Shortly after we published our review, The Army Painter reacted with a video of their own. Providing some advice on how to reduce or avoid reactivation, for example by applying varnish before painting over. To me, it’s obvious that The Army Painter didn’t have the reactivation on their radar. Maybe they didn’t notice it during development, time pressure played its part, or they just didn’t think it would bother people (just my speculation, not facts). Apart from the changes to the formula, the Speedpaint range has been expanded from 24 to a whopping 90 colours. That’s 28 more colours than Contrast has to offer! They also feature metallic one coat paints, which are an industry-first. I’ll share my thoughts on the metallic Speedpaints below, but first, let’s take a look at the colour palette. The Speedpaint 2.0 palette For this, I rubbed the upper half of the bases with a wet cotton swab to take away the paint from the edges, aiming for an easy highlight effect. As you can see, after 30 minutes, yet despite rubbing hard, I could barely get any paint off the edges of the details. Though a slight discolouration was visible on the cotton swabs. In some areas, I was able to scrape off the paint, but that was more due to the mechanical stress. After 2 hours of curing time, there is even less discolouration going on. Except for a few colours like Tyrion Navy. After 24 hours, reactivation is almost a non-issue, though I can still detect minor discolouration for some of the colours. However, there is one thing I don’t like about Speedpaints that no one is really talking about: Even when they’re dried, they will reactivate when you paint over them. Here are some spots I wanted to touch up with Greyseer, and even though I applied multiple coats, the Blood Red Speedpaint keeps coming through, turning the Greyseer pink. I reached out to The Army Painter and they told me it is due to the composition of the medium and most prominent with Speedpaints containing a high amount of yellow pigments. Blood Red bleeding through Greyseer paint on top The Army Painter recommend their Matt White Colour Primer, but for better comparison with Contrast I used Greyseer Spray Primer for both models, which is a light grey primer with a satin finish. The smooth satin finish allows the medium of Speedpaints and Contrast paints to spread more evenly. Nevertheless, the many flat areas of the Intercessors’ power armour will present quite a challenge for either paint.

I also tried to apply a second coat of Speedpaint, here you can see Hardened Leather and Slaughter Red over Blood Red Speedpaint, as well as a wash of Purple Tone, and this turned out fine, as long as you don’t scrub over the dried Speedpaint with too much force. So, you have to think about how you are planning to use Speedpaints and decide if it might be an issue for you or not. Hardened Leather, Slaughter Red, and Puple Tone Wash over Blood Red Speedpaint And yet, the community has divided into those who welcomed reactivation as yet another tool in their painting arsenal and those who prefer their one coat paints to be stable and not reactivating. Let me know in the comments which camp you are. The Army Painter now had the difficult task of responding to the criticism and reconciling both camps. Speedpaint 2.0 review – the new formula They often need multiple coats to achieve a similar level of richness. Also, the pigment-based formula doesn’t really work with zenithal shading, as the opaque pigments will gather in the dark recesses and make them brighter, which is not exactly what you want. As these are going to be Orks of the Bad Moons Klan, they feature yellow paint on armor and details. At this stage, I have only used Speedpaint colors. With the Matte White primer, the Speedpaint doesn’t seem to have worked as well as with the Wraithbone. I can only assume that was a result of the defective can of spray paint. Here are some closer pictures of the two models, for comparison’s sake: While the extra time spent ensuring you don’t reactivate the Speedpaint is an inconvenience, I believe the utility and quality of the Speedpaints outweighs that issue. I felt the results I got with Speedpaint look much more like traditionally-painted models than what you get with miniatures painted with Citadel Contrast paints. My only regret is that I only had the 10 colors of the Starter Set to play with. I’ve got a Warhammer 40,000 army begging to be painted, and by using Speedpaints, I’ll be able to get a great looking force swiftly to the table.Thank you for scrolling through my Speedpaint 2.0 review to this point. Now, the moment you waited for: metallic Speedpaints. These are… something. I was able to review the three colours from the Mega Set, but there’ll be 10 in total. I have to admit, I was a bit underwhelmed when I saw the promo shots, so I was eager to give them a try. The first thing to understand is that the latter two paint ranges have a very different formula than Contrast or Speedpaint. They are not based on dye, but on thinned acrylic pigments. Think of Citadel Nihiliakh Oxide or regular acrylic paints thinned with a lot of Contrast Medium. Pigment. The formulation of Speedpaint provides a much more opaque coat than Contrast Paint, allowing Army Painter to make good on their promise of single-coat paint application. While the miniature obviously needs the base finished and has a few small areas where I missed getting paint or overpainted a color, overall it has a very nice “tabletop-ready” appearance. Due to the higher stability, I was also able to glaze several layers of Speedpaint thinned with Speedpaint Medium, without previous layers of paint dissolving and smearing.

