Alternate approach: At the end of a game, while you're waiting for another, pick out your MVP model from each match and edge highlight it. Think of it like an award ceremony. Give it a name and write it on the base. Add little motifs for each MVP award. Build the stories of your army as you paint in more detail.
Doing this since the 90's. To me this was the way to show a trooper had actually accomplished something and deserved extra treatment. Extra knee badge here, kill slashes there, Mortus something something written here or there, etc.
I’ve been thinking about doing something similar with my new World Eaters: give them skulls and bloodied weapons effects for each veteran, sergeant (or above), or character model killed in combat (or add a skull to the base of Kharn, Angron, etc.)
Been doing this for a couple years, but i called it "en grisaille" . 1. Prime black 2. Zenithal highlight with light grey 3. Nuln oil (To bring shadows that even if its pointing up, it should have shadows EG : shoulders) 4. Dry brush with pure white 5. Contrast 6. Then add a few layers of highlights if needed Great video, btw. Glad you showing people this kind of technics, and removing fear from them to try new approachs
@@jaanikaapa6925 Zenithal highlighting is a fairly recent development, at least with gaming mini painters. To use the technique you also MUST have both a reasonably transparent paint (or one which will draw away from a model's recesses), & the zenithal technique... if you have both those tools in your portfolio then yeah, 'slap chop' is fairly obvious, but if you miss one then it's not (or you bemoan that you end up painting over your zenithal...). So maybe not 200 years, but obvious development given knowledge of zenithal highlighting & access to paint with transparency.
Having (successfully) tested the slapchop method myself a while back, I cannot stress how important are the small pure white highlights done with the brush after the overall drybrush in the prep stages. They make a LOT of difference, and make the inks/Constrast paint perform so much better. And the best part of it, is that is a layering that you don't even need to be really careful about doing carefully, you just slap it on the areas you think will stand out more, and you're done!
I have never bought a model in my life. I've never even put one together despite being gifted some in the past mostly because I know I don't have the patience for painting. Seeing the speed and effectiveness in this video made me completely reconsider
The advantage of Slap Chop is it gets your models from grey to tabletop ready, quickly. I myself have used the method to get a unit of Kruleboy Gutrippas to an adequate standard in only a couple days. But, as with all painting techniques, it can also be layered upon. The paint job pushed even further when you have the time and energy to do so. The model is done when you say it's done, and there are many levels of "done" a model can be.
i agree, slap chop is ment to be fast, and anything added to it should have noticable benefits while taking a minimum amount of time to be worth it, otherwise the method looses its value for its purpose. personally i add one step to it, i add a tiny bit of white to each of the contrast paints left on the pallete, and use the brighter colour to highligt a few key exposed area's. the contrast medium in the contrast paint makes the highlight semi transparent, and slightly runny, while the thicker consistency of the paint with added undiluted white means it will be less runny than pure contrast. its not quite as bright as a real highlight, but it does create a nice smooth gradient to the highlights done, and only adds one or two minutes of work to each mini.
I've been slapping & chopping over coloured zenithal primes for years. It's my secret to success - only difference is for my dark first primer I go for a contrasting colour, rather than a complementary one. So for orange armour I might have primed blue, green or purple, then zenithal with a pale warm colour like yellow or off-white. Gives you maximum popping contrast and super interesting rich, contrasting shadows.
This feels VERY similar to the methods Marco has been using on the NJM youtube channel for a few years. Hes shown many interesting combos of; zenithal, translucent coats with inks/contrast paints, oil washes, and pastel highlights. And speed he can churn out high quality sets of models is nuts
It's good to give it a name whether it's brand new or not. You can tell people, "so you're going to want to airbrush or rattle-can a zenithal highlight -- that's from above. I don't know why it's called zenithal. Greek, maybe? Oh, it's from zenith. Anyway, you're setting a basic highlight--" etc. OR you can say "slapchop, UA-cam, go."
@@thatdarnsatan not when they are taking credit for the method when they didn't create it. plus how hard is it to read what zenithal highlight is? takes 60 seconds
I don't get how everyone below seems to be missing the key point. This isn't just zenithal and contrast. The whole idea of this is that you're using light gray for the zenithal instead of white, and then dry brushing highlights over that before adding the contrast. I know it might not feel revolutionary, but we're talking about putting paint onto miniatures. It's pretty simple stuff that we've mostly figured out, and we're not going to be seeing any scientific breakthrough that completely changes the way we do things, so even a small advancement is noteworthy. Even if it's just rearranging steps we already use.
Hey Jon, Just wanted to say thank you and I love your content! I was out of the painting hobby for about 6 years (I was far to critical to my mediocre paintjob, had no fun anymore). Saw your videos last week through my youtube feed and I have been so motiveted by your content I have done nothing but painting, watching your vids en listening to your podcast while painting. Keep doing what you are doing. You really make a difference, you are very clear, enthousiase, motivate and make things seem posible to do yourself. Sooo.. to end a far to long comment: Thank you!
Strictly from an experimental standpoint I'd be curious to see the "warm" undertone dwarf compared to a cool or neutral undertone. Just to see what amount of change in color temp.
The first time I saw a video about Slapchop inspired me to actually paint some of my own miniatures for the first time instead of just admiring other people's work. It always seemed too overwhelming before, but this method is a great entry point for learning the basics and actually completing some minis instead of having them in perpetual "needs more work" limbo.
learning just how incredible contrast paints are through an airbrush made me start on the road towards this style. it comes together really quickly, makes you think about a lot more than base/wash/highlight, and it's very easy to weather. big fan.
Just getting back into 40k and decided to strip and repaint my whole army. This video got me hyped to try a new paint style and I just wanted to thank you for your easy and helpful videos!
This is not too dissimilar from my process that I use when painting with Army Painter Speedpaints, I'll have to add the dry brushing step to my process and see what the results look like! Thank you Jon for having such an open minded approach to the hobby and not being afraid to experiment and share new techniques with us. Also much love for the shout out to us D&D painter nerds!
Honestly awesome how much your channel has progressed, Jon. You’ve become by far one of my all time favourite mini painting channels. Even when I know I’m not going to use the majority of things in a video, I watch it anyway. Great work mate 🙌👍
Great video! I feel like this is super similar to the speed painting method Sorastro recommended in the LOTR orcs and goblins and bandits video years ago. Dana Howl is also a big fan of this underpainting method and has some great demonstration videos. It's cool that the 40k community is finally catching on to speed painting over a zenithal + drybrush, but if you want to pay some dues, those are some folks to check out.
I painted my whole Tau army slapchop and didn't even know. Used shades instead of contrasts and made osl instead of edge highlight since the shades toned the vibrancy down by a lot. Its quite amazing how fast you can paint like this and finish an army in a day
The thing that I find most interesting about the slapchop method is that it's almost identical to the technique that I used when I first started painting 15 years ago (though I do want to try the new and improved version of the technique at some point). Prime black, drybrush over that with white, then paint over that with the colors I was going to use anyways. I've long since moved to a different technique (zenithal highlighting with using paint triads to set up the shadow/midtone/highlight), but I think it would be fun to go back to a tried and true technique that is a step further than what I cut my teeth on (with a paint that fits the technique to a T).
What I like is once I got my models to a battle ready standard abd get some games in with them, I'd constantly go back to units I use more often and give them some more love. Maybe some better highlights, some weathering and damage effects. Maybe up the base a bit. Making the whole process more fun, since you don't have to do all the work the first time around and it also feels like an upgrade or a lvl up for your units that you enjoy the most.
I am one of those people who never gets around to painting their models due to the time involved (I’m a busy person!) but this method is so quick I’ll definitely be giving it a go. Thanks for making such a fun and informative video.
Slapchop 1.0 would work very well with speedpaints. If you do not want to mess with the extra highlights the "reactivation" challenge is eliminated. Apparently, a little Matt varnish or contrast medium eliminates thr problem too
I do similar to this and Dana Howl’s underpainting, without an airbrush. It gets a good base to play with glazes and mix of colors in the wet palette with medium (I don’t use contrast). Nice video!
