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Scale75’s Instant Colors came to my attention as an alternative to Citadel’s Contrast colour range or Army Painter’s Speedpaint range. How does it review?

The set I got was the wooden Mimic Chest which contained the full range:

It’s not terribly space or weight efficient but it does look fancy.

One removable tray with half of the paints, and below that:

A second tray with the other half of the paints, along with three primers (which I have yet to use) and one bottle of acrylic medium. Also inside:

A colour wheel – which I have used far more often than I would have expected. Also included is a palette:

It’s little plastic palette – not much to say there – works as you’d expect. There’s also two synthetic brushes:

I haven’t used the brushes a great deal yet – I have been more focused on the paints.

So, the paints. There’s 48 17ml dropper bottles, not including the 60ml primers or medium:

SIN00 Shadow Black

SIN01 Werewolf Brown

SIN02 Dragon Blood

SIN03 Health Red

SIN04 Love Affair (Carmin Red)

SIN05 Life Red

SIN06 Ragweed Orange

SIN07 Drain Life (Pale Orange)

SIN08 Full Healing (Strong Yellow)

SIN09 Estus Yellow

SIN10 Zucchini Skin (Bluish Green)

SIN11 Dead Flesh (Grayish Brown)

SIN12 Fairy Blood (Dark Grayish Blue)

SIN13 Zombie Skin

SIN14 Phoenix Feather (Brownish Orange)

SIN15 Human Flesh

SIN16 Undead Dragon (Pale Blue)

SIN17 Phoenix Egg (Brownish Ivory)

SIN18 Paralyze Blue

SIN19 Evil Root (Pinky Orange)

SIN20 Toad Green

SIN21 Sulfur Yellow

SIN22 Belladonna Green

SIN23 Corrupted Stamina (Green)

SIN24 Rotten Pus (Mixture of Yellow and Orange)

SIN25 Acid Green

SIN26 Remove Mana (Dark Blue)

SIN27 Arcane Purple

SIN28 Elixir Green

SIN29 Replenish Blue

SIN30 Mana Regeneration (Blue)

SIN31 Magic Blue

SIN32 Grey Spell

SIN33 Ancestral Blue

SIN34 Grizzly Brown

SIN35 Endurance Brown

SIN36 Rage Brown

SIN37 Frenzy Orange

SIN38 Ogre Brown

SIN39 Salmon Fury

SIN40 Wild Beast (Desaturated Orange)

SIN41 Savage Beige

SIN42 Golem Grey

SIN43 Basilisk Green

SIN44 Demon Brown

SIN45 Dark Kraken (Dark Turquoise)

SIN46 Leviathan Blue

SIN47 Spectral Wolf (Reddish Gray)

It’s honestly a pretty good spread of colours, and each of them is individual – you will get a clearly different result between any of the browns or reds, for example. Each comes in a sealed 17ml dropper bottle which you will have to pierce the end of with a small drill bit or similar before use, and they have agitators inside them.

I attempted to use them in a similar way to Citadel’s Contrast range at first – undercoating in a grey with a zenithal highlight of white, then applying Instant paint over the top. The results weren’t really pleasing – getting the Instant paints to look smooth escaped me on the first few attempts, so I changed tact and started using them as pre-made glazes and was convinced of their worth in the first painting session. When combined with the provided acrylic medium to dilute them they’re very controllable and it’s very easy to build up shades – this Stormcast had the gold shaded with diluted Arcane Purple, with several coats in the most shadowed areas which progressively reduced when moving towards the light:

The yellow on this retro Space Marine Flamer was Full Healing to knock back the brightness a little with a couple more diluted layers at the bottom, working towards none at the top. The right kneepad was also done in white and shaded with diluted Paralyze Blue, and Arcane Purple was used to shade the recesses of the eye lens:

Overall I am a huge fan of them when used as pre-made glazes and have been incorporating them into every miniature I paint. I still use Contrast paints when I want punchier colours – the Instant paints I have used so far have tended to be more muted which I like for most applications. I don’t view the Instant range as being an alternative to Contrast, but something good on it’s own.

In terms of value, the Mimic Chest is $430AUD on eBay AU currently which equates to $8.95 per paint, not taking into account the medium or primers. I think that’s good value, considering that Citadel’s Contrast range is $11.50 per 18ml pot, and that’s even when you buy the whole set at once.

Highly recommended as pre-made glazes.