Poison Warpaints Beta Testing Review

I was lucky to be able to beta test a new range of paint that has some really good features. There are a couple of photos included from some of my testing. Just remember that all cameras, scanners and computer screens differ a bit when it comes to how colors are handled but it should still give a good reference.

Features of the paint:

• Non-toxic
• Highest quality pigments
• Hybrid acrylic paint (water-based)
• Can be thinned with tap water (soft)
• Perfect color consistency
• Colors do not separate (no shaking required)
• Child-proof screw top
• Dropper bottles minimize contamination and drying out
• Mixable with other brands (GW confirmed, info on others to follow soon)

Specific Colors

• Red 2
• Orange 3
• Yellow 1
• Yellow Green 2
• Yellow Green 3
• Green 3
• Pink 2
• Pink 3
• Pink 4
• Black 1

The Paint

Coverage

I tested the coverage of the supplied colors on both a white and a black surface with the paint as it comes as well as diluted 50/50 with normal tap water.

Over all I’m impressed with the coverage. There are some that have better coverage then others but that’s natural and even the colors that normally has a very hard time, like yellow for an example offered good coverage.
The test package was mostly bright colors and it’s always a very hard task painting those colors on a black surface but I think they worked well. The yellow paint worked surprisingly well over black.

Diluting

I only have normal tap water at my disposal for diluting (we have very high quality tap water where I live) and I had no problems using that in my test. It took very well to being diluted and you got a very nice transparency that, in my opinion, will work very well with the glazing technique.
For testing the more normal use of the paint I painted up a couple of headless Zulu Warriors. The basecoat was painted with undiluted paint and the paint went on more smoothly then I first had anticipated and it still had a nice transparency, not that far from Scale 75’s paints.

Consistency

The paint has a good consistency, not to thick and not to thin. In my test I found it to be a bit thinner then Vallejo Model Color (which is my most used brand) when straight from the bottle.

Finish

When dry the paint has a pretty matte finish. Not as matte as Scale 75’s paint but more matte then Games Workshop’s range.

Strength

Using my super high tech piece of equipment (scratching it with my nails) I tested the two Zulu warriors I painted yesterday and have had the night to cure and it took some effort to remove any paint. It was more or less on the same level as GW and Vallejo which both have a good strength.

It’s definitely strong enough for using on gaming miniatures.

You can see the effect of my scratching on the photo of the Zulu’s further down.

Mixing With Other Brands

As you can see in the description above, mixing with GW has been tried and it works perfectly so I chose to try it with my 2 favorite brands of paint, Vallejo (MC) and Scale 75.
One of my favorite colors in general is Vallejo’s Deck Tan so I tested all the colors using that and Mojave White (Scale 75) which is similar.

After mixing them all and painting each mixed shade on a piece of plastic card I can definitely confirm that the mix with Vallejo MC and S75 without any problems at all and produced a very nice muted shade that I really like.

Other

The paint has a longer working time then GW and Vallejo. If this is a good thing or not probably comes down to personal preferences and what techniques you use. For me, it’s a good thing and I usually add a little retarder medium to my water mix.

Techniques

These tests are quite crude and not overly complicated but should give you a good idea on how they preform.

Dry Brushing & Wash

First of, I’m not good at dry brushing, never have been so this test is very simple. I basecoated the test subjects with “Green 3” and the other one with “Pink 4”. When that layer had dried I started dry brushing them with “Yellow Green 3” and “Pink 3” and then the last step was “Yellow Green 2” and “Pink 2”. I didn’t mix any colors to get a smoother result so once again, it’s a very simple test.

The pink headless Zulu warrior was probably the one that turned out the best but the green Hulk one wasn’t far behind.
As the paint is a little bit thinner then some of the other brands I would recommend that you use some paper to let it absorb a little bit of the extra moisture. Doing that made a big difference on my test miniatures.

I also tried to make a wash for the Hulk Zulu by mixing “Green 3”, “Red 2” and a water mix (tap water and some mediums to help it flow better), the ratio was probably around 1:1:10 (green:red:water mix) and diluting it that much produced no problems and then painted it on the miniature in a pretty large quantity in two layers and then waiting for it to dry.
The result was good and it worked out very well. The finish from the wash was nice and matte.

 

Glazing

I picked 3 of the colors to try glazing with, “Red 2”, “Green 3” and “Pink 2”. I diluted them with 1 part paint and 5 part tap water. I didn’t add any other medium to help make it smoother, which I normally do when painting a miniature.

I applied them on a white basecoat going from 1 layer up to 7. When painting a miniature with this technique you use more then 7 layers (usually at least) but this gives you a good picture on how well the paint works for this technique.

All 3 of the chosen colors worked well with glazing. They all went on smoothly and the pigments added more opaqueness with each layer. I have no reason to think that the other colors would be any different.

If you look at the photo under Coverage you’ll see a quick test at the bottom.

Closing Thoughts

As you can see, reading this review, is that I’m very positive to this paint range. All the features the person who’s making it are spot on and from my tests I can’t find any real downsides with them.

We in this hobby are a bit spoiled with a pretty large number of paint manufacturers, they all have their positive and negative sides but you can pick the best from each range and have a great collection. So the important question is, do we need another range of paints?

For me this is a simple question that I think I would have had a different answer for if you asked me a couple of months ago, Yes! There is definitely room for another range of paints and even more when the quality is as good as this one and if the planned price point for them works out they will be quite a lot cheaper then the other brands.

So I hope this will make it to the market and I would recommend trying it out.

And lastly for us brush lickers, it doesn’t taste that bad

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