To me the hobby is all about painting something that is fun. Taking the time needed. I’ve seen a lot of speed painting techniques and I guess they have their uses if you actually play. I just paint for the fun of it. Good content as always Ninjon!
as a beginner for this hobby with nearly to none experience in painting miniatures, this video is my personal holy grail of tips and tricks to get better at painting fast. thanks for the time invested in making this, very much appreciated
I feel like you could use 1.0 on the average schmucks in the army, then 2.0 it up for the characters. Still uses all the same paints, so it's a cohesive scheme, but you spend a little more time punching up the contrast on the special ones.
i was using a very similar technique back around 3rd edition 40k. there was no airbrush used and i didnt have any fancy names for it. we also didnt have any of the fancy paints of today, so it was watered down paints and washes. but its how i painted my dwarf warband for mordheim, and i really dont care if ppl believe that or not. was something new i tried, as my army was iron warriors...that was just chaos black, dry brush boltgun metal and burnished gold for the trim. i have terrible eyesight so couldnt do any of the finer details, which was one of the reason why i chose them...was purely the ease of the colour scheme at the time. once i started learning the rules and stuff i relised how much i loved playing them.
Good stuff Jon. Recently did a WW2 German army with zenithal, transparant field grey overall, detailing with one coat of contrast/acrylic, streaking grime and cleanup, highlight the faces, finish the bases with mud putty and snow putty. Very quick yet very striking effect.
I started painting again in 2020 after about 20 years, I use a grey primer and white drybrush, contrast or base coat then a wash, then a light drybrush and then highlights if it needs it. Most of the time this works well and can finish a lbout 2 or 3 models in a couple of hours
@@Winterydee Thnx for the info. I was too young to remember specific GI Joe references. Must've been 4 or 5 when I watched that cartoon. I still have one action figure somewhere, the one with the parachute.
@@Transfixed I think it was a misinterpretation of a shoebox with an ad for starving children with missing toes. You could only find em at Speners and only with a $200 purchase.
Thanks for the quick and easy to understand tutorial. Got six miniatures to paint this weekend. I was about to buy a set of Contrast paints and got laid off right before I pulled the trigger. I’ll see what I can do with thinned down Vallejo paints instead. Good luck me. Keep up the good work. Love what you do.
Dude, another masterclass. You're damn right when you mean that's not because you fast paint that you don't have time to highlight. I mean for me the most PITA (pain where you know it) is to assemble the minis and base coating them. What I want to say is another great video. I will try this on my ork army and maybe on my scarab occult. But I will do this with metalic paint: Black primer, then lead belcher dry brush, then necron compond or stormhost silver and then white. Last Akhelian green contrast paint.
What contrast paint was used on the pants and leather!? I can't seem to find the color and I don't think it was shown on screen. Any help would be great, thanks!
Slap Chop 2.0 is exactly what I’ve been doing for a while as my noob painting technique has evolved. I love the quick and easy base coat that this style gives you from the modified zenithal prime layer to a base coat of sloppy Contrast paints. It preserves the value sketch of the undercoat allowing you to then do finishing touches and true metallic components to achieve tabletop+ ready results in a relatively short amount of time. The efficiency of it makes my ADHD engineer brain sing! Thanks for trying this method out Jon and improving upon it!
I saw this technique (or one very similar) on another channel but they did not use the "Slap Chop" name. I used it on a handful of minis from Battletech and am very happy with the results. Thanks for your video expanding on this idea for making things fairly quick and easy.
now do it in oils and you get a less grainy result that is even quicker with auto blending :D that would be james wappel approach. Downside would be the drying time. Awesome video as always sir
Great video, thanks foe sharing. This was exactly what i was looking to achievevwhen i ordered a whole new translucent paint set up. I'm a very slow painter, so i love the idea of very fast undercoat/midtones, but i dont really like the muted watery finish of pure contrast/speedpaint. Highlight edging post-contrast looks ace as you did it, and definitely worth it imo. 👍
I love that you took an awesome idea for quick painting and expanded upon it! I also appreciate that you didn't say that your way is better, just that you are expanding on it which is true. Both systems of Slappage are great but yours does add that quick detail while not adding too much time. Thanks so much for the video, I will certainly be adding this in for the 6 armies I havent finished yet :P
I may show my age in this post, but gamers were doing this style in the late 80's and early 90's. They would generally use inks. Also, maybe 20 years ago GW published this in How to paint Citadel Miniatures. A Eldar Guardian was used, if I remember correctly.
This has been happening in this hobby for years. A while back they tried rebranding "blacklining" as well. It's kinda interesting to see techniques used in scale modeling for decades eek their way to the miniature space as some newfangled technique.
I think this is a great technique simply because it still varies so much based on brush skill and color choices. I think this technique can take me (and many others in the beginner to average group) a great deal of the way through my/our painting journey of becoming better at mini painting.
10:50 this is a 100% TRUE! I challenged myself to edge highlight 18 of my minis in a month. It was hell and I dont want to see another edge of a space marine but what Jon said is true... it did improve my brush control A LOT! I started edge highlighting one mini and it took me around an hour. Now it takes me 25 mins. It's insane how our muscle memory memorizes all the edges and starts to pick up accuracy and contorl!
I looked at a Marcos video and while the goal is similar, he airbrushed and carefully painted the undercoat. The Slap Shop I’ve learned is to drybrush twice (one grey and one ligher white) with a makeup brush all over the model for seconds. I would say that the tools used and time spent is quite a quite difference.
Didn't realize this had a name but I've been doing this over the last month for my MCP minis over the last month. Its frankly awesome, they are simple unlike GW with excessive detail. Even being a slow painter taking tons of breaks I typically finish 1 model a night after putting the kids to bed. Sometimes more, In the last 2 weeks I have finished 12 models including building, priming and varnishing. Its frankly amazing the quality you get for the amount of work put it.
I enjoy the video, but would really love to see this done without an airbrush. I feel many of us don't have airbrushed. Vincent Venturela did something similar with just drybrushing, and would be curious how you would approach it without an airbrush
I don't have an airbrush, & really rarely even use spray cans. Basically just replace all the zenithal applications with drybrushing or a wet overbrushing. You'll struggle to replicate a true zenithal effect, but you can get close by restricting how you apply the dry brush coats (focus more on the head, less on the feet). That's really just it. The part that actually matters is applying a paint coat that will show what's under it.
Rob's original Slap Chop video is all drybrushing. Really the grey step was more an overbrush, but no airbrush needed. That said, some large GW models or big boxes cost more than a simple airbrush set.
@@kaz9357 Everyone's situation is different, so whatever works for you. Painted is best, however you her there. Honestly unless it's a space marine and you want that super smooth shading, the drybrushing undercoat probably looks best for slap chop anyway. Before slap chop came out I tried something similar with a much more complicated undercoat moving up between more shades of grey alternating between airbrush and drybrush and honestly it was a waste of time when bright grey then white dry brush gave the same or better results
Another excellent video. These methods have been in use in Historical Miniatures wargaming for half a century! (Though, sketching - as the priming is known - in fine art for five centuries.) Knew a fellow that used that technique to paint both a 15mm and a 25mm Aztec army and a 25mm Viking army and another fellow that used similar to do a 15mm Landsknecht and 28mm Vikings ( all these armies were seversl hindred figures each). Also, there was a fellow named Jim Cooper (deceased) that painted literally thousands of 15mm Miniature Figurines Super Detail Detail Napoleonics - beautiful French, British and Prussian 1815 armies! It was very popular in the mid-late 1970's until, well, now with (old) 25/28mm Napoleonic gamers (especially those that would finish their armies in an "unfashionably shiny" gloss finish/varnish. That style of painting gas been arpund forever - though not in a pre-mix fashion like Contrast, et al. 👍🎅👍
It's a great method for painting minis quickly! But yeah, he didn't introduce this to the world of miniature painting. Many of us have been doing this for years and years.
