Review: Army Painter Quickshade or Armies in a can

Here it is folks, or at least the first part of what will be a series of reviews focusing on different products and aspects of The Army Painter paints, Quickshade and inks line.

This part will focus on the quickshade made for dipping your minis and get an army on the table fast and with  minimum amount of work.
The process is called dipping and is nothing new for some of the veterans out there, who have been dipping minis since the dawn of times(or so I have been told).
The technique is extremely simple, you just paint the base colours on the model, Army Painter has a wide assortment of coloured primers to help you with that, and then you dip the model in quickshade, throw off any excess and leave the mini to dry and spray some matt varnish over it, to dull it down.

All in all, an extremely simple and fast technique.

What is quickshade?
The Army Painter quickshade focusses on being easy to use and giving great results with minimal effort and time.
For the most part it even succeeds in doing just that.
Quickshade comes in three shades(Soft, Strong and Dark) and is not water soluble, but can be thinned with turpentine. The can should hold enough content to dip about 200 miniatures, give or take.
As I said there are 3 different tones of Quickshade and I used the strong tone for my review, which Army Painter claims is the most popular of their “dips”.
Each can cost about 25 euro or your regional variant.


How to use quickshade?
The point of dipping is speed, and the way to achieve that is to skip a lot of the steps, we normally associate with painting.
You simply paint the mini in the base colours, dip, apply a matt coat of varnish, base the figure and call it a day.
The process of dipping is pretty simple, but require a bit of practice to get perfect. 
Army Painter recommends that you dip the mini, then throw of the excess quickshade.
Sounds simple enough, but I managed to break a base and throw a poor ork across my yard, when dipping the first time. I still can't find his head, which he is pretty upset about.

Practice did make perfect though, and soon I was dipping like a pro.
It sounds messy, because it is, and if you want to dip indoors, I would recommend you to brush the quickshade on the mini, which also gives you more control and less waste



Who is Quickshade for?
I love this hobby, from painting to gaming and all the other aspects and I must admit I did find it a bit violating not trying the hardest I could, when painting the minis.
On the other hand, I hate nothing more than playing with or against an unpainted army and the constant excuses from opponents, who just can't seem to finish their damned armies…
So there definitely is a place for a product like quickshade, either as a way to get a decently painted (and I do find the dipped miniatures decently painted) army on the table fast and/or if you are doing a horde amy like orks, Atra militarium or tyranids.
If you are pressed for time or simply lack an interest for the painting side of the hobby, Quickshade or any dipping is perfect for you.
Personally I am going to start an Ork army and I have neither the time, nor the inclination to paint that many boyz, so for the horde armies out there Quickshade should work very well too.



Does it work?
In one word; Yes. 
Quickshade works well for what it is intended to do and I was actually pretty impressed with it. The ease of use, once you get the hang on how to apply it, is incredible and the result is great.
It won't win you any painting competitions, but most of us just want to field an army that looks great and quickshade will certainly help you with that.
As the pictures hopefully will show, the end result is quite good, even considering it is my first try at dipping.
I do feel however, that it works better with more organic models like orks and tyranids, or models with some cloth, like your regular guards.
Space marines on the other hand, I am not too sure about that, but that might just be my personal preference, as I think they look too dirty.

The process is quick, easy and with a very decent result. Throw in a few highlights, and you will have an army that looks great on the table.

When all is said and done Quickshade does what it says on the tin and it gets the job done.
A solid 4 out of 5.



I really hope you like the review and that people in general will support the effort.