hope Xpress come out soon, I'm tired of hearing how they'll revolutionize the industry again just like the last 7 brands have "revolutionized" the industry, but then I'm always looking to add more paints to my bag o tricks
I don't think they're going to especially "revolutionise" anything. They will add more colours to my palette of this style of paint though. Any behavioural differences (aside from reactivation! ) that they have will just make them better or worse for certain things/effects
I think something revolutionary could be if they have a long enough drying time and a favourable consistency to blend them.
I played around blending the AP paints and it wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be, while Contrast paints dry too fast to try anything like that.
I do a little bit of (simple) blending (undead flesh tones) using Citadel Contrasts on a regular basis. The keys to doing so havce been using contrast medium and (occasionally) a touch of drying retarder. GSW's Dipping Inks also play nicely using this method, so I'd assume at the very least, Vallejo's Xpress would work using this sort of method. It's obviously not the same as blending traditional paints, Much more dropping some medium into the middle, then doing your blue and blending that into the medioum in the middle, then quickly doing the same with your red on the other side and then essentially mixing them to taste in the central area.
I do a little bit of (simple) blending (undead flesh tones) using Citadel Contrasts on a regular basis. The keys to doing so havce been using contrast medium and (occasionally) a touch of drying retarder. GSW's Dipping Inks also play nicely using this method, so I'd assume at the very least, Vallejo's Xpress would work using this sort of method. It's obviously not the same as blending traditional paints, Much more dropping some medium into the middle, then doing your blue and blending that into the medioum in the middle, then quickly doing the same with your red on the other side and then essentially mixing them to taste in the central area.
That sounds like a lot of faff, goes against the principle of Contrast frankly.
I do abuse contrast as a function by painting over a single, sometimes double basecoat and use the fluidity of Contrast to do secondary layering, but that is still a Contrast method. I don't however want the watercolour effect that a Contrast over undercoat has.
I do not expect Xpress Colour to differ in application.
However due to its quirks Speedpaint does, once the reactivation 'issue' is fixed I will have to label my current Speedpaints against any future Speedpaints, the ones that do a once over and the ones that have a longer work time and support blending. So long as I keep a sufficient stock of the current Speedpaint and renew, and above all relabel or otherwise mark the old bottles. So I have two choices per colour, a speedy once over or a mixer paint of the same hue. I think this could end up a colossal advantage.
I wonder if Vallejo could profit from Army Painters error and do a line of Xpress Colour Worktime, a retardant that you add a drop to on the palette, and load on your brush before dabbing in the paint. I think blending on the palette detracts from what Contrast style paints do, however loading a brush with some Xpress paint that works like current reactivating Speedpaint, then applying a completely different colour (without retarder) so you can blend on the model as you go.
Please remember that Speedpaint reactivation doesn't remove its 'Contrast paint style' credentials, it endangers colourfastness. If you don't desire colourfastness but want to blend while 'Contrasting' it is very versatile. This is why I tag team Contrast and Speedpaint, and will add Xpress to the tag team, but alongside the Contrast as one paint range on grounds of post application dynamics. Trouble here is that there is no palette overlap, so I can have one red that stays and another red that blends but cant switch roles. Mark my words there will soon come a day when hobbyists with new Speedpaint will be looking for old Speedpaint for blending because having two types of the same colour will be so so useful. I hope the label is distinctively different between the two.
Kalamadea wrote: Nobody should be clicking on Spikeybits articles, EVER! they're clickbait at the best of times, and this is the worst kind
I hope Xpress come out soon, I'm tired of hearing how they'll revolutionize the industry again just like the last 7 brands have "revolutionized" the industry, but then I'm always looking to add more paints to my bag o tricks
I don't think they're going to especially "revolutionise" anything. They will add more colours to my palette of this style of paint though. Any behavioural differences (aside from reactivation! ) that they have will just make them better or worse for certain things/effects
I think something revolutionary could be if they have a long enough drying time and a favourable consistency to blend them.
I played around blending the AP paints and it wasn't as easy as I hoped it would be, while Contrast paints dry too fast to try anything like that.
I do a little bit of (simple) blending (undead flesh tones) using Citadel Contrasts on a regular basis. The keys to doing so havce been using contrast medium and (occasionally) a touch of drying retarder. GSW's Dipping Inks also play nicely using this method, so I'd assume at the very least, Vallejo's Xpress would work using this sort of method. It's obviously not the same as blending traditional paints, Much more dropping some medium into the middle, then doing your blue and blending that into the medioum in the middle, then quickly doing the same with your red on the other side and then essentially mixing them to taste in the central area.