Now, what you CAN do to increase reactivation is to use Speedpaint Medium instead of water. I soaked a cotton swab in Speedpaint Medium and rubbed it over the edges of the Plaguebearer’s sword to remove the paint and enhance the highlights. This works better than just using water. But I feel it’s still a bit more difficult and tedious to pull off than with the old formula. Maybe some other painter or YouTuber can find a better way to make the blending work. Please let me know in the comments about your experiences. The expanded palette Inside of the box you’ll find a Wargamer: Monster paint brush, a painting guide, and the following ten 18ml Speedpaint colors: Overall, I was very impressed with the Speedpaint Starter Set. When used with an even, smooth coat of spray primer, a single application of each color gave nice depth and tone. The included brush was great in applying the paint, and the inclusion of metal mixing balls in the bottles was a welcome addition. So before I start this Speedpaint 2.0 review with my honest thoughts on the new Speedpaint formula, I would like to start with a brief recap of why Speedpaint divided the hobby community. The original formula Speedpaint was released on February 22. They were hotly anticipated as they were the first real alternative to Games Workshop’s popular Contrast paints. The Army Painter’s marketing fuelled the hype as they boldly claimed the paints to be even better than the other one-coat paints on the market. And indeed, Speedpaint had a more homogeneous consistency and pigmentation. The flow properties were slightly better than many of their Contrast counterparts. Perhaps most importantly, they were more affordable. However, after the initial YouTube hype died off, painters like Juan Hidalgo and I pointed out that dried Speedpaints reactivate and dissolve when you paint over them with a wet brush or paint. Let’s proceed with some more tests and see how Speedpaints apply on a metallic basecoat. I sprayed an Intercessor with Plate Mail Metal from the Warpaints Air range, though you could also use Plate Mail Metal Colour Primer or Leadbelcher Spray.To find out which Speedpaints reactivate and which do not, I painted all of them on my trusty sheet of plasticard and let them dry for over 24 hours, to make sure that really all of the medium has evaporated. I’m using Spaceship Exterior Warpaint to paint over the left halves, and Corax White over the right halves, which are both very light greys. As you can see, no matter which Speedpaint I’m painting over, the paint reactivates and discolours my acrylic paint. Neither Warpaints or Citadel paints make a difference. Consistency-wise, they are quite thin, similar to pre-thinned airbrush metallic paints. From left to right: Broadsword Silver, Talos Bronze, and Hoplite Gold from the Speedpaint 2.0 range Let’s take a look at the individual colours. The Speedpaint palette is very similar to the Contrast palette, even though there are only 24 paints (including Speedpaint medium), whereas Contrast has 35. Hoplite Gold is my favourite, it’s more opaque than the other two, but still darkens in the recesses. As the paint pulls from the edges, the white primer shines through which creates a subtle highlight effect. It is a quite muted gold tone though, but the complete range has a few other gold tones I’m very eager to try. Broadsword Silver is a dark cool silver. It has less of a tint than the gold, I think it’s okay but not as good as the gold. Talos Bronze is more like a reddish copper tone and even more transparent, so I recommend adding a second coat. Unfortunately, this paint has a really weird sparkle effect. It looks okayish in real life, but under my bright studio lights the silver flakes stand out as if the pigments haven’t been blended properly. The Army Painter recommend their Matt White Colour Primer, but for better comparison with Contrast, I used Grey Seer Spray from Games Workshop for both models, which is a light grey primer with a satin finish. The smooth satin finish allows the medium of Speedpaints and Contrast paints to spread more evenly. Nevertheless, the many flat areas of the Intercessors’ power armour will present quite a challenge for either paint.

