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Citadel Paints

Games Workshop produces a line of acrylic paints for painting miniatures, under the Citadel name. At the end of March 2012 the company announced a new range of over 145 colours made in the UK, which has since been expanded and reorganised. These paints are broken down into different types, each with a different intended purpose.

This allows painters to follow painting guides produced by Games Workshop and create custom paint schemes more easily as each step in Games Workshop’s ‘Eavy Metal painting style has a paint type designed to assist in application.

The ‘Eavy Metal style is named after the ‘Eavy Metal Team, Games Workshop’s studio painting team, and is characterised by simple highlights and shadows with strong edge-highlights on all edges, creating a look that is clean, easily and quickly reproducible across many models, and defines details well on a gaming table.

The current Citadel paint types are:

Base: Pigment dense for high opacity. Intended to offer good coverage over a primer layer for a strong foundation of colour.

Layer: Thinner and less pigment dense than Base paints for slight translucency. Intended to be built up over multiple layers to create smooth transitions of colour or value.

Shade: Acrylic ink based “paints” that are thin and flow easily into recessed details. Intended to be applied as a wash to add depth and shadow.

Dry: Thick, paste-consistency paints with maximum pigment concentration. Intended to aid in dry brushing to achieve easy highlighting of models.

Air: A selection of colours from the Base and Layer lines that are thinned down, as well as some “Clear” paints. Intended to be used through an airbrush.

Technical: A range of non-standard “paints” to achieve additional effects. These include gloss paints for slime or wet blood, semi-transparent glossy paints for gemstone effects, weathering effect paints, spectral effect paints, textured pastes for gaming bases, acrylic mediums, and acrylic varnishes. Intended for adding finishing details to models.

Spray: Spray-can paints that come in black, white, and a small selection of colours from the Base line. Intended as a primer layer and to add a foundation coat of colour quickly.

Contrast: Thinned paint and medium mixtures that flow into recesses similar to Shade paints, but also stain the raised details creating a blended fade from highlight to shadow. Intended to be applied over specialised Spray paints to give an effect similar to using a Base, then Layer, then Shade, but in one coat of paint to speed up the painting process.

The line includes both metallic and non-metallic paints in the Base, Layer, Edge, Dry, and Air lines, with non-metallic paints having a matte/light-satin finish.

Contrast paints were added to the Games Workshop paint range in 2019, promoted as speeding up the painting process for players. The existing range of paints was also expanded and reorganised when Contrast was released, and branding changed from Citadel to Citadel Colour. The previously available Glaze line of paints was discontinued, replaced with the introduction of the Air Clear paints, the previously available Edge line of paints were combined into the Layer line, with some colours also being renamed, and the previously separate Texture line of paints was combined into the Technical line.

The Citadel line also includes various other hobby supplies, including basing materials such as static grass and tufts, as well as modelling tools, such as paint brushes, glues, and hobby clippers.