ToP Tip: Visual comparison of all 61 Contrast, 23 Xpress Colors, 89 Speedpaints & 36 Dipping Inks

In this updated post, you will find all my hand-painted and professionally photographed paint swatches for all 61 old & new Citadel Contrast paints, 24 Dipping Inks by Green Stuff World, Speedpaints 2.0 by The Army Painter, and now also all 23 Xpress Colors from Vallejo. This should make it easy to find the perfect “one coat” colour for your next project.

I heard you all love bunches of plasticard filled with a variety of coloured squares, so here they are. All four comparison sheets shown were painted under the same conditions on white primed plasticard and professionally photographed under neutral 5500K light. Thus all colour swatches are comparable with each other. You can find out how I do my colour sheets in this post.

Comparison of all 61 old & new Contrast colours

I also made a video with more painted examples:

Vallejo Xpress Color review & comparison

Vallejo just recently entered the one coat game just recently with their Xpress Color range, which comprises 23 colours plus Xpress Color medium:

I found Vallejo’s Xpress Colors to be quite nice, a direct comparison to their Citadel counterparts can be found in this video:

Comparison of the original 24 Dipping Inks from Green Stuff World

Since I reviewed the original 24 Dipping Inks, Green Stuff World expanded its range with 12 additional colours which you can find in the graphic below (it also seems that they renamed Black Shadow to Green Stone dip based on the product number). Green Stuff World also changed the graphics on their website for hand-painted examples which should match their real-life appearance better.

I also made a comparison video with a few more thoughts about Dipping Inks, check it out here:

Comparison of Speedpaints 2.0 from The Army Painter

And here is the sheet for The Army Painter’s Speedpaints, which I just recently updated to cover all 89 colours of the Speedpaint 2.0 range.

While I wasn’t a big fan of the original formula, I’m warming up to Speedpaint 2.0 and use them more and more often, as the range offers so much choice. Check out my in-depth review in this video:

All “one coat” paints on one sheet

For those that prefer to have a single paint swatch, I compiled all of the paint swatches above into a single super high-res graphic. It’s sorted by colours so you can compare various brands even more easily. As the file size is over 6 Mb, it’s too big to share here, that’s why you can find the graphic (as well as many exclusive masterclass PDF tutorials and other hobby guides) on my Patreon for a small donation. I also made a second graphic with a list of my favourite one coat paints for those who are overwhelmed by all the choice.

All of my “one coat” paint reviews:

If you want to learn more about the features and differences of the individual paint ranges, I recommend you read my detailed reviews:

I have also reviewed the Instant Colors from Scale 75, although I have not yet created a comparison chart for them:

My favourite “one coat” range

Question remains, which is my favourite range of all? I still prefer Contrast, as they are the most richly pigmented paints, and have a good selection of colours. Xpress Colors are a close second, but I also use the few unique Dipping Ink colours you can’t find in the Contrast range. I wasn’t a fan of the original Speedpaint’s reactivation, but now that the 2.0 formula made the paints more stable, I can definitely see using them more often. Instant Colors are the most different from all the others as they use opaque pigments, you can create some nice effects with them but I’ll only use them rarely.

If I’d have to make a tier list of all one coat paints currently on the market, it would look like this:

I hope this post can be a valuable resource to you, so let me know in the comments if this was helpful and/or leave a reaction. Also, find us on our Discord server if you want to discuss Contrast and “one coat” paints. Thanks for reading!