You're better than me if you manage to blend with contrast before it starts to dry. I guess on small areas I could do what you describe, but on most models I struggle to get the area coated and clean up pools without coffee staining, let alone trying to blend.
It probably also matters what colours are being blended, I found blending a dark colour into a light colour or vice versa was easier than trying to blend two colours of similar brightness level.
Will have to try the drying retarder, which one do you use? Does it affect the properties much?
I do a little bit of (simple) blending (undead flesh tones) using Citadel Contrasts on a regular basis. The keys to doing so havce been using contrast medium and (occasionally) a touch of drying retarder. GSW's Dipping Inks also play nicely using this method, so I'd assume at the very least, Vallejo's Xpress would work using this sort of method. It's obviously not the same as blending traditional paints, Much more dropping some medium into the middle, then doing your blue and blending that into the medioum in the middle, then quickly doing the same with your red on the other side and then essentially mixing them to taste in the central area.
That sounds like a lot of faff, goes against the principle of Contrast frankly.
I do abuse contrast as a function by painting over a single, sometimes double basecoat and use the fluidity of Contrast to do secondary layering, but that is still a Contrast method. I don't however want the watercolour effect that a Contrast over undercoat has.
I do not expect Xpress Colour to differ in application.
However due to its quirks Speedpaint does, once the reactivation 'issue' is fixed I will have to label my current Speedpaints against any future Speedpaints, the ones that do a once over and the ones that have a longer work time and support blending. So long as I keep a sufficient stock of the current Speedpaint and renew, and above all relabel or otherwise mark the old bottles. So I have two choices per colour, a speedy once over or a mixer paint of the same hue. I think this could end up a colossal advantage.
I wonder if Vallejo could profit from Army Painters error and do a line of Xpress Colour Worktime, a retardant that you add a drop to on the palette, and load on your brush before dabbing in the paint. I think blending on the palette detracts from what Contrast style paints do, however loading a brush with some Xpress paint that works like current reactivating Speedpaint, then applying a completely different colour (without retarder) so you can blend on the model as you go.
Please remember that Speedpaint reactivation doesn't remove its 'Contrast paint style' credentials, it endangers colourfastness. If you don't desire colourfastness but want to blend while 'Contrasting' it is very versatile. This is why I tag team Contrast and Speedpaint, and will add Xpress to the tag team, but alongside the Contrast as one paint range on grounds of post application dynamics. Trouble here is that there is no palette overlap, so I can have one red that stays and another red that blends but cant switch roles. Mark my words there will soon come a day when hobbyists with new Speedpaint will be looking for old Speedpaint for blending because having two types of the same colour will be so so useful. I hope the label is distinctively different between the two.
I'm hoping when AP "fixes" the reactivation, they don't reduce the drying time.
But we'll have to see where Vallejo falls into the mix.
Juan saying it mixes well with water gives me hope it'll play better with different mediums than Contrast does.
I have only really tried wet-blending contrast on minis that are OK to look a bit messy anyway, like these work-in-progress plague marines -- again the medium helped.
That sounds like a lot of faff, goes against the principle of Contrast frankly.
I do abuse contrast as a function by painting over a single, sometimes double basecoat and use the fluidity of Contrast to do secondary layering, but that is still a Contrast method. I don't however want the watercolour effect that a Contrast over undercoat has.
I do not expect Xpress Colour to differ in application.
It's fine. it's me playing with my new(ish) paints in a way that works for me. I don't often use contrast in the "official" way of "drop contrast colour over white/grey/bone/etc, maybe add a highlight and call it a day." precisely because I don't like the watercolour effects that you describe, so I give zero amount of feths about the "principle" of contrast. They're just paints. Just another tool. I mix them with different mediums from different manufacturers (including drying retarder, when appropriate), mix them across manufactuers, and mix them with paints. Sometimes for a specific effect and sometimes for experimentation and because a boardgame model of chaos mutie or poxwalker makes a great guinea pig because it only "needs" to look so good - so I can learn what happens when X mixes with Y and is used over Z.
You're better than me if you manage to blend with contrast before it starts to dry. I guess on small areas I could do what you describe, but on most models I struggle to get the area coated and clean up pools without coffee staining, let alone trying to blend.
