Paint Systems for Napoleonic Miniatures

Last Christmas I purchased an Elegoo Mars 3 printer and I love it. I spent time cranking out Forest Dragon Warmaster minis, Alien space suited victims, and 15mm WW2 armor for my friends. While admiring the beautiful STLs available to sci-fi and fantasy enthusiasts, I lamented the dearth of quality 28mm historical sculpts.

Found Them!

That changed when I stumbled across Piano Wargames' beautiful Napoleonic sculpts. While I nosed about their site, I found their tutorial which advocated using GW Contrast Paints to get a quick, quality result. I decided to try it out on a Perry French infantry figure.

GW Contrast Paints for Historical Miniatures

The results speak for themselves. All colors (on the central figure on the white cap) were a single coat of CPs onto a primed Corax White miniature that was then drybrushed with white. After the Contrast Paints were dry I did some black lining with CP Black Templar and painted a few lines of white for highlights. That's it.

Fast. Very Fast.

The central figure on the white cap was completed in under 40 minutes. If I were doing a unit I could probably get the per-figure time into the 20 minute range.

Look at the difference between the figures in the picture. The ones on the right and in the rear are done in the Foundry Method: black prime and three highlights. Those took hours to complete. The ones on the left are Base-Dip-Highlighted. They are lovely, but they took a long time to finish as well... and they are kind of brown due to the Army Painter Strong Tone dip.

The central figure is beautiful, vibrant, and fast... it's perfect for wargaming!

What do you think? Are GW Contrast Paints the answer to a wargamer's prayers?