Are you struggling to find time to paint your miniature army? You're not alone. We've all sought efficient methods to effectively paint our miniatures to a satisfactory tabletop standard. In this article, we'll explore the ingenious use Citadel’s Contrast Paint line and other similar paints have found in our community. We'll also discuss a concept championed by Rob the Honest Wargamer that's setting the mini-painting community ablaze. Curious? There's a video at the end of this post for a closer look at this trend.
Understanding the Concept of Slap Chop Painting
In a nutshell, Slap Chop is all about using a greyscale undercoat much like zenithal priming. You apply a gradient from black to white underneath the layers of paint. What sets it apart from zenithal priming is that it doesn't consider the direction of light as strongly. Still finding it a tad confusing? Let's break it down:
The slap chop painting method takes advantage of the transparency of contrast paint to allow this undercoat to show through affecting the final tones much more than with contrast paint alone.
I refer to Contrast paint throughout the article, but this can be done with Army Painter Speedpaint, Scale 75 instant color, etc.
Check out the two most popular brands of this type of paint
Citadel Contrast Paint World Wide Amazon UK and EU Element Games North America Noble Knight Games
There are four basic steps in the basic Slap Chop Technique:
- Prime the mini in black
- Drybrush light grey all over the model
- Drybrush the highlights white
- Paint the miniature with contrast paint
In creating this article, I embarked on painting a vengeful wizard model. I sourced the STL file from being a patron on One Gold Piece and gave life to it using my Anycubic photon mono. The journey was an enchanting one, with various challenges and surprises along the way. If the model piqued your interest, feel free to explore their Patreon here. While I don't benefit from any subscriptions, I thoroughly appreciate the remarkable sculpts they produce.
Step 1: Prime in Black
When you prime in black you establish the deepest shadow areas of your paint job once you add the paint in the last step. Some paints don’t show over black so depending on your paint scheme you might want to start with a dark grey instead of black. You can prime with a rattle can or with an airbrush for this step, whichever you have on hand.
Step 2: Drybrush light grey all over the model leaving black only in the deepest recesses
Using your favorite large soft drybrush, paint the model with light grey so that it covers the majority of the model leaving the black showing only in the deepest recesses of the model. Paint this layer mostly from above so that it leaves black at the bottom where the shadows naturally happen but make sure to get places that zenithal undercoating wouldn’t get like the bottom of arms. This is setting up the mid-tones for your paint job, where the contrast paint will do its thing to establish highlights and shadows. If you leave it black the contrast paint will look black.
This step should not be done with an airbrush, it will not give you the dark patches in the recesses that you are looking for with this method of painting.
Step 3: Drybrush the highlights with white
Use your largest softest drybrush to add white paint from the top down. If you drybrush in a roughly top down direction you will end up with highlights that show the direction of the light source, in this case, the sun, and this will push the contrast even more giving your minis more pop on the tabletop.
Step 4: Paint the model with contrast paint
This fourth step is where all of the careful undercoatings on your mini pay off. put on a regular coat of contrast paint and watch the magic happen. You will have deeper shadows than with contrast paints alone. You can see in the side-by-side comparison just how different this method can be. There is slap chop on the left, zenithal in the middle, and pure white primer on the right. In my opinion, bright colors look much better on pure white, but darker colors look better with zenithal or slap chop.
Advancing Your Technique: Enhancing the Slap Chop Method
This method grants great tabletop-quality paint jobs, but sometimes you want to add a little extra to your paint job. Here are some ways that you can take this technique to the next level.
Change up the colors of the undercoat
These paints work by being much more transparent than standard acrylic paint. With contrast paint, the color affects the results of the top coat much more. The same color can become warmer or cooler based on the color that you prime with. I painted the mini in the image below with a pink and teal undercoat. Teal from below, and pink above, to show how it can change the top colors. Some of the dark colors like the wood of the staff look unchanged, however bright colors like the potion bottle on his waste really look great with the transition between colors. On the other hand, I don’t like what it did to the flesh tone on his face, not that I am a fan of crusader skin to begin with. I find that this method is also situational and you can take full advantage of it if you choose.
The Importance of Edge Highlighting Using Similar Light Colors
You can make the paint on your models really pop with just a few highlights to catch the eye. Edge highlighting doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming, focus on the most important aspects of the model first and you are finished when you feel like stopping.
Let's delve into what's often in my tool kit when I paint miniatures. I'll share why I recommend these particular items and how they contribute to creating a miniature masterpiece.
The Starter Paint Set That I Recommend for small budgets
The Starter Paint Set That I Recommend for large budgets
I like to listen to books on Audible while I paint
Looking to indulge your hobby? I've got a few go-to retailers for all things hobby-related. Join me as I walk you through some of my top picks and share why they've earned a spot on my preferred list.
HOBBY STORES
USA / Canada: Noble Knight Games : eBay (US) :
UK: Element Games : Forbidden Planet
Global: Amazon : Redgrass Games : Warcolours
3D PRINTING
Anycubic : Elegoo : Creality : Sunlu : Flashforge : Matterhackers :