It probably also matters what colours are being blended, I found blending a dark colour into a light colour or vice versa was easier than trying to blend two colours of similar brightness level.
Will have to try the drying retarder, which one do you use? Does it affect the properties much?
Not noticably, but remember, I'm doing things like blending areas of zombie skin on models that support that sort of contrast use via their anatomical details/textures in pursuit of discordant discolouration and going from, purple to green (for example), or doing stuff with magical effects on Endless Spells or whatnot. I'm not blending from blue to green on a Space Marine Captain's smooth, long cloak where it needs to be perfect. The other thing is that I'm almost always thinning my Contrasts with Contrast Medium, so adding a touch of (Vallejo in the most recent case, but I've also used Derivan) Drying Retarder doesn't really change much in terms of the "contrast effect" from the already diluted-by-medium pigments/stains.
Here's an example of yellow to orange to red to dark red using the abovbe method.
Angel latest video is quite good to talk about the new Gamecolour.
So the formula been upgraded so that all colours have a good coverage and finish matt. ( previous range was inconsistent in that regards)
You have base colour which is thicker and then shadow and highlight colours that are slightly less thick so you can blend them in easier.
Drying time is larger which allows you blend things better.
Displayed the difference between vallejoinks and the Xpress in regards that inks are less saturated and something to be used differently than X range. ( check plague marine at the end to check that)
A total of 80 Game colours.
Thats what I recall there.
Edit- Oh the metallics now are quite fluid and liquid and with amazing coverage.
NAVARRO wrote: Angel latest video is quite good to talk about the new Gamecolour.
So the formula been upgraded so that all colours have a good coverage and finish matt. ( previous range was inconsistent in that regards)
You have base colour which is thicker and then shadow and highlight colours that are slightly less thick so you can blend them in easier.
Drying time is larger which allows you blend things better.
Displayed the difference between vallejoinks and the Xpress in regards that inks are less saturated and something to be used differently than X range. ( check plague marine at the end to check that)
A total of 80 Game colours.
Thats what I recall there.
Edit- Oh the metallics now are quite fluid and liquid and with amazing coverage.
The entirety of the new Game Color line can be seen HERE. 80 Game Color paints, 9 Game Color Metallics, 12 Game Color Inks (including a white ink), 8 Game Color Fluorescents, 8 Game Color Washes, 12 Game Color Special FX paints and 7 auxiliary products.
NAVARRO wrote: Angel latest video is quite good to talk about the new Gamecolour.
So the formula been upgraded so that all colours have a good coverage and finish matt. ( previous range was inconsistent in that regards)
You have base colour which is thicker and then shadow and highlight colours that are slightly less thick so you can blend them in easier.
Drying time is larger which allows you blend things better.
Displayed the difference between vallejoinks and the Xpress in regards that inks are less saturated and something to be used differently than X range. ( check plague marine at the end to check that)
A total of 80 Game colours.
Thats what I recall there.
Edit- Oh the metallics now are quite fluid and liquid and with amazing coverage.
The entirety of the new Game Color line can be seen HERE. 80 Game Color paints, 9 Game Color Metallics, 12 Game Color Inks (including a white ink), 8 Game Color Fluorescents, 8 Game Color Washes, 12 Game Color Special FX paints and 7 auxiliary products.
Yes and hopefully we will get a box set with all the regular 80 as usual. I would then just add metallics and call it done. Im not totally sure if Xpress is for my style of painting. I mean I can add depth to the normal paint but the moment you wash all the mini with Xpress you lose control on the original opaque tone.
NAVARRO wrote: Yes and hopefully we will get a box set with all the regular 80 as usual. I would then just add metallics and call it done. Im not totally sure if Xpress is for my style of painting. I mean I can add depth to the normal paint but the moment you wash all the mini with Xpress you lose control on the original opaque tone.
Wouldn't that be the boxed set he's holding in the video thumbnail? By my count it has space for exactly 80 paints.
Fire_Forever wrote: I hope the expanded range of Xpress Colours have more skintones / earthtones. They're absolutely my most used colour family.
To add to the colour naming convention pile, P3 did a rather cheeky runaround the whole issue by naming their fleshtones with in-game factions like Idrian Flesh and Khardic Flesh.
