Painting Big Trouble in Little China

Decided to paint the minions first. In retrospect, I should have painted the heroes first as this would have enabled me to continue playing the game while painting. I don’t mind playing a game with its heroes painted and the rest unpainted but not the contrary. So now I’m stuck with an unfinished project that I cannot play. Oh well, I guess there are worst things in life…

This is also my first try at Contrast Paints. Didn’t bother buying the official Citadel primers as they are way too expensive and I though that I could achieve the same results with what I have. Turns out I was right, you just need to think about it in advance. So the minis were cleaned and prepped as usual and I then primed them with a regular Krylon grey primer. I then zenith highlighted them with straight Krylon white primer. Normally, I would have primed them in black first, but since GW recommends using their preferred primer only, I decided on a two-tone zenith prime. I simply added more white than I usually do to achieve a cooler undercoat.

Once the primer was dry, it was time for the dreaded first use of Contrast Paints. I decided on painting the pants Leviadon Blue to imitate jeans. Simply slapped on the paint as advised. It worked a treat with the recesses filling with darker paint and the flat surfaces having a thinner coat.

The jackets were another thing. Since Black Templar seems to be rarer than gold these days, I had to improvise. I simply busted out the old Liquitex flow improver and Formula P3 Thamar Black. I thinned the paint more than usual and added some water and hey presto! I had my Black Templar. Except maybe it is a little bit too dark but I found it fine enough to simply move on with the rest.

I also tried out Ecoline inks that I had laying about. The red shirts were done with this. I don’t recommend it. Those kind of inks are too thin and they didn’t cover the previous coat of Leviadon Blue. Since those are only minions and I didn’t want to waste much time on it, I left them as is. The blue shirst were done with real Contrast Paint, Thalassar Blue. Again, this wasn’t strong enough to cover my mistakes with Leviadon Blue. That may be the main drawback of Contrast Paints, you need to be very precise. Anyway, more on that later…

In the pictures you might see the grain of my zenithal prime. Maybe that is something that the Citadel primers and method cover better as you apply only one smooth coat, but in real-life this didn’t show much especially once my varnish recipe was applied in the end. Also, if I ever get an airbrush I should be able to produce a much more smoother zenith prime.