I've been painting lots of Pathfinder and Cursed City miniatures lately, using my Citadel Contrast and Vallejo Xpress Color paints. Because I've been using them a lot, I thought it might be useful to provide a review of each Xpress Color paint based on how I've been using it, and what I think it's generally good for.
I can only review the Xpress Color paints I own, which isn't the full range. I started with 8 on 9, and then bought 8 or 9 more, but I didn't invest in some of the really obvious duplicates of shades I already own from Citadel.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Black Lotus flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: When you're painting with it, it almost looks like a wash. You'll wonder whether you're painting grey or black, and it's a fair question. When it dries, it's likely to look anywhere from 80% grey to gunmetal grey with strong black lowlights, depending on surface area and coverage. If you want a proper Abaddon Black, you've got to do two coats, and even then I'm not sure you really get there. I imagine this was an intentional choice, though. Were I designing a black paint, I can imagine deciding to make it a strong grey so that the painter could choose whether to settle for the suggestion of black or apply a second coat for a true black. Solid black is, after all, very black. It's devoid of shade (because black is all the shade, in analog colour) so there's no nuance to it. A strong 80% grey, though, lets you interpret it as black while retaining the contours of its shape.
I use this for black armour as well as for "silver" metals. This is one of my favourites, and I anticipate having to buy more soon.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
This is a perfect auto-shading black paint. It looks great and has great contrast with one coat, and with a second coat it looks great as a deeper black.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, White Templar flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: This was the colour I was most excited to try. It's bold to assert that you can add contrast to white. White, in the non-digital world, is by definition the lack of shading. It's #FFFFFF, meaning it's all shades mixed together with no variation. When you add contrast to white, it's no longer white.
And indeed, this is a really tricky paint. For the first few weeks, I hated it because, well, Templar White isn't white. It's 10% grey, with the grey particles intended to be the shading for what, I guess, is otherwise clear. From what I can tell, the success of Templar White depends entirely on what you're painting.
A lot of people say that all contrasty paints aren't great for great big flat surfaces. That stands to reason, because auto-contrast paints are designed to separate. Heavy particles pool in the low areas, while light paint barely clings to the high points. That's what produces a highlighting effect. It looks like the high points of the model are reflecting light, and the low areas are in shadow or, at least aren't catching as much light. I think it depends on the paint and on the great big flat surface. I've painted big flat surfaces with both Citadel Contrast and Xpress Color, and I've been really pleased with the results. It was Templar White that made me understand the problem.
I painted a mech with Templar White, over a White Scar undercoat, and instead of looking like white armour with subtle shading, it just made the white armour look grey, dirty, and unmaintained. It looked like I'd lost the miniature behind a bookshelf for 3 months.
Then again, I tried Templar White on some ghouls with lots of muscle ripples and sinewy flesh, and it was exactly what I'd hoped for. It was a thing of beauty. The White Scar undercoat popped through a subtle and soft shade of Templar Grey, er White. I painted over that with Citadel's Pylar Glacier, and the shading added to the texture perfectly.
Give that success, I returned to my mech and painted Xpress Color's Imperial Yellow over the "botched" coat of Templar White, and the combination was perfect. New depth was given to the Imperial Yellow by Templar White, and in the end I was really happy.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
This is a good paint, but it's tricky to use. Use it on organic or uneven surfaces only, and even then expect the unexpected. Worse case scenario, be prepared to paint over it with an alternate colour choice, or else just conceal it with White Scar and do the highlights manually.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Copper Brown flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: I got Copper Brown as a deeper alternative to Guilliman Flesh, for use either as a dark flesh tone or, as with Guilliman Flesh, leathers and woods. It brushes on as a dark and almost monochromatic brown, but settles in pretty quickly and dries as a nice rich brown with nice dark shades.
As I'd hoped, it's darker than Guilliman Flesh, so it's a perfect shade to keep an axe handle from accidentally looking like a disembodied arm.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Wasteland Brown flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: I liked Copper Brown so much, I got Wasteland Brown to add some options to leather, wood, cloth, fur, and flesh. They're both brown, but they're noticeably different side by side. My strategy is that when one's being used for wood, I use the other for leather. Or if one's being used for cloth, then I use the other for something else. There's just enough of a difference that I feel like the two textures are different.
Realistically, I'm over-thinking it and could do with just one brown for everything. But it's still nice to have options.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Omega Blue flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: Of all the colours, I think this is the most "solid". It's a rich, deep blue when you apply it, and you might worry that it's too deep. Once it dries, you still might worry that it's too deep. Omega Blue has a very low contrast ration. There are highlights and shadows, but the difference is subtle. You're likely to get the feeling that this bottle, unlike Copper Brown or Black Lotus, contains exactly one colour.
The low contrast between highlights and shadows isn't necessarily a bad thing. Diversity is important, and if all your auto-shading paints have exactly the same contrast ratio I imagine it could start to look almost uniform. I like the richness of Omega Blue, and I have a sneaking suspicion that they made it an especially consistent blue with the expectation that many painters would use it on big flat panels of armour. I can respect that.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
In my arbitrary rating system, I'm penalizing Omega Blue one star for its low contrast ratio. Despite that, it's a beautifully rich blue with subtle highlights.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. This flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: This is blue with a touch of grey. It's an Earth-y blue (actually a Macragge-y blue, I think). I've used it on both cloth and armour. It's got nice, subtle contrast, with highlights and lowlights given enough variation of the surface being painted.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Mystic Blue flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: A vibrant, bright but deep blue that's as magical as its name suggests. It's almost an electric blue, or at the very least a plasma energy blue. I've used it almost exclusively for energy coils, LED lights, screens, lenses, and so on.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Plasma Red flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: I don't want to do a disservice to Plasma Red, but it's basically the red version of Omega Blue. It's a rich, cardinal red when you apply it, and it dries that way too. Plasma Red, like Omega Blue, has a low contrast ratio, with its highlights being pretty close to its shadows.
As with Omega Blue, the low contrast ratio isn't necessarily a bad thing. Like Omega Blue, I suspect that this is intended as a "hero" colour. It's not the red to choose for just a boring old cape, it's the red to paint the plates of space armour or a dreadful battle mech.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
In my arbitrary rating system, I'm giving Plasma Red all the stars, even though I penalised Omega Blue for having a low contrast ratio. Because life isn't fair for even paint.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Velvet Red flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: Red that hints toward purple or magenta. Could be really good for clergy (unless you're looking for a blood red, in which case I'd go Plasma Red instead). I bought this in the second round of my Xpress Color purchase, mostly because I was afraid I was over-using Plasma Red. Accordingly, I use Velvet Red generally as a tertiary colour. It brings me comfort that, for instance, the red cape of an agent of chaos isn't the same red as my Blood Angels.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Viscosity: Like a thick wash.
Colour: "Martian" to me suggests red and even rust, so I really expected something dirty in this orange. That's not this orange. A much better name for this would have been Prison Orange or just Orange Orange. It's a solid, pure orange. It's a beautiful shade, great for cloth and even hair.
The auto-shading is interesting in this one. There are definite highlights, while the shadows just look like the orange you expect from the bottle. In other words, if you assume the baseline orange shade is the midtone, this kind of lacks shadow. It's mostly orange, aside from the highlights, which are bright orange.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
An arguably misleading name, Martian Orange is a pure orange. A beautiful orange shade, perfect for cloth and hair, but it could use more diversity in its shading.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Imperial Yellow flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: Just as Plasma Red is the red version of Omega Blue, Imperial Yellow is the yellow version. It's a bright but solid Yellow with a fairly low contrast ratio.
I think what I really wanted was New York Taxi Yellow, or Construction Machinery Yellow, and while this is close it's not quite as deep. Two coats of Imperial Yellow gets me closer to the Yellow I want it to be, but I feel like it's thicker than it ought to be to require two coats. Had it been thinner with a high contrast ratio, I could accept that it isn't meant to be a deep yellow, which would justify two coats. But it's thick with a low contrast ratio but still not as rich as I want it to be.
Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
It's not really Imperial Yellow's fault that it isn't the shade I'd expected, but it's still just too low contrast for what it is. Despite my low rating, I've happily used it on a T'au Battlesuit, and an accidental undercoat of Templar White gave it some interesting texture.
I'm giving it two stars, though, because I'm not convinced it's a high contrast paint. It's a nice shade, just not the contrast I was expecting.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Nuclear Yellow flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: Compared to Imperial Yellow, this one is closer to maybe a Goldenrod shade. It's not gold the way Nazdreg Yellow from Citadel is, but it's sort of a comic book gold.
That said, Imperial and Nuclear Yellow are pretty hard to tell apart unless you set them side by side. They're yellow. In retrospect, I really only needed one, and I think I'd take Nuclear Yellow over Imperial.
Rating: ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
Like Imperial Yellow, I'm not convinced this is a high contrast paint. It's a nice old school gold, but I wouldn't use it over Nazdreg Yellow for gold, and I have a hard time distinguishing this one from Imperial Yellow. Not sure what the point is, and I feel like the yellows are just confused and out of sorts.
That said, it's a nice looking paint, if you're just looking for yellow.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. This flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: A deep forest green, pretty darned close to Citadel Orc Flesh , which I already own and definitely have accidentally duplicated by buying Lizard Green. It's awfully rich and regal, and I used it on a monster's skin and didn't love it. Then again, I also used Orc Flesh on a monster for skin and didn't love that. I think I just don't like very dark green as monster flesh, so it's not the paint's fault.
I do struggle to know what to do with these deep greens, though. I feel like they're too deep on the one hand, but too vibrant on the other. Maybe what I really want is Dark Angels green. This isn't that, but again it's not the paint's fault. I have used this on cloth, and I think it looks pretty great, with about as much contrast as Omega Blue or Plasma Red (which is to say, not much, but enough to assure you that it's not ordinary paint).
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. This flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: The famous Citadel shade of Goblin Green pre-dates my time in the hobby by a decade, but to me this pretty much looks like Goblin Green. It's a nice "soft" green that's definitely green without going yellow. I could see myself using this one as reptilian or monster flesh at some point. I wish I'd had it back when I was painting my Fallout miniatures, because it would have made a great super mutant fleshtone.
I'm also really tempted to use it on the bases of some 3rd-edition Warhammer miniatures I got second-hand and repainted, just to stay true to the old paint style (but I won't, because bright green bases are just too weird).
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
Viscosity: Like a wash, Plague Green flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: As its name suggests, Plague Green is a putrescent and sickly shade of green. It's a lot lighter than I'd expected, to the point that I can't imagine using it with just one coat. With more than one coat, it's a nice additional shade of green to have in your kit. I'm treating it as a military fatigue green, in fact, although it always takes two thin coats to get there. I can't imagine when just one coat of this would be appropriate, but some paints are like that.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A nice military fatigue green. War is a plague, so the name suits.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Snake Green flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: To my eyes, this isn't green, it's turquoise, and that's exactly why I bought it. Snake Green is a green-ish turquoise, compared to a more blue-ish Caribbean Turquoise, and anyway Caribbean Turquoise was out of stock when I was purchasing it.
For a green green, I use Citadel's Ork Flesh or Lizard Green.
This has a beautiful tone, and its contrast ratio is really high. The highlights are vibrant, the shadows are rich. This is just a beautiful colour. I don't know how often I'll use it, sadly, because what even is turquoise? Well, maybe a Rogue Trader or other noble's silk shirt?
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Beautiful colour with a high contrast ratio. Dries like a gemstone.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. This flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: This is Snake Green except blue. I guess it's actual turquoise. It and Snake Green both have the same kind of shimmer to them, though. They both read almost like gemstones or maybe like a coat of paint on a car. They're more than vibrant. Just one coat, and you get a beautiful blue-ish turquoise, with more shadow than highlights but it still reads as high contrast.
I painted some beaky space marines with Snake Green and Caribbean Turquoise and they both look amazing.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Beautiful colour with a high contrast ratio. Dries like a gemstone.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Deep Purple flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: It's called "deep" purple, which to me indicates that it's going to be consistently deep (which I interpret, I guess, as "dark"). Maybe it was because I tried Deep Purple after I had tried Omega Blue, but I expected this to have a low contrast ration with a mostly uniform shade. Instead, it acts more like Snake Green, with beautifully vibrant highlights contrasted with deep dark shadows.
Deep Purple is on the red-ish side of the spectrum, with Gloomy Violet being on the blue-ish side.
As with Snake Green (Turquoise), I sadly don't know how often I'll have a chance to use this colour. That's honestly one reason I bought it as Xpress Color instead of Contrast. I figured it was smart to pay half the price (6 NZD compared to 12 NZD for Citadel Contrast) for a colour I'll probably rarely use. Turned out to be a smart decision, because this really is a beautiful shade.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I'm penalising Deep Purple for the opposite reason I penalised Omega Blue, proving there's no way to win in life. Deep Purple's beautiful contrast ratio goes against its name. I expected a deeper purple than the beautiful, rich, vibrant purple I got.
Viscosity: Syrup-thick. Thicker than water, thinner than normal paint. Cardinal Purple flows nicely onto the miniature, but it mostly stays in place and lets you distribute it where you want it.
Colour: Really magenta, or arguably a dark pink. I'm not sure what the term "cardinal" refers to here, because to my thinking the bird is redder than this, and the priest vestments I've seen are more purple than this.
Whatever its name refers to, this is purple in name only, to my eye. I'm not sure what I'll use this paint for. It's a dark pink, and while I do think it's very pretty to look at, I don't have a need for pink all that often in what I paint.
Rating: ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
It's actually a five-star paint, but I'm giving it one because I don't see myself ever using it. And anyway, if there's no one star paint in this line, why have five stars in my rating system? There's got to be a floor.
Viscosity: Almost the consistency of a wash, Gloomy Violet flows right off the brush onto the miniature.
Colour: It's violet. Is it gloomy? It's purple that leans into blue, but it's actually pretty regal from my perspective. Whether you interpret Gloomy Violet as luxurious or lifeless, it's a beautiful colour with a high contrast ratio.
Like Snake Green and Deep Purple, Gloomy Violet is almost liquid gemstone. The bright areas are vibrant, the shadows are as dark as concord grapes. It's so beautiful you can almost taste it.
On a few miniatures, I used Gloomy Violet instead of Omega Blue when I needed something blue-ish but felt that Omega Blue wasn't contrasty enough. I'm not saying Gloomy Violet is blue by any means, but if all you need is a "cool" (rather than "warm", like red or orange) colour then Gloomy Violet might be something to consider.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Beautiful colour, great contrast.
Here's the final tally:
Arbitrary rating systems aside, I'd buy any of these again, even Templar White.
T'au soldiers photo by Seth Kenlon.