The Army Painter promises that Speedpaint is a real “one coat paint” and provide a consistent feel across the range. You can see it in the paint swatch below – the results of Speedpaints are more homogenous, whereas there is a broader distribution between light and dark in Contrast paints. Features Some of our readers are probably familiar with Citadel Contrast Paint, which is a product somewhat similar to The Army Painter Speedpaint. However, there are some key differences between these products worth pointing out:Magic Blue is a little darker and more intense than Talassar Blue, but with a little thinning it would be very similar. Highlord Blue is a little lighter and more of a prussian blue than Ultramarines Blue, while Cloudburst Blue is very similar to Leviathan Blue. In terms of turquoise, The Army Painter only has a single colour, Plasmatic Bolt, which is similar to Aethermatic Blue, but much deeper and darker. When applying, I noticed that Speedpaints are a bit thinner and runnier than Contrast paints, and the medium pushes the paint into the recesses more aggressively, which helps to create a smoother result even on flat areas. On the other hand, I found Contrast paints slightly easier to control because of their higher viscosity. I felt it was easier to put them on smaller details without accidentally spilling into adjacent areas.

For my part, I wanted to approach this review not as a professional painter(which I’m definitely not) but more from the perspective of someone that’s on the newer side of the hobby. In other words, if you’re one of those people that has little to no experience painting miniatures but have been interested in painting up the miniatures in one of your board games, or maybe getting started with a tabletop skirmish game like Marvel Crisis Protocol. With the resin more stable now, I’m happy to say that the bleed through effect is all but gone. On the lower half of the bases, I painted over with light grey acrylic paint, again after 30 minutes, 2 and 24 hours. Around the 30 minute mark, some of the new Speedpaints still bleed through light layers of paint. For example Dragon Carmaine, Maize Yellow and Forest Spite. It’s much more faint than with the original formula, but it is still present. At least on some of the more vibrant colours such as the red, yellow, purple, and green. However, after a longer curing time of about 2 hours, the bleeding stopped. Speedpaint 2.0 in practical use As a saving grace, I found if you just apply a few thin highlights in a similar colour to the Speedpaint you are painting over, the reactivation isn’t much of an issue. Edge highlights with Wild Rider Red and Jokaero Orange over Blood Red Speedpaint Now, these little experiments are all well and good, but what does that mean for practical use? I have to say that unless you paint over with a very light colour, you will hardly notice any reactivation with Speedpaint 2.0. Even then, unlike the old Speedpaints, there is no varnishing needed. One or two additional layers of paint will pretty much remove the bleeding completely. On the Stormcast’s robes I layered and highlighted over Speedpaint that cured for about 20 minutes. As the highlight colours are quite similar, bleeding is not an issue at all. Layering and highlighting over the robes of a Stormcast Eternal painted with Beowolf BlueAnd what about reactivation? I would say it’s similar to the regular Speedpaints. After 30 minutes the paint is very stable and can hardly be dissolved with water or wet paint, but Speedpaint Medium allows you to carefully remove the paint. My thoughts on metallic Speedpaints Magic Blue is a little darker and more intense than Talassar Blue, but with a little thinning it would be very similar. Highlord Blue is a little lighter and more of a prussian blue than Ultramarines Blue, while Cloudburst Blue is very similar to Leviathan Blue. In terms of turquoise, The Army Painter only has a single colour, Plasmatic Bolt, which is similar to Aethermatic Blue, but much deeper and darker. For this review I painted Contrast, Speedpaints, Instant Colors, and Antithesis paints on this sheet of plasticard that I primed with Corax White primer. I photographed them under 5500K neutral light to reproduce the colours as authentically as possible. Even with the less than ideal result of painting over the paint-on primer, you can still see how Speedpaints provide shading, base color, and highlight, just from the single coat. Primed Legion of Nagash models. Image by Paul Benson.