@@bathtubanarchy no, i think he must've been scrolling through Twitter looking at pictures of Sea Monkeys... that's usually where I get my inspiration from.
I think the catchy name Slapchop is a genuinely substantial contribution. It makes it really memorable for new painters like me. When I’m overwhelmed by fancy techniques just reach for Slapchop.
Drybrush all over the model for a few second and then using transparent paints? Slap Chop is actually the first time I’ve seen people paint that way. I’ve seen alot of people zenithal spray and/or carefully paint an greyscale undercoat with a normal brush.
This is basically how I've been painting my T'au for the past 3 years - base coat of Army Painter Chaos red, dry brush tawny pink up to white edge highlights, do the lenses and then done.
I've also had great luck going over a contrast paint with a wash. Black base coat, white zenith highlighting, plaguebearer flesh, and then biel tan green makes a fantastic vibrant ork skin tone, for instance.
Thats a great method to get stuff done fast but for me its not really something new or worth the hype? Sure, its great to teach and spread the concept of it. But I would not go that far and say that its the future or anything. Great video as always though! I always enjoy your content a lot. You really gave me back the passion for this hobby, after my own personal burnout after painting commissions only for two years without a break. Thanks man!
I'd agree with this sentiment. Zenithal basecoat isn't really anything new, whether by spray or by airbrush, and neither is painting a model using only contrast paints. I wouldn't necessary say that drybrushing a zenithal coated model with white or using a light gray at first to be a groundbreaking new technique.. But it is a handy tutorial nonetheless. :)
Even with non miniatures, nailing the shading with the prime coat shading is the best to really set up any sort of complex paint job without all the hassle of mixing the tones later and not mess up the color chemistry too much. Fantastic advice, 2.0 looks so clean!
Yup. This was pretty much THE way to quickly paint minis in the late 90s. Mosty drybrushing on heavy grey and a light white, then watered down colors on top. EZPZ.
None of the methods that miniature UA-camrs present in their tutorials are new. They’ve all been done decades ago by others, often scale model builders. Or in many cases by canvas painters hundreds of years ago. That’s not really relevant though, they’re introducing these techniques to a new audience, and if they give them a catchier name in the process, that can only be a good thing! It’s all about the presentation and helping people have more fun while becoming better painters.
The biggest improvement you can make for the slapchop method, particularly painting on large, flat panels is to use contrast medium. Mix it 3:1 or 4:1 of medium to contrast paint and it will eliminate that highly variable pooling and give you much more control over the intensity of the colour.
'Slap-Chop' is really just an ex-post-facto name for something that people have been doing since day 1 with zenithal highlights + contrast paint. Hell, it's what I've been doing or trying to do since getting back in the hobby over the last year. Nothing new other than the term. My own thoughts on how to vary the process: 1. for the initial undercoat, use multiple colors. Either apply with brush or spray, create an initial zenithal effect. Simply paint top half 1 color, bottom half another. If you want to get fancy try to keep the bottom more in the shadows. 2. if you're feeling extra lazy, don't bother with the double-layered zenithal, & either do just a single spray or drybrush zenithal. As usual with a drybrush zenithal, don't sweat making it a true zenithal vs just creating a light/dark contrast between raised areas & recesses 3. swap out the white drybrush with another super-bright tone, in order to influence the temperature of the color scheme. Disclaimer: I've only played with yellow & off whites here, & the results have been minimally impressive. For maximum effect would probably need to play with reds, blues, or greens 4. bringing 1 & 2 together... this is how to get yourself away from the bright-primary-GW style color scheme; as both those modifications will dull down your mini to a grittier style. 5. in the interest of f*** GW, use alternatives to contrast paints. Obviously AP speedpaints come to mind... but also artist inks... & my personal favorite -> mix up glazing & heavy matte gel medium in your palette & water it down to taste. Creates distinctive mottled paint coat, not perfect for everything but gives you a lot of free texture & a sorta-painterly look. Basically anything that gives you either transparency &/or reliably pools on raised areas will work here... you just need to not cover over the initial zenithals. 6. Continue the slapping & slap on some wash. More grimdark, more contrast between raised area & shadows. Single extra, very quick step.
I’ve been playing with adding black tamiya panel liner to the under coat to make deep shadows and more extreme contrast. Sometimes layering transparent inks with the airbrush.
I would say a part the ”slapchop” is how you apply the undercoat. Instead of spraying a zenithal from above or paint on an greyscale undercoat with a normal brush; slapchop is just a few seconds of drybrush grey then white with a makeup style drybrush.
@@vinterbjork4128 "slapchop is just a few seconds of drybrush grey then white with a makeup style drybrush." That's pretty much how anyone is going to apply a zenithal sans spray cans or airbrush though.... folks know you need it thin so drybrushing is the obvious way to go, & folks know to use makeup brushes for dry-brushing purposes. It's still just giving a new fancy name to the most obvious way to do a zenithal with a brush. Using a non-makeup brush to apply a non-drybrush zentihal-like 2-tone undercoat frankly seems to me to be the less obvious & more novel method. And, to be blunt, as someone who has tried that... it is not really a slow process. You're just *slapping* 2 colors onto your models in quick succession. Drybrushing is really only faster since you save on drying time. Actually applying the paint might even be faster & certainly is easier, since you don't have to monitor how much pressure you are applying as with a drybrush.
I've been doing this for years, sketch style underpainting. Though I do have a step 3.5 that is going back and doing a recess shade with a wash to bring out the contrast even higher. This is before Contrast paint came out so I was using glazes as a step 4.
It’s very strange to see the painting method my friends and I used in high school (15 years ago or so) being touted as a new “invention”. It’s not even new to the youtuber circle, as you’ll find videos from Dana Howl and Vince Venturella on the subject dating back years.
I’ve litterly seen noone call this a new invention. What sets slap chop apart from what I personally has seen before is the application of the undercoat. The ones I’ve seen before uses zenithal sprays or painting the preshade with a normal brush, then often adding nuln oil and highlight. The slapchop I’ve seen has been a few seconds of drybrush grey, white and the a single layer of semi-transparent paint (Usually Contrast or Speedpaint).
Yes, but achieving it through a very quick drybrush with a makeup-style brush instead of a zenithal spray or applying the Grisaille by hand with a normal brush.
Talking about experimentation. I learned how to do a real nice looking, speed painting gold. I use a silver as the under coat, slap over the Sand Golem speed paint. You could call it done there but highligthing with Ice Yellow does the diference and it really doesn't take time. Specially if you do it with a drybrush like me. But hey Jon I get it. I might be a master of the clean drybrush, but now I need to master the fast edge highligts the Ferra... Red Bull edge highlights!
There is a lot of insecurity in this hobby due to feeling like classical painters look down on us, which they obviously don't. It also comes from the fact that a lot of hobbyists and UA-camrs have no understanding of classical techniques and terminology.
I must've missed the part where they claimed to have invented a new technique. All I see are folks showing others some techniques that work for them, nothing wrong with that.
The big difference with slapchop is the way and with what speed the preshade is applied. There is no Zenithal spray or carefully painting an preshadow. It’s seconds of drybrushing with a makeup style brush. I see no problem with having different names to differentiate different ways of applying preshade. And no, ”they” did not pretend to invent it at all, quite the opposit actually.
The slap chop method has been around for a very long time. Slap Chop is how I painted my first BattleTech miniatures in 1994, but we used watered down paint and layered washes.
I'd been speed painting WW2 models with this technique since 2004. Black and white priming is done with rattlecans. No need for contrast paints, just thin down your base colors with a good medium to prevent separation.
