What’s the Difference?

Transcript*

Intro

Hi, name’s Paul. Welcome to the Loisirs vers le soleil YouTube channel. Today, we’ll run down the three simple but fundamental differences between the three types of paints that people love to use, but don’t necessarily know what the differences are, cuz they’re very similar, but they’re fundamentally different. A shade or a wash or a filter is the most popular out of the three we’re going to be discussing today and one that is you may not even realize that you’re using.

If you use a panel liner, it’s a wash or a shade or a filter. They’re the exact same thing, just different names. I’m sorry, but they’re not at all the same. Yeah, they are. They are the same. No, panel liners are not the same as washes. They’re not. Uh, yes. Yes, they are the same. Tell me, what’s the purpose or the function of a panel liner? Um, the purpose of a panel liner is to provide and re-highlight the details that may or may not have been covered during the painting process.

So that, um, it provides some sort of subtle shadowing with if you’re using just a basic black, right? just to bring it back up for any details that may or may not have been covered in those creases, panel lines. Right? That’s the purpose of a panel liner. Okay, good. Now, please tell me what the purpose or function of a shade is.

The Differences

That’s what I thought. There’s no difference between the two. The only thing that differs between them is that panel liners or products that are referred to as panel liners are enamel based. That’s it. For this demo, we’re going to be painting these tokens and markers with gold to make them look like currency. So, it’s a little bit more uniform for the experiment.

Here we are. These are the tokens painted in titanium gold to make them look like the looney in Canada. That being said, we’re going to be painting this with our shade.

Shade Painting

And just to reiterate, a shade, the purpose of it is so it re-highlights the details and the panel lines and brings it back up to the surface. And for all three of these examples, not just the shade, we’re going to be liberally applying all of them to the entire coin. Just so we can see the differences. Perfect.

The one on the left, the one we just applied the shade to, looks like it’s been through the ringer. Um, passed around over the course of seven years throughout different pockets, different wallets, different people, dirty wallets, dirty hands, and this is the outcome. Whereas the one on the right, the one I’m touching right now, looks like a PlayStation 2 low polygon asset. Why is that? Again, just to reiterate, a shade is used to highlight any sort of panel lines, trenches, sort of uh if wrinkles, if it’s a face you’re painting, that sort of thing that may have been covered by your first couple layers of paint when you’re applying your main color.

That is the purpose of a shade. That is the only purpose. And it is incredible at that. It’s also the simplest form of weathering. So, how does the two differ? The shade versus contrast.

Contrast Painting

The difference between the two is that a contrast paint may just save your game night. Imagine you have a game in six hours, and you haven’t painted anything yet. A contrast paint line will save you. I’m being serious. It will save your game night because a contrast paint is both the main color and the wash in the same pot. You’re like, “What? How does that work?”

Basically, they thinned down main colors with a specialized formula and a medium to give it the consistency of a wash, but none of the faded sort of colors that a shade may provide. It is stronger than a shade, but just as thin, and it is genuinely made with main color painting in mind. this can be your main color for your minis, whereas a shade doesn’t have the firepower or the oomph to do that. It just doesn’t. Inversely, is that a word? Um, if you prime or color something black and you apply a contrast paint on top of it, you will reduce the amount of weathering you will need to do because the paints are vibrant yet thin.

The black or the dark colors will carry over like the white will. because of uh the contrast paints thin but vibrant consistency. Early comment, if you look at Games Workshop’s announcement video showcasing this or YouTubers back in like 6 years ago showcasing this paint, a lot of them were like, “Oh, it’s too dark. It’s not as advertised. False advertising. The colors aren’t the same as the bottle.” The reason for that is because you need to use white primer in conjunction. And they didn’t outright say it in the videos, but they showed them using white primer every single time. Even for Peintre de l'armée, if you look at their ads, they have white primed minis. So, to get the most out of contrast paints, to get them as advertised, you need to prime your mini white. This is Skeleton Horde from Citadel. A little bit. Little bit more. Little bit more. There we go. The one on the right we use contrast Skeleton Horde and the one on the left we use Seraphim se c Sepia.

But yes, you can tell the vibrancy differences. Now it doesn’t mean that one is better than the other. Obviously, if you’re just looking for direct panel lining and weathering, you’d go on the left, but on the right, it will save you a bunch of time, and it is vibrant to boot because again, it is both the wash and the main color in one bottle. And that’s its main advantage and I guess weakness as well. You don’t really have a choice if you want to go go for something else, right? Not a a brown wash mixed with an even browner uh pigmentation on the main color, then this may not be for you, right? But overall, it does its job, and it does its job really well. And if you want it as advertised or simple weathering, I’d go contrast.

Ink Painting

For the elephant in the room, what the heck is an ink? Well, let me address it because this is the most stark. An ink is essentially just a runny what main color I guess but it doesn’t have the magical capabilities of it being runny and like a panel liner. It doesn’t have that. It has one job to stain the model. Look how it’s not quite thick, but it’s not quite thin either. Heat. Heat. Beautiful. That looks like an evil brownish red liquid. Yes. It just has one purpose. This is not thin down to to stain the model and it does not discriminate.

Everything will be stained. Everything. It will fundamentally alter the color of the model you’re working on. There we go. The coin is dried. Yes, that is dried essentially. There’s some spots that are wet still but look at it. It looks evil. Like it’s been fished out of a pool of blood and been sitting there for like a day. It’s been fundamentally changed. It doesn’t even look gold anymore. It looks bronze. And that’s the job of an ink. An ink will do that to all uh minis you apply it to. In fact, it’s so strong. Zoom out. That it affected my hand even though it’s acrylic.

Please wear gloves when using inks. But it is a one trick pony unless you thin it down severely with a a glaze medium of sorts. Because again, its job wasn’t just to highlight anything. It recolored everything.

Comparisons

And let’s compare it to its sisters. Look at that. It’s not even close to the same. Oh man. Yeah. Looks evil. Like there’s flesh inside. Compare that to the contrast, which is the most weathered, I would say, but you can tell that it’s still fundamentally the gold coin. And here’s the other one, but this time it’s primed white.

There’s some gunk. Looks like it’s surprisingly dirtier despite despite the vibrancy difference between the two. And then we have the one that we apply the shade to. Just the shade. Probably the best looking one out of the four. because it’s very simple. A shade just has one job, right? As I previously mentioned, it’s all about subtlety if that’s what you’re looking for. But then again, not all people’s looking for that.

If you want to fundamentally change something, here they are looking like actual change in your hands. Here they are side by side one last time.

Paul’s Conclusion

Well, that’s it for me today. Thank you guys so much for watching. I’m having fun with the coins. And if you like that and you you like what you saw and you want to see more, please subscribe. We’re almost at 10K. We exploded the past two to three weeks. We couldn’t believe it. Uh big shout out to our social media um team, Rachel, David, I guess me. Thank you guys so much for liking what we do here and um I guess we’ll throw a party if we hit 10K.

But regardless, also follow us in our other socials. We’re active on all of them. Literally all of them. We even have a Pinterest. So, they’re all down there. And of course, our wonderful website, Real time Inventory. Check us out on there as well. Every single item used in this video will be in the website. Again, it’s real time. It’s incredible. Thank you guys. Have a wonderful day. This is Paul signing out. Bye-bye.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano