New GW Paints - 1st Impressions

I wandered down to GW Oakridge today as part of my time at the mall. They had 8 special paint stations set up to demo the a sampling of the new paints.

There are 34 Base colors, replacing the Foundation line. For the Layer line, 70 paints replace the current paints. Shades replace the washes and are now 12 pots. The newer additions are the 15 Dry, 4 Glaze (inks), 6 Texture (paint mixed with material), and 4 Technicals. That's 145 different paints.

I decided to paint up an Ultramarine in order to try out the paint types. I tried out one of the blue Bases and watered it down so I could have a nice controlled layer. That was the learning experience to set up the rest of the painting.

Bases are not Foundation paints. The Base works well out of the pot and doesn't need the thinning by water. Thinning leaves splotches of armor that didn't get painted. In the past, thinned foundation was good enough to put on one layer. Thinned Base paint took 2 layers to get the same effect.

The Layer paints are a straight translation of the old paint line. Part of the reformulation may have been to thicken the paint. I tried thinning it before painting onto the Space Marine and the first impression is that it was watery. Without thinning, it painted on thick. There's a happy medium, but I didn't find it in my short time at the store. The other item is that the Layers line will take the color mixing out of your concerns. The various shades of each color will mean less mixing and more money spent on pre-mixed colors. The takeaway from Layers may be changing the way you blend.

Shades and Glazes I'll cover together. I didn't see any real change in the way they interacted. Shades/Washes helped shadow your model like before. Glazes/Inks gave you a glossy look. They might be worth the investment. Because of the types available, and how wet my model still was, I didn't see much out of the two types.

Dry is GW's new paint line. It refers to dry brushing. The Dry paints are extremely thick, similar to wet spackle in consistency. A little bit on your brush and you can do the extreme highlighting you see in pictures. A little less an you have your classic dry brush amount. I don't recommend a wet brush or thinning he paint, it just makes it runny and useless. I tried a couple of methods with it and I came away with mixed results and feelings. The results depended on the amount of paint on the brush. The feelings were that this might be a worthwhile pickup for newbies and vets, but it'll take time to learn technique with it.

Texture was an interesting experiment. This is not a paint to thin with water. It needs to be from the pot. Again, wet spackle in consistency with some grains of material mixed in. This paint is used for basing instead of the tried and true method of glue and material. Take it or leave it. There probably a place for it in a vet's toolbox and definitely in a Newbie's.

The Technicals were not available, but it included a paint on black primer and the liquid Green Stuff. They'll probably be bought on a case to case need by me.

My final thoughts are to pick up the April version of GW to see the paint name changes if you are sticking with GW paints. Otherwise, only by what you need in the new line. The paints feel watered down and may be designed to be used straight from the pot. Water thinning of paints makes them very thin, nearly to Wash styled consistency so multiple coats between drying time is needed. Thinner paints also created more brush marks in the painted sections. Less thinning reduces the effect. The new paints will let newer painters paint by method (follow the 8 step guide). For vets, there's a couple nice to haves to speed up your tabletop quality paint jobs. Just don't expect Golden Daemon trophies following the basic painting approach.