High Pigment Paints

With the release of Citadel Foundation Paints and the new high pigment formula of Reaper Pro Paints, the method in which painters complete armies has changed. These new paints can make painting faster, and solves the issues of certain colors not covering well over dark primer.

The high pigment paints are formulated so that you only need to apply one thin basecoat to achieve a smooth and solid coat. Because of the high pigment content in the paint, the original spray primer basecoat is easy to cover with one or two coats of paint.

Paint Consistency

One common problem when using a high pigment paint is that they are naturally thicker than other paints. It can sometimes be hard to find the “perfect” dilution. Personally, I use about One part paint to One part water, however, the right mix can sometimes be hard to find. The paint should flow easily from the brush tip onto the miniature and if the dilution is right, you can get a perfect opaque coat in one pase. Finding the right mix will come after you've worked with the paint, so trying them out on an old test miniature can be helpful.

One thing to avoid is pushing the high pigment paint around with your brush. Make sure you make one good pass. If the dilution is a bit too thin and some of the undercoat is showing through, you should not apply more paint to that area until the paint has completely dried. By doing this you avoid having paint dry in pooled areas and obscuring details by having the layer “cake” over and become flakey.

You should not have to use more than two coats of high pigment paint, if you are then you have probably diluted the paint too much.

Highlighting High Pigment Paint

Highlighting over a high pigment paint shouldn’t be very different than highlighting over a normal paint. Its important to remember that the high pigment paints are a little thicker, even after dilution, so to get highlights or “edge highlighting” you need to apply the paint in thin layers and build up the blending.

If you are painting an army and want to save time and don’t want to build your layers, you can make a stark highlight using whatever color you choose, and then applying a very thinned down wash of your original base color over the highlight. This will help you achieve a blended look with a lot less work. This trick can get really smooth and even results.