The two thin coats lie
You don’t need two thin coats.
You do not need fries with that.
You don’t want an egg with your milkshake.
Coverage vs Opacity
Coverage and opacity are often conflated. So in the most basic sense coverage is how far your paint will go before you need to refill from your pallet and opacity is how transparent your paint is. These terms are often used interchangeably because often that’s how it is for many painters.
Why is orange and yellow problematic colours? Because often they will have poor coverage or high opacity. Thus people will say one or the other but in the truest sense it is merely asking… how many layers do you need before it is fully opaque?
Why I dislike the ‘two thin coats’ lie?
If you paint so you have a painted army to play with or if you paint for display, you will agree with one statement above all others. Painting takes too long! Why on gods green earth would you make it take longer?
The problem I have is that people take these words as gospel as the absolute truth, and they turn it into a meme! Come on, the only reason you’re here is that you heard that you’re always meant to put on ‘two thin coats’. But I hate to break it to you, you will never need to apply two thin coats of Abbadon black to anything (with the exception of people thinning it to oblivion). And you will always need to apply more than two coats of Yriel Yellow if you want a nice opaque coat.
Also, it aims at opaque as the goal. It’s not.
The goal is
Verisimilitude
noun
formalUK /ˌver.ɪ.sɪˈmɪl.ɪ.tʃuːd/ US /ˌver.ə.səˈmɪl.ə.tuːd/
the quality of seeming true or of having the appearance of being real:
She has included photographs in the book to lend verisimilitude to the story
These people aren’t real obviously… But does it feel real? Does it feel like something has gone wrong? Should the body, the cigarette, the alcohol, and the ruined room all be in the same shot?
NO!
Does it make you understand things instantly?
YES!
This in essence is the two-thin-coats problem. You would remove the body, the disrupted room, and it would focus only on the guy holding the glass with an expression of worry. But without those larger contextual clues you don’t know what is going on.
This is the problem sometimes being transparent is the whole point, what if you want
Contrast
Contrast paints are hailed as one of the greatest paints of all time for miniature painters, but what are they if not an upgraded wash/shade? Do you want to apply coats until it is even? No that ruins the point of it.
You should use paint’s natural qualities to their natural talents.
Paint how you want!
If you want two thin coats so you have an opaque layer to begin from. Good for you, more power to you. If you paint so you can do non-metallic metal and you need a very little midtone and a lot of dark areas and light areas, more power to you.
Two thin coats are sometimes necessary but it is a lie that it is always necessary. Work to what you need.
What isn’t a lie
From everything, I have heard the two thin coats paints are just Games-Workshop paints in a dropper bottle already. I also heard they don’t glaze as well but still costs less than Games-Workshop same colour range already in a dropper bottle. I would say that sounds pretty good. I would love to get my hands on them to give them a test.
I 100% don’t hate Duncan, his a great guy and I think he’s been an overall good for this world, however, it does make for a catchy title and maybe you learned a bit more about painting.
But do you know what will actually help get your models done up?