Oh, I use lots of them as well, along with greys and reds/red-browns. I just don't see the nascent line having 5 named skin tones or that many earth tones off the bat. They do want/need to sell them to people selling Space Marines and Stormcast, after all. On the P3 lines - I did like that as well - and picked up a fair few (all?) of them myself some years ago!
NAVARRO wrote: Yes and hopefully we will get a box set with all the regular 80 as usual. I would then just add metallics and call it done. Im not totally sure if Xpress is for my style of painting. I mean I can add depth to the normal paint but the moment you wash all the mini with Xpress you lose control on the original opaque tone.
Wouldn't that be the boxed set he's holding in the video thumbnail? By my count it has space for exactly 80 paints.
I would like a special set of 160 over two boxes, because completionism.
That indeed looks like a set of 80. I'd probably endup buying that, and then the metallics, and the Xpress. Because a sucker for quality paints am I...
When do these hit the various international markets? Any word on AU distribution?
Azazelx wrote: That indeed looks like a set of 80. I'd probably endup buying that, and then the metallics, and the Xpress. Because a sucker for quality paints am I...
When do these hit the various international markets? Any word on AU distribution?
gilljoy wrote: what I'd love to know is are they colour matched to the existing range I've not read anything yet but I may have missed that
Vallejo doesn't seem to send out product for internet reviews. Other than Juan and Angel (who worked with Vallejo developing the Xpress and Game Colors respectively) no one has more than a handful of the paints picked up at Spiel.
Vallejo has mentioned on their Facebook page that Game Color paints with the same name/product code should match between the old and reformulated paints, but we'll have to wait until it's released and for the reviews to roll in to find out how close of a match they are.
lord_blackfang wrote: Oh my word, that looks like it came out of a random marketing bullgak generator.
It came from a random marketing agency, they sort of exist in their own little world. They even linked them here: https://www.brandstocker.com/. I guess shareholders like to see stuff like this for some reason, because it's more convincing than just improving sales by reformulating something without a load of excess marketing bollocks? The mind boggles.
You mean you can read
“visually, the logo is now based on two colors, the traditional black (associated with quality and experience) and the greenish blue Lake Blue (appealing to know-how and innovation). If we focus on the logo, we can appreciate a customized typography, which has taken into account the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of a family company that have turned it into a worldwide benchmark.”
Flinty wrote: You mean you can read
“visually, the logo is now based on two colors, the traditional black (associated with quality and experience) and the greenish blue Lake Blue (appealing to know-how and innovation). If we focus on the logo, we can appreciate a customized typography, which has taken into account the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of a family company that have turned it into a worldwide benchmark.”
Without dying inside a little bit?
Oh, when I clicked the link I just got the video. I didn't see that there was actually an article with it. I thought you were critiquing the video.
Flinty wrote: You mean you can read
“visually, the logo is now based on two colors, the traditional black (associated with quality and experience) and the greenish blue Lake Blue (appealing to know-how and innovation). If we focus on the logo, we can appreciate a customized typography, which has taken into account the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of a family company that have turned it into a worldwide benchmark.”
Without dying inside a little bit?
Any issues there appear to be more about a fairly rough translation from Spanish than anything else. That section seems like a fairly ordinary explanation of the brand elements once you set aside some of the awkward turns of phrase. A great deal of research, thought and testing usually goes into this kind of corporate brand work, and when it's presented to a client you detail and account for every little design decision. That's what you're seeing there in slightly broken English. Moreover, a news release/blog post/etc. like that isn't really meant for a customer audience so much as their distributors, retailers, other business partners, other entities within the industry, etc.
But then you folks do this stuff for living and knew all of that, right?
My work’s corporate Branding is described using exactly these types of phrases, especially about the colours. It’s not dodgy translation, for some reason marketing companies get away with writing such tosh in return for oodles of cash.
Flinty wrote: You mean you can read
“visually, the logo is now based on two colors, the traditional black (associated with quality and experience) and the greenish blue Lake Blue (appealing to know-how and innovation). If we focus on the logo, we can appreciate a customized typography, which has taken into account the imperfections and idiosyncrasies of a family company that have turned it into a worldwide benchmark.”
Without dying inside a little bit?
There's a Golgafrincham B Ark awaiting the writers of this sort of thing.
Sounds like what I had to do for every design project in college. Yes, it’s cringe-inducing.
But it’s also what corporations expect an artist to do - BS their way through each and every decision they made. It’s because these corporate types and investors have very little understanding of artistic decisions and know how.
