Welcome to another little entry in our review series, where we check out a different products within the hobby industry, to see whether they are worthy of your time and continuously decreasing wallet size. Today, our sights shall be swiftly set on the Metallic Speedpaints by The Army Painter.
When I first started really getting into painting, I had a big reliance on the contrast range of paints by Citadel. These paints allowed me to get layers onto my miniatures, without having to worry too much about my poor skills and abilities, and still have a decent looking end result. I thought these paints were awesome, but something eluded me; the fact that I can use contrast paints on every aspect of the miniature except the metal. Why did Citadel not make contrast versions of some of their metallic paints!?
Well The Army Painter heard your cries in the acrylic scented wind, and has brought out their new range of metallic speed paints! (Well, back in April 2023). Their speed paint range is effectively their own version of the Citadel contrast paints; a high liquid high pigment paint that performs a base coat, layer and wash all in one coat. So I have bought myself the metallic speed paint set, and figured I would share that experience with all of you, to see if they truly are the answer to that missing void!
You can find all of the metallic Speedpaints in one nifty box, featuring supposedly every colour of metal you would ever need. That notion became a little debatable after seeing how they all perform as they are most certainly not cut from the same cloth! But as you can see here, you get four golds, two bronzes, a copper, two silver and one steel. These aren't necessarily intended to be brighter and darker tones of one another, and should much rather be viewed as all unique and independent colours. Take the golds on offer for example; all four are very unique from one another, and whilst I initially thought the first three on the left would be gradients of darker gold intended for highlighting, this clearly wasn't the case. Though for sure, you could use the Polished Silver as a highlight for the Broadsword silver, as those both act pretty similarly and look like a clear difference in brightness, as opposed to colour.
Let's have a bit of a closer look at each paint shall we:
1) Hoplite Gold  | The very first paint out of the set was the Hoplite Gold, and to be completely honest, I didn't think it was a great start. I found the colour to be a little strange, being both a weak gold in terms of richness and colour. It has an almost green hue to it, which might make it perfect for a specific colour scheme in mind, but I don't feel it is universally useful in your acrylic arsenal. I also found the contrast aspect of this paint to be a little lack lustre, and whilst the intention of this paint isn't to be massively contrasted, there could definitely be a little more science going on when this paint starts to dry. Overall, I think this paint's usefulness is a little limited, and this isn't one you need to rush out to buy. In fact, I think your life will probably carry on just fine without this in it. |
2) Glittering Loot  | The second gold to try was Glittering Loot, and this I found to be a much more useful gold. This is a really nice bright shade of gold, and one that I believe is a little more universally useful than the previous gold. Its coverage was great and started to prove the point as to why these metallic speed paints have the potential to be so useful, when their colour is right. Metallic paints can often be a nightmare to actually paint nicely, so having these speedpaints flow much more nicely make the painting experience all the more fun. So if you're looking for a nice bright and vibrant gold in the form of liquid love, I believe Glittering Gold would be a good one to invest in. After all, you can always rely on gold. |
3) Golden Armour  | The third and final of the 'normal' shades of gold was Golden Armour, and this is this gold that probaly best represents the traditional idea of 'gold'. It's rich and warm, and is the perfect darker tone of gold to go alongside the previous paint. I haven't tried to do any highlighting work with these speedpints, but I reckon both this and the previous gold would be the perfect pair to add to your overflowing paint rack, to ensure you've got your gold bases covered with speedpaints. I would, however, say that yet again, the contrast aspect of this paint was a little disappointing. We can see how the contrast effect is supposed to apply based on the logo on the bottle, so it does feel a little underwhelming when the result isn't the same. |
4) Aztec Gold  | Now this is the rogue coloued gold of the set, so much so that it's not actually gold. This is very much a green coloured metallic paint, and only if you really try, can you see any resemblance back to that traditional yellow gold. That's not a problem though, and this paint does look really nice, but for sure it is not a traditional metallic tone. It does beg the question as to why there isn't a set of coloured metallic paints, if they've gone to the effort of creating this one. But having this Aztec Gold in the set adds some variety and possibilities that would otherwise be missing. I reckon highlighting a bright gold over this one might look pretty cool too. Overall, a pretty cool and unique looking metallic paint. |
5) Hoard Bronze  | Our fifth speedpaint is Hoard Bronze, and this has the potential of being the worst paint I may have ever used. Not because it's a horrible paint, but because it doesn't act how I believe it is supposed to. This is meant to be a very pale bronze, perhaps one you would use to highlight a richer bronze. However, it comes out looking like some sort of bone coloured contrast. It does contrast better than most of the other paints in this set, but it seems to lack any metallic quality whatsoever. It is only the darkest points in the reccesses that seem to have any shine to it. Given how awfully this paint has acted, I'm going to go ahead and say my particular bottle has an issue. But I cannot recommend this paint in that case, because it is somewhat confusingly poor. |
