Being one of the slackest base painters around I truly hated doing them, messing around with sand, bits always fall off, painting sand is also a pain that many will know very well.
Because of this the idea of a pre-made base textured paint was definitely something I was interested in, so I picked up 3 of them to try:
Astrogranite
Mourn Mountain Snow
Stirland Mud
3 more are also available in yellow to look like sand, green to be like grassy undergrowth and an orangy coloured one to be, well, I’m not sure what that’s meant to be.
Overall the new texture paints are excellent with each being essentially identical just different colours. They go on nice and easy, spread very well across the base, clump if you want them to and don’t if well, you don’t. Drying time is just slightly longer than normal paint though does take longer if you make the paint thicker as expected.
So first up is the off white snow paint, now I was told in the GW store that it has a hint of blue in there, I’m not 100% sure if this is true or not. Now the paint is certainly not pure white though I found when using it that I was not happy with only the Mourn Mountain snow and nothing else on the base, it needed more. So I tried a drybrush of good old skull white over the top, this did look more like snow however still not quite right. So following that I added a wash of blue wash over the top, this was quite dark so I did have to be careful to get any large blobs back onto the brush.
Just the paint, straight out of the pot with nothing done to it.
Once dry, I did a heavy drybrush this time of skull white again over the top, resulting in what I think looks more like snow with some underlying ice and I’m quite happy with the result. What is most important here though is how easy it was to do, how quick it was to do, that I didn’t even have to open my sand or PVA glue pot or that I had to mess around with flock yet still ended up with a decent snow base (or at least I think it looks decent enough).
Next is the Stirland Mud, which as expected looks like mud, no shocks there then you will be delighted to know. It goes on, looking like mud should look if it had been raining (or chocolate I guess) and dries to look how mud would look if it had been sunny afterwards and dried, only without the cracks. As with the snow however this was not enough, it needs a drybrush of a lighter colour as well on the top to make the mud grit pop. This time around I made my drybrush with graveyard earth but unfortunately this is too dark, did not work at all, onto the commando khaki and that worked much better, the final result below.
Finally and probably my least favorite was Astrogranite, the grey paint which I guess is meant to be like a road or path. Don’t get me wrong it does look like a road/path however its just, well that surface is quite boring to begin with and this paint doesn’t change that. Keeping with the theme, it does need a lighter colour drybrush to make it pop so I used the now old space wolves grey and this worked fine as expected yet not quite right for a road. Into the washes I delved and pulled out my faithful pot of black wash, a quick light washing over the top and it was complete to a standard I’m fairly happy with.
One additional thing to touch on is the paint pots themselves, they now have an excellent little back hinge that holds the pot open exactly right, enough that it opens to use it but at the same time enough to not drip back on its self if you are using a runny paint like layer paint (not an issue with the texture paints, they are extremely thick).
One additional thing to touch on is the paint pots themselves, they now have an excellent little back hinge that holds the pot open exactly right, enough that it opens to use it but at the same time enough to not drip back on its self if you are using a runny paint like layer paint (not an issue with the texture paints, they are extremely thick).
In conclusion I love these new paints, this is easily the most useful hobby item that Games Workshop have released since the humble clippers. If you are one of those people that hate painting/sanding/gluing bases and that horrible flock then I wholeheartedly recommend this product to your good self.