In this Vallejo Xpress Paint walkthrough and painting tutorial, Juan Hidalgo shows how to use the new paints and what they can do!
Vallejo is known for great paints already, so it’s interesting to see them going this route with a more contrast-style paint. Now we can see how it works and what it can offer in terms of a one-coat solution that sets it apart from the rest.
Just to note, these are not out quite yet, and he doesn’t have every color, so the line will be bigger than what he shows today.
Still, it can be nice to have something from a brand you like; more alternatives are always better. Juan actually helped develop the paints, so he’s a great resource to show us how it works.
How to Use New Vallejo Xpress Paint Painting Tutorial
This is the mini he’s going to be painting up today. This set of paints is meant to be an alternative to GW’s contrast paints and can be used to paint an entire mini, so if you really don’t feel like using GW’s contrast, this might be a great alternative for you!
Step 1: Painting the Skin
He’s going to start with Dwarf Skin (just to note, we’ll have links to the product for when they are listed for sale, but the paint isn’t available quite yet, at least at the time of writing).
He will apply that color to his wet palette and then over all the skin on the mini. The paint dries fairly quickly and gives a good amount of contrast to the skin, with the recesses being naturally darker.
This is just a single layer here, so next, he goes with Deep Purple and glazes with this. He doesn’t use a medium for this, just thins it down with water and applies it to the areas you would normally glaze.
Next, he mixes some of the two colors together to get a bit darker color and hits the things like the lips and nipples.
To take it a step further, he adds Gloomy Violet to the palette and hits just the darkest recess with this to really bring out the contrast.
Step 2: Painting the Clothing
To start, he goes with a gray that doesn’t have a name yet; just be careful not to drop this onto the cracks where the skin and clothes meet.
For all the leather and fur, he uses Wasteland Brown and does a single coat on all those. He mixes some of the brown and gray for the bandages to get a more bone-like color. There are really just the black details left (for base coats here); he simply does two layers with black.
Lastly, he mixes black with the Wasteland Brown to quickly wash the bandages.
Step 3: Painting the Armor
For this, he mixes the Plasma Red and Imperial Yellow together to get an orange. They will be coming out with an orange, just not quite yet. He then applies this to the pants and forearm armor strips. Then, he uses silver to paint all the metal areas. Once dry, he goes in with the black like a wash to highlight all the metal areas.
To add some rust, he takes the Copper Brown and puts it into the recesses to look like rust, pretty simple!
Vallejo Xpress Paint Painting Tutorial: Finished Model
There you have it, some great results without too much effort! The paints seem to work really well; we’ll have to see how many colors there will be when the full line comes out how many colors there will be!
Follow Juan Hidalgo on YouTube Here!
Are you excited to see Vallejo expand their line into contrast-style paints with these new Xpress Color Paints?
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
