Lasse Ø Sell

I chose to use a mini from my Dungeons and Lasers pile of opportunity, the Mud Golem from Archon Studio. He’s muddy, he’s woody, and he’s got all kinds of worn battlefield loot sticking out of him – so, on the face of it, lots of similarly coloured stuff - browns, greys, greens, so I knew I had to be careful not to make him a brownish blob.  

To achieve the yellowish-brown rotten look of the mud, I used Desert Yellow as my base colour. I then mixed in Ice Yellow for the highlights and Angel Green for the shadows. Finally, I washed the recesses with Oozing Vomit for some added texture and sliminess!  

The roots are painted Fur Brown, highlighted with Topaz Skin and Barbarian Flesh, and then shaded with Oak Brown. The leaves were painted Autumn Sage, highlighted with Rainforest, and actually shaded with Mulled Berry. It may sound weird to shade green with red/violet, but trust me, it works (and also the other way around!).  

I’m quite happy with this mini. I feel that the considerations I made with contrasting colours and shading with paints other than the base tone, really worked to make something visually interesting. Now on to the next 100 minis from that pile... 

Amy Hoa

When choosing the colours for my Abomination from Zombicide by Guillotine Games, I really struggled because the colour range in this set is so diverse, which is a huge compliment! I love the idea that if I wanted to make him really gory and bloody, I could do that, and if I wanted to make him look more subdued in its colours and dirty, the option was there as well. Depending on your experience and creativity in working with the paints, I believe the Mega Paint Set covers a lot of the demands of painters of all skill levels.  

While painting, I was incredibly surprised at how much I could thin down the paints while still maintaining the pigments. For example, I wanted to use a Wash with a more violet tone for my mini, and seeing as the set only contains black and brownish Washes, I decided to make my own by excessively thinning down Mulled Berry, and it worked like a charm. You can really tell that the new range is super-rich in pigments, and because of that, it made me think that these 18ml bottles would last me a whole lot longer than usual. Compared to the previous formula, where I felt like I had to work the paints more to achieve good coverage and application, but with Warpaints Fanatic, it’s a breeze with no extra work. I love how the consistency feels and that you have a lot more control over the paint. This was a great first-time experience, and Warpaints Fanatic will definitely be my go-to from now on. 

Also, I’m a huge fan of the station that comes with the set; it’s compact and small but very handy for storing the paints. 

Thomas Coltau

As much as I love the ease of using the triad system in Warpaints Fanatic, I also like how easy they are to mix. I am currently contemplating starting a Death Guard army for Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop, and I had an extra Plague Marine to spare and really wanted to use it for this challenge. Even though you don’t get access to any of the complete triads in the Mega Set, you do have access to 50 of the best paints from the Fanatic range, and with a bit of mixing, you’ll be able to get almost any result you’re looking for with this. 

For the armour of the Plague Marine, I went for a rather classic Death Guard colour by using Angel Green as the darkest tone, and then blending it up to Army Green and finally Ice Yellow, then finishing it with a glaze of Desert Yellow. The glaze brings some warmth to the armour, which helps the desaturated colours on the rest of the model. I used Fresh Rust on the armour and metallic parts as well and then used True Blood on the horns and fleshy parts to get a proper contrast between the armour and organic bits. For the trim, I would typically use a darker copper colour, but the Mega Set offers you Weapon Bronze, and when I gave it a wash of Strong Skin Shade and then Abyssal Blue, I got a lovely metallic trim that fit really well in between the green armour, red cloth, and rusty weathering. I love how the wet and gory True Blood contrasts so much with the super matt and dry rust effects. It’s really easy to create some really striking paint jobs with just this one set. 

Tyler Mengel

As an avid fan of all things undead, even within the far future, I knew I had to paint up a Necron from Warhammer 40,000 by Games Workshop. They've been a favourite of mine for a while, and I actually have a full army of them, but in a custom silver scheme. For this mini, I decided to tackle the new studio scheme for the army with the bronze of the Szerakhan.  

The Mega Paint Set comes with Weapon Bronze, perfect for most of their bodies. To get the lighter metal on the face and shoulders, I made a mix of Plate Mail Metal and Weapon Bronze, which was also used as a highlight on the darker bronze! I also used a selection of the washes, with the Strong Skin Shade used on the darker bronze and the Soft Tone used on the lighter metallics. Soft Tone is quickly becoming a favourite of mine for several different recipes.  

I think the most fun part of this mini was painting the glowing green bits. In the past, I've used techniques such as Speedpaint overtop Matt White, but on this mini, I wanted to go a more traditional route. I basecoated it with Angel Green and then layered it up with Greenskin and Rainforest as the main bright colour before finishing with a small dot of Ice Yellow. The Vibrant Greens really are something else, and Rainforest is perfect. I really love how much versatility I got out of the Mega Paint Set for an all-metallic scheme, especially considering there are 3 metallics included. With a bit of mixing, you can fill in any gaps in your scheme.