6) Talos Bronze  | Now this version of bronze does exactly what you would expect from a colour claiming to be bronze. It looks like bronze! This is a nice colour and the flow of this one was great too. It is a little brighter than I thought it would be based on the label, but bear in mind I primed with white. I would say this would be a very useful paint to grab if you were looking at just getting a few of these metallic speedpaints, because it covers what you need out of bronze. You could darken it with a wash of some sort, and brighten it by highlighting some silver over the raised areas. But there is nothing mind blowingly spectacular about this paint; it is quite simply, a decent bronze. |
7) Brazen Copper  | The Brazen Copper has become my favourite of all the metallic seedpaints, and is probably one of the few I would seriously consider using in my future painting. Ignoring the fact that this is supposed to be quite a dark brown copper colour, this actually comes out with this beautiful rich red tone that makes this seem a very unique colour. It is also one of the few paints from the set that effectively and properly gets in the recesses, causing the contrast effect. This paint has acted in the way I think I expected all of the paints to act, which is why this one surpasses all of the others. It really is a lovely colour, and I think there are many potential paintjobs this could work for. If you were to buy just one of these to try, I'm backing this one. |
8) Polished Silver  | Moving on to the silvers, we find ourselves at Polished Silver. This one does exactly what it says on the metaphorical tin; being a very bright and well kept silver. I reckon the colour of silver is probably one of the most useful within miniature painting, so it's a good idea to have multiple tones of silver. This one ticks off the need for a bright silver, whilst not being too bright that it hurts the eyeholes. This is the perfect highlight to any of your darker silver work, and whilst yet again, it doesn't contrast in the ways I expect, it is nonetheless a useful paint to have. However, it's not going to change your mind about any of your exisiting silvers, so only worth getting if you'd like to try a liquid version of such, as the flow on this one is fantastic too. |
9) Broadsword Silver  | The Broadsword Silver is the decent darker tone of the previous silver. It's a pretty universally useful tone of silver and would be a wonderful base layer for the Polished Silver to highlight. I do like that this one also seems to have a bit more of a contrasting effet, leaving the recesses darker than the raised areas. The end result isn't overly metallic, which is obviously either a good or bad thing, depending on how glittery you like your metals to be. But overall, I don't think you could really go wrong with this paint, if you were looking for an easier time painting silver. But it most likely won't cause you to run out to replace your exisitng silvers, because quite frankly, you probably don't need it. But for sure one of the better paints from the set! |
10) Enchanted Steel  | Our final paint from the set, is the also slightly rogue silver in the form of Enchanted Steel. Much like the Aztec Gold, this paint doesn't quite conform to the traditional sense of silver (or steel) and has an almost magical blue hue to the paint. I've found myself atually quite liking it, and whilst it's usefulness might be limited, there are some paintjobs I think this would be perfect for. I've got a couple of Idoneth models to paint up, and this paint would be very approriate for their armour. This one also has a very decent contrast effect, which has become a suprisingly rare occurrence in this paint set, so bonus points for that. This is a nicely unique shade of silver that applies well, and I reckon this might be a good one to try. |
There are all of the colours in close detail so you can see how they all act over white. You'll notice that the Hoard Bronze is missing from this collage. That is because I truly resent it so much (and this nicely laid out 9 picture collage would have been ruined), but here's a big picture of it on it's lonesome, where it deserves to be, not tainting the rest of the set with it's awfulness.
Now that I look at it in this blown up picture, it doesn't look as bad as my passionate hatred would suggest. And actually, perhaps the matte finish with slightly metallic recesses, would work well within a NMM paint job. It just feels so out of place in terms of quality within this paint set, that my initial reaction is one of thinking it's a faulty bottle. That's not a great impression to get off a paint. I will of course keep trying with it to see if I'm the one who is responsible for this travesty.
And that concludes our little look at The Army Painter Metallic Speedpaints. I went into these hoping that they would be the contrast answer to the metallic void, and I have left longing to fill that void still. For the most part, these paints didn't act quite as I thought they would, and so probably won't replace my existing methods and paints for painting metals. But there were a few, such as Brazen Copper, that I really did like, and am already looking forward to using in a future colour scheme. This specific paint just felt so superior in terms of quality, application and colour, and I feel that is apparent even in picture, when compared to the others.
These are obviously my views on these paints, and are no doubt going to sharply contrast (something these paints didn't do) how you may feel about them. The beauty of the painting world is that different paints and tools all fit our different styles, and that's why it's always worth trying new things. Both in the miniature painting world, but perhaps more importantly, the real world. Go and buy one of these new paints you've been wanting to try, and then go and organise that 7 person orgy you've also been wanting to try. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed seeing my take on these paints, especially if you've been curious like me to try them. Oh, and if you happen to know 6 people who would like to attend a totally non related members club who meet regularly on Tuesday evenings to fu...focus on the meaning of life, please get in touch via carrier pigeons.
But, more importantly, if you'd like to get in touch regarding the blog, or for commissions, or anything else (within reason), get in touch via here, plasticpreacher@gmail.com or @plasticpreacher on Instagram. Let me know what you think of these paints, have a good one and I'll see you around!
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