I've seen this Votann minis unpainted, and thought "great minis". Then I saw some of the paintjobs on them, and thought "eee... nope". This is the first Votann mini painted I really enjoy. (I saw your previous video - like the paintjob, but that was only about the paintjob, not the mini AND painjob together).
I’ve personally never seen just a quick two drybrush application of grisaille under semi-transparent paint (Contrast/Speedpaint) before. Only seen more complex ways to do it, so I’m happy to have found it.
I did the same when painting Recruitment Box. 10 Necron Warriors in assembly line style. But Royal Warden took some more time. I did however went - prime grey, airbrush brass, and airbrush Purple Contrast from below - in a form of "inverted zenithal". It lays great shadows in slightly different manner than zenithal. I love this technique :)
Beside it being a classical technique, there having been mini painting channels displaying it several time over the last 3 years, but wow somebody borrowed a funny name for it and revived a meme 13 years old so let's ALL make videos about it. yawn.
I’ve actually not seen it being applied with just two greyscale drybrushes before. I’ve seen alot of zenithal sprays, shades or carefully painting the grisaille with a normal brush. If it took a ”silly” name for me to learn this technique of applying the undercoat, I’m happy.
@@vinterbjork4128 how you apply the grey is but a mere detail and doesn't warrant a video about it. THG making a video about it to inform tournament players who don't watch painting channels isn't the issue. It's the painting channel jumping the band wagon now that is.
I really love your additional highlight step on the dwarf, is sooooo much better compared to the space marine, for a 100% reasonable amount of time I'd say (gonna take more on me since I'm new to paiting, but still worth it). I will try this very tecnique on my next army, thanks so much!
This is crazy! I've been out of the game since 2005 and just pulled my old BA army out to paint up. After adding some primaris units, I'm ready to paint and have been so stuck on what to do after watching countless videos. Think I am going to try this and see how it goes, amazing video as always!
Some time ago I did an experiment. I bought miniatures on eBay which most people would consider to be a bad paint job. But I bought them on purpose, because I was more looking on unfinished paint jobs instead of bad ones. I only applied oil wash and a bit of highlighting on these miniatures and at the end the oil wash made them look like professional painted models. For people who are experienced but have no time, and just want some stuff for killteam or something like that, this method is really great and is even faster and cheaper than just speed painting. Also my personal Tipp: paint the highlights first before you apply the oil wash. You can then wait until the oil is already dried a bit. And when you clean up the oil, you can clean more of it on the edges but removing oil with very little pressure. This way even the highlights will look like blending more into the darker areas. It looks much better. In a way it feels like a drybrushing in an opposite way. But much better to control
40+ years old and brand new to the world of painting miniatures...this is the slap I needed...and wanted to be fair! Thanks for the awesome video; New subscriber!!
Saw Rob´s video and going for slap chop from now on on those minis I´m too lazy to paint cause I don´t like them enough and seeing this video I´m definitely going to. Awesome, thanks Ninjon!
I'm doing slappy jobby minis since the start of Contrast paints. It's a pretty good start. And your add on of highlights is also my style since half a year. You can even add another round (3.0) of you select just some areas for blending and layers. It's by far easiest possibility for quick table top ready armies. Good explanation. 👍 👍 👍 👍
Been developing a similar technique to this myself actually. I like to think of it as a culmination of every speed painting technique I've picked up over the years refined into a complete process. Glad to see other people coming to similar conclusions, because it may help to slay the gray :D
brand new painter here, never tried any of these techniques. That said, one thing I think would be helpful, now that you showed the side by side comparison...those are 2 different minis. Spend the extra 10 minutes to put the highlighting in on the first guy, and then show the side by side comparison at 15 minutes and then at the finished product. That way we can really see the difference in that extra step. Great work, excited to try some of this out
I use Slap Chop to get base coat color, something that took me hours for one mini I can do 5-9 at a time now. Then I seal it with matte spray varnish and then detail over it. I love detailing and would not give it up. Plus the sealing prevents unwanted reactivation.
Why an awesome video as always (the 2.0 version is much better IMO, far more like something I'd use personally) and a great way to army paint, SLAPCHOP is by no means a new method. Been doing this for years, since GW launched the spray paint range. Albeit not with contrast paints but it's the same process. If your final model needs a darker less vibrant paint use a darker grey spray followed by a light grey dry brush, then a final white dry brush for the highlights.
This looks absolutely great! I must just hate myself because all the armies I've decided to collect are either mainly Gold or Silver (Custodes and Grey Knights). But I absolutely love how effective and easy Contrast paints and colours look
I've been using this method since I first learned about the zenithal method. I don't have the space or weather conditions for ideal spray painting so I experimented with drybrushing the undercoats. It also worked really well to give a black and white comic book style for my "the Walking Dead: All Out War" collection
Alternatively, sometimes I'll undercoat a model white, give it a heavy black wash and then give it progressively lighter drybrushes. Really makes those details pop
I’ve combined honest gamers slap chop method with Richard Gray’s grim dark method and got some pretty cool results. I call this method, the Slap Dick
Well played Sir, well played.
I would have gone with Dick Slap, but that works.
The Dick slap rolls off the tongue better ;)
LOL genius.
😂
Alternate approach: At the end of a game, while you're waiting for another, pick out your MVP model from each match and edge highlight it. Think of it like an award ceremony. Give it a name and write it on the base. Add little motifs for each MVP award. Build the stories of your army as you paint in more detail.
Bro... this is cool lol I love this idea
Doing this since the 90's. To me this was the way to show a trooper had actually accomplished something and deserved extra treatment. Extra knee badge here, kill slashes there, Mortus something something written here or there, etc.
I’ve been thinking about doing something similar with my new World Eaters: give them skulls and bloodied weapons effects for each veteran, sergeant (or above), or character model killed in combat (or add a skull to the base of Kharn, Angron, etc.)
yes awards decals, and even freehand
This is such a neat idea, I will be using it!
Been doing this for a couple years, but i called it "en grisaille" .
1. Prime black
2. Zenithal highlight with light grey
3. Nuln oil (To bring shadows that even if its pointing up, it should have shadows EG : shoulders)
4. Dry brush with pure white
5. Contrast
6. Then add a few layers of highlights if needed
Great video, btw. Glad you showing people this kind of technics, and removing fear from them to try new approachs
Yeah. This way is what... 200 years old style?
Marco Frisoni did a great video on this technique with contrasts 1.5 years ago
I find it funny I accidentally stumbled into almost the same workflow trying to crank out a battletech army. XD
@@jaanikaapa6925 way more than that. That technique is around since the 14th century
@@jaanikaapa6925 Zenithal highlighting is a fairly recent development, at least with gaming mini painters. To use the technique you also MUST have both a reasonably transparent paint (or one which will draw away from a model's recesses), & the zenithal technique... if you have both those tools in your portfolio then yeah, 'slap chop' is fairly obvious, but if you miss one then it's not (or you bemoan that you end up painting over your zenithal...).
So maybe not 200 years, but obvious development given knowledge of zenithal highlighting & access to paint with transparency.
Having (successfully) tested the slapchop method myself a while back, I cannot stress how important are the small pure white highlights done with the brush after the overall drybrush in the prep stages. They make a LOT of difference, and make the inks/Constrast paint perform so much better.
And the best part of it, is that is a layering that you don't even need to be really careful about doing carefully, you just slap it on the areas you think will stand out more, and you're done!
100%, it's worth going in with a normal brush and really making sure the top areas are opaque
@RotGolem: The small pure white highlights are the ugliest thing about the Slapchop method. The models look like they're fresh out of the freezer.
I have never bought a model in my life. I've never even put one together despite being gifted some in the past mostly because I know I don't have the patience for painting. Seeing the speed and effectiveness in this video made me completely reconsider
Search your feelings. You know it to be true. 🖌
Relevant username, too
The advantage of Slap Chop is it gets your models from grey to tabletop ready, quickly. I myself have used the method to get a unit of Kruleboy Gutrippas to an adequate standard in only a couple days.
