Citadel Contrast Medium is a clear base you mix with an ordinary acrylic paint to approximate the self-shading, one-coat behavior of Citadel's actual Contrast range. It will not perfectly reproduce a factory Contrast paint, because Citadel's own formulas use a specific pigment-to-medium ratio and a particular flow behavior tuned per color, but it gets a regular base or layer paint most of the way there for colors that do not exist in the official Contrast lineup.
What makes a Contrast paint different from a normal paint
Ordinary acrylics are opaque and sit where you put them. Contrast paints are thin, translucent, and formulated to flow into recesses and pool there while staying lighter on raised surfaces, which is what produces the shaded look from a single coat over a pale zenithal-primed model. That behavior comes from the medium the pigment is suspended in, not from the pigment itself, which is why the same trick works on paints that were never designed as Contrast colors: change the medium, and an ordinary paint starts to flow and pool the same way.
Mixing your own version
The basic method is to thin a regular acrylic paint with Citadel Contrast Medium(affiliate link) instead of water, starting around a one-to-one ratio and adjusting from there. Too little medium and the mix stays close to a normal thinned wash, opaque and prone to drying flat rather than pooling. Too much medium and the color gets so translucent it barely tints the model, requiring multiple coats and losing the one-coat appeal that makes real Contrast paints useful in the first place.
Test the mix on a spare model or a primed sprue before committing to a full miniature, since the right ratio varies by pigment. Highly saturated paints tend to need more medium to thin out to a translucent glaze, while paints that were already fairly transparent, like some washes, need very little medium to behave like a Contrast color.
Where the DIY version falls short
Citadel's actual Contrast range is formulated per color, and the company has spent years tuning how each pigment interacts with the medium to control drying time, pooling behavior, and how matte or satin the final finish looks. A homemade mix gets close on flow and translucency but will not always match the drying consistency of a purpose-built Contrast paint, and colors with very fine or very coarse pigment particles can behave unpredictably when mixed at home. Treat the DIY approach as a way to extend a limited Contrast collection into custom colors, not as a full replacement for buying the range.
Citadel Lahmian Medium is a related but different product worth knowing about: it thins a normal paint into a smoother, more even glaze without adding the pooling, self-shading behavior that Contrast Medium creates. If a mix comes out too aggressive in its pooling, cutting it with some Lahmian Medium instead of straight water tends to tame it without losing all of the translucency. Our beginner's guide to Citadel Contrast paints and the Contrast range page cover the factory lineup if you want to compare a DIY mix against the real thing before deciding how much of the range to buy outright.
FAQ
What is Citadel Contrast Medium made of?
It is a clear acrylic medium formulated to make a mixed-in pigment flow and pool the way Citadel's own Contrast paints do, rather than sitting flat and opaque like a normal paint.
Can any paint be turned into a Contrast-style paint?
Most acrylics can be thinned with Contrast Medium to get closer to that pooling behavior, though results vary by pigment, and very opaque or very fine-particle paints behave less predictably than others.
What ratio of paint to Contrast Medium should I use?
A one-to-one starting ratio is a reasonable baseline, adjusted from there depending on how translucent and how much pooling the specific pigment needs.
Is Contrast Medium the same as Lahmian Medium?
No. Lahmian Medium thins a paint into a smoother glaze without the strong pooling and self-shading behavior that Contrast Medium is built to create.
Does a homemade Contrast mix need a specific primer underneath?
The same rules apply as for a factory Contrast paint: a light zenithal prime, usually white or pale grey, gives the mix somewhere to catch highlights on raised detail while the pooled color does the recess shading. Over a dark or uneven prime, a DIY mix reads muddier and loses much of the contrast that makes the technique worth using in the first place.
Can I store a mixed batch of paint and medium for later use?
A small mixed batch keeps for a session or two in a sealed pot, but pigment and medium can separate over longer storage, so mixing only what a single model or unit needs is the more reliable habit until you know how a specific paint holds up over time.