So the designer is required to explain it all in cringe-speak to make palatable and have the investors feel like they made the correct choice.
It’s for this reason I never did any consulting or corporate design work.
Flinty wrote: My work’s corporate Branding is described using exactly these types of phrases, especially about the colours. It’s not dodgy translation, for some reason marketing companies get away with writing such tosh in return for oodles of cash.
Nah, your quote there is much too awkward. I would expect my children to write better constructed sentences. I understand what they're trying to say and could easily repair them into something that sounds like it came from an English speaker. Right now they don't.
lord_blackfang wrote: Indeed, only the soulless husks who do this kind of dreck for a living would think it's normal.
That really feels like it was intended for an internal audience -- especially because of the infringing IP stuff and the focus on branding. I've seen way too many things similar and I'm just a software engineer that does what I can to stay out of those types of meetings.
I work in clinical research and medicines, and there's literally nothing about that blurb that I haven't seen from our own rebrandings in the past.
Normal? No, I guess not. In many markets, though, gaining a 0.5%-3% improvement in sales over other brands can make an enormous difference. If some marketing agency can give you that edge simply by changing some of your corporate colours, you go for it.
And advertising works. Of course, all of us galaxy brains don't actually think it works on us. No, no, no, no. Not smart guys like us. But it absolutely works on someone, somewhere. If somebody can explain how and why Artis Opus gets away with selling Rosemary and Co brushes for 4x the price, for example, without talking about branding and advertising, then you'll have cracked it.
ekwatts wrote: I work in clinical research and medicines, and there's literally nothing about that blurb that I haven't seen from our own rebrandings in the past.
Normal? No, I guess not. In many markets, though, gaining a 0.5%-3% improvement in sales over other brands can make an enormous difference. If some marketing agency can give you that edge simply by changing some of your corporate colours, you go for it.
And advertising works. Of course, all of us galaxy brains don't actually think it works on us. No, no, no, no. Not smart guys like us. But it absolutely works on someone, somewhere. If somebody can explain how and why Artis Opus gets away with selling Rosemary and Co brushes for 4x the price, for example, without talking about branding and advertising, then you'll have cracked it.
LOL.
Sure, nerds are much too smart to fall for a fancy box, slick website, paid testimonials and a promise of a "paint application experience". (I made that last one up, but I'm *sure* something like that was in their marketing somewhere at some time.) I mean, really there's NOTHING about the geek community's behavior that could look predictable and Pavlovian from the outside.
Ahem.
Edit: Back on topic, I'm interested to try the Xpress paints. A slower dry time that allows more blending addresses one of my issues with Contrast paints.
Edit: Back on topic, I'm interested to try the Xpress paints. A slower dry time that allows more blending addresses one of my issues with Contrast paints.
Mr. Burning wrote: Has it been stated before or is there a chart matching these to GW contrast?
No. Vallejo has not made a chart matching these to Contrast or Speed Paints. Also, with the transparency of this type of paint the undercoat and way it is applied is going to play a big part in how it looks so finding exact equivalents may be problematic.
ekwatts wrote: I work in clinical research and medicines, and there's literally nothing about that blurb that I haven't seen from our own rebrandings in the past.
Normal? No, I guess not. In many markets, though, gaining a 0.5%-3% improvement in sales over other brands can make an enormous difference. If some marketing agency can give you that edge simply by changing some of your corporate colours, you go for it.
And advertising works. Of course, all of us galaxy brains don't actually think it works on us. No, no, no, no. Not smart guys like us. But it absolutely works on someone, somewhere. If somebody can explain how and why Artis Opus gets away with selling Rosemary and Co brushes for 4x the price, for example, without talking about branding and advertising, then you'll have cracked it.
Advertising paired with ignorance in this (and I'm sure, many other) case(s). I've heard of AO brushes many times through various means of marketing and advertising, KSers and other YTers but it wasn't until yesterday on twitter of all places where someone was asking "What are the best drybrushes?" and the R&C info came up in that thread...
Edit: Back on topic, I'm interested to try the Xpress paints. A slower dry time that allows more blending addresses one of my issues with Contrast paints.
A drop of drying retarder makes a difference for not much impact on the paint itself. Not saying you shouldn't purchase the Vallejo (I will be!), but something that may help you using your existing Contrasts in the interim...
Even though this was painted by a master like Juan Hidalgo, these paints could be a real game changer!
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