But, as with all painting techniques, it can also be layered upon. The paint job pushed even further when you have the time and energy to do so. The model is done when you say it's done, and there are many levels of "done" a model can be.
i agree, slap chop is ment to be fast, and anything added to it should have noticable benefits while taking a minimum amount of time to be worth it, otherwise the method looses its value for its purpose.
personally i add one step to it, i add a tiny bit of white to each of the contrast paints left on the pallete, and use the brighter colour to highligt a few key exposed area's. the contrast medium in the contrast paint makes the highlight semi transparent, and slightly runny, while the thicker consistency of the paint with added undiluted white means it will be less runny than pure contrast.
its not quite as bright as a real highlight, but it does create a nice smooth gradient to the highlights done, and only adds one or two minutes of work to each mini.
ROB THA GOD GAMER
He will always be rufio to me
Rob him? But why?
Shout Out Rob the Honest Wargamer
@@nicozandhuis1865 he has a dark dark past... as a... I almost darent say it.. DJ RUFFIOOOOO
Spoke like a true ork
I've been slapping & chopping over coloured zenithal primes for years. It's my secret to success - only difference is for my dark first primer I go for a contrasting colour, rather than a complementary one. So for orange armour I might have primed blue, green or purple, then zenithal with a pale warm colour like yellow or off-white. Gives you maximum popping contrast and super interesting rich, contrasting shadows.
I'd like to see an example of this, sounds cool!
This feels VERY similar to the methods Marco has been using on the NJM youtube channel for a few years. Hes shown many interesting combos of; zenithal, translucent coats with inks/contrast paints, oil washes, and pastel highlights. And speed he can churn out high quality sets of models is nuts
I hope he's not acting like 'slap chop' is new or something. it's contrast over zenithal. people have been doing this for years.
This is literally what NJM has been doing for a while but now its a trend.
It's good to give it a name whether it's brand new or not. You can tell people, "so you're going to want to airbrush or rattle-can a zenithal highlight -- that's from above. I don't know why it's called zenithal. Greek, maybe? Oh, it's from zenith. Anyway, you're setting a basic highlight--" etc. OR you can say "slapchop, UA-cam, go."
@@thatdarnsatan not when they are taking credit for the method when they didn't create it. plus how hard is it to read what zenithal highlight is? takes 60 seconds
I don't get how everyone below seems to be missing the key point. This isn't just zenithal and contrast. The whole idea of this is that you're using light gray for the zenithal instead of white, and then dry brushing highlights over that before adding the contrast.
I know it might not feel revolutionary, but we're talking about putting paint onto miniatures. It's pretty simple stuff that we've mostly figured out, and we're not going to be seeing any scientific breakthrough that completely changes the way we do things, so even a small advancement is noteworthy. Even if it's just rearranging steps we already use.
Hey Jon,
Just wanted to say thank you and I love your content! I was out of the painting hobby for about 6 years (I was far to critical to my mediocre paintjob, had no fun anymore).
Saw your videos last week through my youtube feed and I have been so motiveted by your content I have done nothing but painting, watching your vids en listening to your podcast while painting.
Keep doing what you are doing. You really make a difference, you are very clear, enthousiase, motivate and make things seem posible to do yourself.
Sooo.. to end a far to long comment: Thank you!
What a kiss ass.
Strictly from an experimental standpoint I'd be curious to see the "warm" undertone dwarf compared to a cool or neutral undertone. Just to see what amount of change in color temp.
Pink with white highlights works wonderfully with yellow glaze. As yellow over a warm pink becomes orange giving you bold weird shadows
Check out Marco he does dwarfs with different undertone warm and cool
The first time I saw a video about Slapchop inspired me to actually paint some of my own miniatures for the first time instead of just admiring other people's work. It always seemed too overwhelming before, but this method is a great entry point for learning the basics and actually completing some minis instead of having them in perpetual "needs more work" limbo.
learning just how incredible contrast paints are through an airbrush made me start on the road towards this style. it comes together really quickly, makes you think about a lot more than base/wash/highlight, and it's very easy to weather. big fan.
Just getting back into 40k and decided to strip and repaint my whole army. This video got me hyped to try a new paint style and I just wanted to thank you for your easy and helpful videos!
This is not too dissimilar from my process that I use when painting with Army Painter Speedpaints, I'll have to add the dry brushing step to my process and see what the results look like!
Thank you Jon for having such an open minded approach to the hobby and not being afraid to experiment and share new techniques with us. Also much love for the shout out to us D&D painter nerds!
Honestly awesome how much your channel has progressed, Jon. You’ve become by far one of my all time favourite mini painting channels. Even when I know I’m not going to use the majority of things in a video, I watch it anyway. Great work mate 🙌👍
His Trapped Under Plastic podcast is top notch as well if you haven't seen it already
Great video! I feel like this is super similar to the speed painting method Sorastro recommended in the LOTR orcs and goblins and bandits video years ago. Dana Howl is also a big fan of this underpainting method and has some great demonstration videos. It's cool that the 40k community is finally catching on to speed painting over a zenithal + drybrush, but if you want to pay some dues, those are some folks to check out.
I painted my whole Tau army slapchop and didn't even know. Used shades instead of contrasts and made osl instead of edge highlight since the shades toned the vibrancy down by a lot. Its quite amazing how fast you can paint like this and finish an army in a day
The thing that I find most interesting about the slapchop method is that it's almost identical to the technique that I used when I first started painting 15 years ago (though I do want to try the new and improved version of the technique at some point). Prime black, drybrush over that with white, then paint over that with the colors I was going to use anyways. I've long since moved to a different technique (zenithal highlighting with using paint triads to set up the shadow/midtone/highlight), but I think it would be fun to go back to a tried and true technique that is a step further than what I cut my teeth on (with a paint that fits the technique to a T).
What I like is once I got my models to a battle ready standard abd get some games in with them, I'd constantly go back to units I use more often and give them some more love. Maybe some better highlights, some weathering and damage effects. Maybe up the base a bit.
Making the whole process more fun, since you don't have to do all the work the first time around and it also feels like an upgrade or a lvl up for your units that you enjoy the most.
Step 1: Knowing.
Step 2: Lasers.
Step 3: Leia Organa gives me Medal of Bravery. Chewie goes home sad.
I am one of those people who never gets around to painting their models due to the time involved (I’m a busy person!) but this method is so quick I’ll definitely be giving it a go. Thanks for making such a fun and informative video.
And with the upcoming Vallejo's answer to Contrast, I'm definitely going to get a blast with this technique!
Slapchop 1.0 would work very well with speedpaints. If you do not want to mess with the extra highlights the "reactivation" challenge is eliminated. Apparently, a little Matt varnish or contrast medium eliminates thr problem too
I do similar to this and Dana Howl’s underpainting, without an airbrush. It gets a good base to play with glazes and mix of colors in the wet palette with medium (I don’t use contrast). Nice video!
To me the hobby is all about painting something that is fun. Taking the time needed. I’ve seen a lot of speed painting techniques and I guess they have their uses if you actually play. I just paint for the fun of it. Good content as always Ninjon!
as a beginner for this hobby with nearly to none experience in painting miniatures, this video is my personal holy grail of tips and tricks to get better at painting fast. thanks for the time invested in making this, very much appreciated
I feel like you could use 1.0 on the average schmucks in the army, then 2.0 it up for the characters. Still uses all the same paints, so it's a cohesive scheme, but you spend a little more time punching up the contrast on the special ones.
^this
i was using a very similar technique back around 3rd edition 40k. there was no airbrush used and i didnt have any fancy names for it. we also didnt have any of the fancy paints of today, so it was watered down paints and washes. but its how i painted my dwarf warband for mordheim, and i really dont care if ppl believe that or not. was something new i tried, as my army was iron warriors...that was just chaos black, dry brush boltgun metal and burnished gold for the trim. i have terrible eyesight so couldnt do any of the finer details, which was one of the reason why i chose them...was purely the ease of the colour scheme at the time. once i started learning the rules and stuff i relised how much i loved playing them.
I've been loving seeing the new Leagues models! I'm getting mine soon and I'll definitely be practicing my edge highlighting on them
Good stuff Jon. Recently did a WW2 German army with zenithal, transparant field grey overall, detailing with one coat of contrast/acrylic, streaking grime and cleanup, highlight the faces, finish the bases with mud putty and snow putty. Very quick yet very striking effect.
The slap-chop method works really well! The space marine was a very nice gaming piece! I would stop at the original slap chop to paint armors.
I started painting again in 2020 after about 20 years, I use a grey primer and white drybrush, contrast or base coat then a wash, then a light drybrush and then highlights if it needs it. Most of the time this works well and can finish a lbout 2 or 3 models in a couple of hours
"knowing is half the battle. other half is lasers." --Ninjon, 2022.
And here I was thinking it was violence. The army taught us all wrong!
Hell anyone who grew up watching G.I.JOE already knew what Ninjon said... where do you think he learned it from?
@@Winterydee Thnx for the info. I was too young to remember specific GI Joe references. Must've been 4 or 5 when I watched that cartoon. I still have one action figure somewhere, the one with the parachute.
I think he got that from a T-shirt i've seen
@@Transfixed I think it was a misinterpretation of a shoebox with an ad for starving children with missing toes. You could only find em at Speners and only with a $200 purchase.
Thanks for the quick and easy to understand tutorial. Got six miniatures to paint this weekend. I was about to buy a set of Contrast paints and got laid off right before I pulled the trigger. I’ll see what I can do with thinned down Vallejo paints instead. Good luck me. Keep up the good work. Love what you do.
I consider myself slapped, moving dry brush edge highlighting before contrast totally makes sense…i did expect you to paint a whole army though 😉
Dude, another masterclass. You're damn right when you mean that's not because you fast paint that you don't have time to highlight. I mean for me the most PITA (pain where you know it) is to assemble the minis and base coating them. What I want to say is another great video. I will try this on my ork army and maybe on my scarab occult. But I will do this with metalic paint: Black primer, then lead belcher dry brush, then necron compond or stormhost silver and then white. Last Akhelian green contrast paint.
What contrast paint was used on the pants and leather!? I can't seem to find the color and I don't think it was shown on screen. Any help would be great, thanks!
Slap Chop 2.0 is exactly what I’ve been doing for a while as my noob painting technique has evolved. I love the quick and easy base coat that this style gives you from the modified zenithal prime layer to a base coat of sloppy Contrast paints. It preserves the value sketch of the undercoat allowing you to then do finishing touches and true metallic components to achieve tabletop+ ready results in a relatively short amount of time. The efficiency of it makes my ADHD engineer brain sing! Thanks for trying this method out Jon and improving upon it!
add oil wash/ pinwash and you have... the Marco frisoni speed painting technique
I saw this technique (or one very similar) on another channel but they did not use the "Slap Chop" name. I used it on a handful of minis from Battletech and am very happy with the results. Thanks for your video expanding on this idea for making things fairly quick and easy.
now do it in oils and you get a less grainy result that is even quicker with auto blending :D that would be james wappel approach. Downside would be the drying time. Awesome video as always sir
Was going to say this, JW is the goat of oil mini painting. Even though I watch the guy no idea how he does it!
Great video, thanks foe sharing. This was exactly what i was looking to achievevwhen i ordered a whole new translucent paint set up. I'm a very slow painter, so i love the idea of very fast undercoat/midtones, but i dont really like the muted watery finish of pure contrast/speedpaint. Highlight edging post-contrast looks ace as you did it, and definitely worth it imo. 👍
Now I want to get five units of troops for Votann and paint them up as the Lions of Voltron, color scheme wise
Do the Voltron made out of fifteen vehicles for more variety. 😉
I love that you took an awesome idea for quick painting and expanded upon it! I also appreciate that you didn't say that your way is better, just that you are expanding on it which is true. Both systems of Slappage are great but yours does add that quick detail while not adding too much time. Thanks so much for the video, I will certainly be adding this in for the 6 armies I havent finished yet :P
I may show my age in this post, but gamers were doing this style in the late 80's and early 90's. They would generally use inks. Also, maybe 20 years ago GW published this in How to paint Citadel Miniatures. A Eldar Guardian was used, if I remember correctly.
This has been happening in this hobby for years. A while back they tried rebranding "blacklining" as well. It's kinda interesting to see techniques used in scale modeling for decades eek their way to the miniature space as some newfangled technique.
I think this is a great technique simply because it still varies so much based on brush skill and color choices. I think this technique can take me (and many others in the beginner to average group) a great deal of the way through my/our painting journey of becoming better at mini painting.
Bruh, I've been doing this for a year and now I know what it is I'm actually doing.
10:50 this is a 100% TRUE! I challenged myself to edge highlight 18 of my minis in a month. It was hell and I dont want to see another edge of a space marine but what Jon said is true... it did improve my brush control A LOT!
I started edge highlighting one mini and it took me around an hour. Now it takes me 25 mins. It's insane how our muscle memory memorizes all the edges and starts to pick up accuracy and contorl!
Jon's slap chop is like the Marco Frisoni method without the oil wash
Literally the way Marco has been painting for years now.
I looked at a Marcos video and while the goal is similar, he airbrushed and carefully painted the undercoat. The Slap Shop I’ve learned is to drybrush twice (one grey and one ligher white) with a makeup brush all over the model for seconds. I would say that the tools used and time spent is quite a quite difference.
@@vinterbjork4128 it’s not Jon’s method. It’s been around for a LONG time. It’s just painting thin paints over a zenithal.
Love that the advertising was kept till the end of the video, very much appreciate it.
The crossover I didn't know I needed 🥰
Didn't realize this had a name but I've been doing this over the last month for my MCP minis over the last month. Its frankly awesome, they are simple unlike GW with excessive detail. Even being a slow painter taking tons of breaks I typically finish 1 model a night after putting the kids to bed. Sometimes more, In the last 2 weeks I have finished 12 models including building, priming and varnishing. Its frankly amazing the quality you get for the amount of work put it.
I enjoy the video, but would really love to see this done without an airbrush. I feel many of us don't have airbrushed. Vincent Venturela did something similar with just drybrushing, and would be curious how you would approach it without an airbrush
I don't have an airbrush, & really rarely even use spray cans. Basically just replace all the zenithal applications with drybrushing or a wet overbrushing. You'll struggle to replicate a true zenithal effect, but you can get close by restricting how you apply the dry brush coats (focus more on the head, less on the feet). That's really just it. The part that actually matters is applying a paint coat that will show what's under it.
Rob's original Slap Chop video is all drybrushing. Really the grey step was more an overbrush, but no airbrush needed. That said, some large GW models or big boxes cost more than a simple airbrush set.
@@CaptainRuff its not really a matter of cost, more practicality. I don't have the ability to run a compressor.
@@kaz9357 Everyone's situation is different, so whatever works for you. Painted is best, however you her there. Honestly unless it's a space marine and you want that super smooth shading, the drybrushing undercoat probably looks best for slap chop anyway. Before slap chop came out I tried something similar with a much more complicated undercoat moving up between more shades of grey alternating between airbrush and drybrush and honestly it was a waste of time when bright grey then white dry brush gave the same or better results
@@CaptainRuff I appreciate what you have to say. I should def do a deeper dive into this technique and the dry rushing side of it. Thank you
Kinda just started painting. Each video of yours helps abit more each time. Thank you
What colour did you use on the marines armour? Kroxigor Scales? Aeldari Emerald? Also would love a paint list for the LoV model too!
Looks like Akhelian Green
Another excellent video.
These methods have been in use in Historical Miniatures wargaming for half a century! (Though, sketching - as the priming is known - in fine art for five centuries.)
Knew a fellow that used that technique to paint both a 15mm and a 25mm Aztec army and a 25mm Viking army and another fellow that used similar to do a 15mm Landsknecht and 28mm Vikings ( all these armies were seversl hindred figures each). Also, there was a fellow named Jim Cooper (deceased) that painted literally thousands of 15mm Miniature Figurines Super Detail Detail Napoleonics - beautiful French, British and Prussian 1815 armies!
It was very popular in the mid-late 1970's until, well, now with (old) 25/28mm Napoleonic gamers (especially those that would finish their armies in an "unfashionably shiny" gloss finish/varnish. That style of painting gas been arpund forever - though not in a pre-mix fashion like Contrast, et al. 👍🎅👍
It's a great method for painting minis quickly! But yeah, he didn't introduce this to the world of miniature painting. Many of us have been doing this for years and years.
No, I'm pretty sure he introduced it to us after learning it from those Turkish monks.
@@colonelcabbage thought it was in the dead sea scrolls?
@@bathtubanarchy no, i think he must've been scrolling through Twitter looking at pictures of Sea Monkeys... that's usually where I get my inspiration from.
I think the catchy name Slapchop is a genuinely substantial contribution. It makes it really memorable for new painters like me. When I’m overwhelmed by fancy techniques just reach for Slapchop.
Drybrush all over the model for a few second and then using transparent paints? Slap Chop is actually the first time I’ve seen people paint that way. I’ve seen alot of people zenithal spray and/or carefully paint an greyscale undercoat with a normal brush.
Perfect combination of expertise, humo(u)r, and quality photography. Subbed and "we shall watch your career with great..." etc.!
This is basically how I've been painting my T'au for the past 3 years - base coat of Army Painter Chaos red, dry brush tawny pink up to white edge highlights, do the lenses and then done.
Do you apply a contrast paint?
But.. that is completely diffrent?
I've also had great luck going over a contrast paint with a wash. Black base coat, white zenith highlighting, plaguebearer flesh, and then biel tan green makes a fantastic vibrant ork skin tone, for instance.
Why add more complications, even with the airbrush? The original makes painting easy. This just complicates it for beginners.
Beginner I found it easy effective and fun.
An excellent and fun tutorial….always happy to see how you approach different aspects of painting the figure. Appreciate your time and teaching!
Thats a great method to get stuff done fast but for me its not really something new or worth the hype? Sure, its great to teach and spread the concept of it. But I would not go that far and say that its the future or anything. Great video as always though! I always enjoy your content a lot. You really gave me back the passion for this hobby, after my own personal burnout after painting commissions only for two years without a break. Thanks man!
I'd agree with this sentiment. Zenithal basecoat isn't really anything new, whether by spray or by airbrush, and neither is painting a model using only contrast paints. I wouldn't necessary say that drybrushing a zenithal coated model with white or using a light gray at first to be a groundbreaking new technique.. But it is a handy tutorial nonetheless. :)
Even with non miniatures, nailing the shading with the prime coat shading is the best to really set up any sort of complex paint job without all the hassle of mixing the tones later and not mess up the color chemistry too much.
Fantastic advice, 2.0 looks so clean!
I wouldn't say this was new Many people including myself were painting Warmaster and other figures using this method 20+ years ago
Yup. This was pretty much THE way to quickly paint minis in the late 90s. Mosty drybrushing on heavy grey and a light white, then watered down colors on top. EZPZ.
None of the methods that miniature UA-camrs present in their tutorials are new. They’ve all been done decades ago by others, often scale model builders. Or in many cases by canvas painters hundreds of years ago. That’s not really relevant though, they’re introducing these techniques to a new audience, and if they give them a catchier name in the process, that can only be a good thing! It’s all about the presentation and helping people have more fun while becoming better painters.
@@aidanobrien4735 we were using inks rather than paint except for metallics and flesh
@@torros1839 Just watered acrylics for those of us who didn't have money for decent supplies back then. lol
The biggest improvement you can make for the slapchop method, particularly painting on large, flat panels is to use contrast medium. Mix it 3:1 or 4:1 of medium to contrast paint and it will eliminate that highly variable pooling and give you much more control over the intensity of the colour.
Contrast medium is on my paint table at all times. Magic in a bottle
'Slap-Chop' is really just an ex-post-facto name for something that people have been doing since day 1 with zenithal highlights + contrast paint. Hell, it's what I've been doing or trying to do since getting back in the hobby over the last year. Nothing new other than the term.
My own thoughts on how to vary the process:
1. for the initial undercoat, use multiple colors. Either apply with brush or spray, create an initial zenithal effect. Simply paint top half 1 color, bottom half another. If you want to get fancy try to keep the bottom more in the shadows.
2. if you're feeling extra lazy, don't bother with the double-layered zenithal, & either do just a single spray or drybrush zenithal. As usual with a drybrush zenithal, don't sweat making it a true zenithal vs just creating a light/dark contrast between raised areas & recesses
3. swap out the white drybrush with another super-bright tone, in order to influence the temperature of the color scheme. Disclaimer: I've only played with yellow & off whites here, & the results have been minimally impressive. For maximum effect would probably need to play with reds, blues, or greens
4. bringing 1 & 2 together... this is how to get yourself away from the bright-primary-GW style color scheme; as both those modifications will dull down your mini to a grittier style.
5. in the interest of f*** GW, use alternatives to contrast paints. Obviously AP speedpaints come to mind... but also artist inks... & my personal favorite -> mix up glazing & heavy matte gel medium in your palette & water it down to taste. Creates distinctive mottled paint coat, not perfect for everything but gives you a lot of free texture & a sorta-painterly look. Basically anything that gives you either transparency &/or reliably pools on raised areas will work here... you just need to not cover over the initial zenithals.
6. Continue the slapping & slap on some wash. More grimdark, more contrast between raised area & shadows. Single extra, very quick step.
I’ve been playing with adding black tamiya panel liner to the under coat to make deep shadows and more extreme contrast. Sometimes layering transparent inks with the airbrush.
I would say a part the ”slapchop” is how you apply the undercoat. Instead of spraying a zenithal from above or paint on an greyscale undercoat with a normal brush; slapchop is just a few seconds of drybrush grey then white with a makeup style drybrush.
@@vinterbjork4128 "slapchop is just a few seconds of drybrush grey then white with a makeup style drybrush." That's pretty much how anyone is going to apply a zenithal sans spray cans or airbrush though.... folks know you need it thin so drybrushing is the obvious way to go, & folks know to use makeup brushes for dry-brushing purposes. It's still just giving a new fancy name to the most obvious way to do a zenithal with a brush.
Using a non-makeup brush to apply a non-drybrush zentihal-like 2-tone undercoat frankly seems to me to be the less obvious & more novel method.
And, to be blunt, as someone who has tried that... it is not really a slow process. You're just *slapping* 2 colors onto your models in quick succession. Drybrushing is really only faster since you save on drying time. Actually applying the paint might even be faster & certainly is easier, since you don't have to monitor how much pressure you are applying as with a drybrush.
I've been doing this for years, sketch style underpainting. Though I do have a step 3.5 that is going back and doing a recess shade with a wash to bring out the contrast even higher. This is before Contrast paint came out so I was using glazes as a step 4.
It’s very strange to see the painting method my friends and I used in high school (15 years ago or so) being touted as a new “invention”.
It’s not even new to the youtuber circle, as you’ll find videos from Dana Howl and Vince Venturella on the subject dating back years.
I guess the new element is mainly around contrast paints. I'm guessing you used inks and washes back in the day
@@chrisburrows1380 but other UA-camrs have done that too. I've used contrast over a Zenithal with highlights often enough since GW released them.
I’ve litterly seen noone call this a new invention.
What sets slap chop apart from what I personally has seen before is the application of the undercoat. The ones I’ve seen before uses zenithal sprays or painting the preshade with a normal brush, then often adding nuln oil and highlight. The slapchop I’ve seen has been a few seconds of drybrush grey, white and the a single layer of semi-transparent paint (Usually Contrast or Speedpaint).
“my buddy Rob the Honest Wargamer introduced the slapchop system to the world of miniature painting”
Verbatim from the video you just watched.
I just do the 2.0 step as a dry brush with praxi white and it achieves a similar effect in about a minute. Great video.
Sooo... Grisaille.
Yes, but achieving it through a very quick drybrush with a makeup-style brush instead of a zenithal spray or applying the Grisaille by hand with a normal brush.
Talking about experimentation. I learned how to do a real nice looking, speed painting gold.
I use a silver as the under coat, slap over the Sand Golem speed paint. You could call it done there but highligthing with Ice Yellow does the diference and it really doesn't take time. Specially if you do it with a drybrush like me.
But hey Jon I get it. I might be a master of the clean drybrush, but now I need to master the fast edge highligts the Ferra... Red Bull edge highlights!
Why do miniature painters always call basic techniques like preshading some weird shit like "slapchop" and then pretend they invented it
There is a lot of insecurity in this hobby due to feeling like classical painters look down on us, which they obviously don't. It also comes from the fact that a lot of hobbyists and UA-camrs have no understanding of classical techniques and terminology.
I must've missed the part where they claimed to have invented a new technique. All I see are folks showing others some techniques that work for them, nothing wrong with that.
The big difference with slapchop is the way and with what speed the preshade is applied. There is no Zenithal spray or carefully painting an preshadow. It’s seconds of drybrushing with a makeup style brush.
I see no problem with having different names to differentiate different ways of applying preshade. And no, ”they” did not pretend to invent it at all, quite the opposit actually.
The slap chop method has been around for a very long time. Slap Chop is how I painted my first BattleTech miniatures in 1994, but we used watered down paint and layered washes.
It's a greyscale Underpainting.
It's definitely a great idea for contrast and speed paints... it's just not his "invention." lol
I'd been speed painting WW2 models with this technique since 2004. Black and white priming is done with rattlecans. No need for contrast paints, just thin down your base colors with a good medium to prevent separation.
SLAPCHOP has to be the stupidest name for a painting style that's existed longer than anyone watching this video has been alive.
I've seen this Votann minis unpainted, and thought "great minis". Then I saw some of the paintjobs on them, and thought "eee... nope". This is the first Votann mini painted I really enjoy. (I saw your previous video - like the paintjob, but that was only about the paintjob, not the mini AND painjob together).
So…. It’s just using contrast paint the way it was intended. Sorry, but this isn’t anything new.
I’ve personally never seen just a quick two drybrush application of grisaille under semi-transparent paint (Contrast/Speedpaint) before. Only seen more complex ways to do it, so I’m happy to have found it.
I did the same when painting Recruitment Box. 10 Necron Warriors in assembly line style. But Royal Warden took some more time.
I did however went - prime grey, airbrush brass, and airbrush Purple Contrast from below - in a form of "inverted zenithal". It lays great shadows in slightly different manner than zenithal. I love this technique :)
Beside it being a classical technique, there having been mini painting channels displaying it several time over the last 3 years, but wow somebody borrowed a funny name for it and revived a meme 13 years old so let's ALL make videos about it. yawn.
I’ve actually not seen it being applied with just two greyscale drybrushes before. I’ve seen alot of zenithal sprays, shades or carefully painting the grisaille with a normal brush. If it took a ”silly” name for me to learn this technique of applying the undercoat, I’m happy.
@@vinterbjork4128 how you apply the grey is but a mere detail and doesn't warrant a video about it. THG making a video about it to inform tournament players who don't watch painting channels isn't the issue. It's the painting channel jumping the band wagon now that is.
I really love your additional highlight step on the dwarf, is sooooo much better compared to the space marine, for a 100% reasonable amount of time I'd say (gonna take more on me since I'm new to paiting, but still worth it). I will try this very tecnique on my next army, thanks so much!
This is crazy! I've been out of the game since 2005 and just pulled my old BA army out to paint up. After adding some primaris units, I'm ready to paint and have been so stuck on what to do after watching countless videos. Think I am going to try this and see how it goes, amazing video as always!
Some time ago I did an experiment. I bought miniatures on eBay which most people would consider to be a bad paint job. But I bought them on purpose, because I was more looking on unfinished paint jobs instead of bad ones. I only applied oil wash and a bit of highlighting on these miniatures and at the end the oil wash made them look like professional painted models. For people who are experienced but have no time, and just want some stuff for killteam or something like that, this method is really great and is even faster and cheaper than just speed painting. Also my personal Tipp: paint the highlights first before you apply the oil wash. You can then wait until the oil is already dried a bit. And when you clean up the oil, you can clean more of it on the edges but removing oil with very little pressure. This way even the highlights will look like blending more into the darker areas. It looks much better. In a way it feels like a drybrushing in an opposite way. But much better to control
40+ years old and brand new to the world of painting miniatures...this is the slap I needed...and wanted to be fair! Thanks for the awesome video; New subscriber!!
Another trick is learning which colors can cover others. Means you don't have to be super neat and can go even quicker. Especially with orks ;)
Saw Rob´s video and going for slap chop from now on on those minis I´m too lazy to paint cause I don´t like them enough and seeing this video I´m definitely going to. Awesome, thanks Ninjon!
Great video and brilliant techniques. The edge highlighting before colours is something I never considered.
The song at 8:31 is called "In My Bed" by Pure Indigo, for anyone wondering.
I'm doing slappy jobby minis since the start of Contrast paints. It's a pretty good start. And your add on of highlights is also my style since half a year. You can even add another round (3.0) of you select just some areas for blending and layers. It's by far easiest possibility for quick table top ready armies. Good explanation. 👍 👍 👍 👍
Been developing a similar technique to this myself actually. I like to think of it as a culmination of every speed painting technique I've picked up over the years refined into a complete process.
Glad to see other people coming to similar conclusions, because it may help to slay the gray :D
Love your videos, man! Haven't played or painted in a few years, but watching your videos really makes me want to start back up again! Great work!
brand new painter here, never tried any of these techniques. That said, one thing I think would be helpful, now that you showed the side by side comparison...those are 2 different minis. Spend the extra 10 minutes to put the highlighting in on the first guy, and then show the side by side comparison at 15 minutes and then at the finished product. That way we can really see the difference in that extra step. Great work, excited to try some of this out
I use Slap Chop to get base coat color, something that took me hours for one mini I can do 5-9 at a time now. Then I seal it with matte spray varnish and then detail over it. I love detailing and would not give it up. Plus the sealing prevents unwanted reactivation.
first time I’ve seen one of your videos. Love your emphasis on experimenting and learning. Nicely done!
Why an awesome video as always (the 2.0 version is much better IMO, far more like something I'd use personally) and a great way to army paint, SLAPCHOP is by no means a new method. Been doing this for years, since GW launched the spray paint range. Albeit not with contrast paints but it's the same process.
If your final model needs a darker less vibrant paint use a darker grey spray followed by a light grey dry brush, then a final white dry brush for the highlights.
This looks absolutely great! I must just hate myself because all the armies I've decided to collect are either mainly Gold or Silver (Custodes and Grey Knights). But I absolutely love how effective and easy Contrast paints and colours look
Thanks Mr. Hanks. I really liked you in Solving a Pirate's Riddle
Just got back into painting. This is probably one of your best videos to date.
I've been using this method since I first learned about the zenithal method. I don't have the space or weather conditions for ideal spray painting so I experimented with drybrushing the undercoats. It also worked really well to give a black and white comic book style for my "the Walking Dead: All Out War" collection
Alternatively, sometimes I'll undercoat a model white, give it a heavy black wash and then give it progressively lighter drybrushes. Really makes those details pop