Quick Citadel Mephiston Red Spray Review

by | Sep 12, 2013

Thought I'd do a quick review of the new citadel sprays (in-between the rain, I live in Nottingham...). Specifically Mephiston Red. I used the Blood Red spray back-in-the-day and remember it not being very good, so I was very curious about this new attempt by GW.

Ease of Use
If you know how to use the Citadel undercoat sprays you should be right at home with these new colour sprays. Just remember to undercoat your model first! Very light coats is a must, otherwise you'll either get obscured detail or a powder-like coating. You can usually get away with heavy coats with the black, but this red spray is very unforgiving (like white) - I'm having to strip a few models from my first attempt...

Coverage
The true test of a sprays capabilities (in my opinion) is BFG ships - it just has so many nooks and crannies to get into!


Pretty good! A few bits I need to touch up but a fairly even coating overall. Here's another model sprayed with plenty of detail:


This one has come out a little thick. You really have to spray this stuff on lightly! Hey, its all good experience for when I use this stuff for proper models (don't worry, that model was a spare). Coverage isn't a problem though.

Colour Match
Maybe the most important question is does the spray match the paint colour? 


The model was sprayed, then the right hand-side painted with Mephiston Red. It's probably hard to see on this photo but there is only a slight difference in shade. Mostly, its the fact the paint is more glossy, which most people will wash over anyway.

Economy
A 400ml can of spray costs £10, a 12ml pot of paint costs £2.40. You would think the pure maths of the matter would sway heavily in the favour of the spray can, but remember most of that 400ml is probably propellant and the very act of using a spray can is very wasteful. I sprayed a battleship, 2 capital ships, 3 escorts and that marine with about 1/4 of a can I reckon. For saying that the battleship is the size of most tanks (and I put way too much spray on my models) it's not bad. Would I have used a pot of paint (the same cost at 1/4 can)? Probably not.

Conclusion
In my opinion the new sprays (or the red I've tested anyhow) are a very good basecoat (not undercoat). It's infinitely quicker to spray models than basecoat them by hand. But they should be used as a basecoat and washed or painted over. The finish looks a bit too matt, especially in comparison with the regular GW paints. I think I still need some practice with them as they also seem to go on too thick - maybe GW really wanted them to colour match the base paints and piled up the pigment. Advice to myself from this test: lighter dustings from further away.

Darth Meer