Jay M. Nunez: Warcolours Paints Review Part 2

If you missed Part 1 of my review then check it out here! Without further ado let's get on to the testing *drumroll*

Test 1 – Comparison to other ranges

Sadly I don't have a colour from each range to compare to so I've done the best I can. I will be comparing The Red 4 from Warcolours to GW Red Gore (which is actually the older range but is comparable to Wazdakka Red from the new range) and finally 09003 Blood Red from Reaper. This last one is a tone lighter but close enough. I will be using the Red 4 paint out of the bottle with no water as recommended by them, the others I will be using a little water as I would normally.

I primed up some leftover sprue with both black and white to see how it covers over different bases.

First layer

Here are the results after one layer (Top is Warcolours, middle is GW, bottom is Reaper):

None of them have covered over black in one coat, but that is to be expected. Still I was disappointed by just how little Warcolours has covered. All better over white, Reaper in particular leading the way here.

Second layer:

All the reds still struggling with the black base, but Reaper is definitely looking the best. Whites, Reaper has a pretty good coverage at this point, one more layer should be fine. Warcolours still showing lots of white through.

Third layer:

Whites are mostly covered at this points, I'd probably say another layer for the Warcolours. Blacks...after 3 coats Warcolours is still not covering well.

Fourth and fifth layers:

At this point I left the whites to focus on the black base. I did two more coats of each.

Reaper has covered well, I was actually impressed considering it's quite a light red. GW is pretty much there now, maybe one more coat would be needed. Warcolours has covered really poorly though, after 5 layers there is still significant black prime showing through. With regards to finish I found the Warcolours paint to finish pretty similarly to GW in glossiness.

Test 2 – Comparison within the range

One thing I haven't mentioned is that Warcolours rate each of their paints by opacity (0 = transparent, 1 = translucent, 2 = semi-opaque, 3 = opaque) the red I tested was rated 2 for semi-opaque. The others I purchased are a variety of opacities so lets have a play and see how they differ.

Here are the paints:

Again I primed some sprue and put the paints on in the order above (I've also included their opacity ratings below)

First layer:

Again pretty poor coverage over black all round. As expected the fluorescent paint is barely visible at all. I was surprised how poor the two dark colours (the dark blue and dark green) covered. I can't really work out why these paints cover so poorly. Over the white prime things are much the same, with the fluorescent again the worst. I can't say I've noticed a huge difference in the others, regardless of their opacity rating.

Second layer:

purple is slightly better, rest there is very little change in the second layer on the black. On the white things are looking better, a significant improvement on all for layer 2.

Third layer:

The purple isn't too bad at this point but the rest really aren't covering well on the black prime. White prime things are better, only the fluorescent needing probably a few more layers.

Test 3 – playing with a model

I decided that perhaps I needed a 'real world' test. I have some old plastic space marines that I use for trying out paints and things so I grabbed one (ignore the green base, it was like that when I got them!)

First layer:

I tried out the red, blue and green and again the coverage was really poor for the green and blue.

Second layer:

Red is looking better now, others still really poor.

Next I decided to see how they handled some layering/glazing. I painted part of the backpack with GW Khorne Red (it's an old colour) then layered the Warcolours Red 4 over the raised sections with a series of thin layers. I was more impressed by this usage than with the basing, the paints seem to layer well.

Final thoughts

I find it hard to recommend these. If price is a really important factor then these are a significant win in that area but in my opinion you are seriously sacrificing quality. They cover extremely poorly over black prime and not great over white prime. I expected this from the traditionally more difficult colours I bought (like the orange and yellow) but to see it as well from the darker colours like the blue, green and red was surprising. They seem to react better to layering, but I don't think it is enough to save them. Another thing I have noticed in the few weeks I've owned them is the ink on the labels scrapes off incredibly easily. A light scrape of my fingernail is enough to remove the text. For me as a mainly display level painter there is no reason for me to buy a product like this when other quality paint lines exist. It might have more merit to a bulk army painter, but even then the poor coverage might make it frustrating.

As this is my last article before Xmas I wanted to wish you all a wonderful holiday season, whatever religion you are. I hope you all get some lovely miniatures under you trees! Thank you very much for reading the blog, whether it's your first time or you're a regular reader. If you have any suggestions for articles you'd like to see then please let me and the others know in the comments! At the start of the year I'll be doing a general plans for 2016 article, as well as a look back at 2015. Next week....I'm not sure so it'll be a nice surprise :P