Vallejo Xpress Color and Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 are both one coat acrylics that combine a base color and a built in shade into a single application, designed to take a primed model from bare plastic to a usable tabletop finish in one or two coats instead of the traditional base, wash, highlight sequence. They compete directly for the same job: painting an army fast without it looking flat.
What one coat acrylics are actually doing
Both lines work on the same basic principle. The paint is thinner and more fluid than a standard base coat, and it is formulated so that pigment settles heavier into recesses and thinner on raised surfaces as it dries, creating automatic shading in one pass. You paint over a primed model, usually white or light grey primer for the brightest results, and the paint does the shadow and highlight work that would otherwise take three separate steps with traditional paints.
The tradeoff for that speed is control. Because the shading effect is largely automatic, you have less say over exactly where a highlight lands compared to hand painting one, and results can vary more with primer color, paint thickness, and how much you thin it than a traditional layered scheme would.
How the two ranges compare
| Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 | Vallejo Xpress Color | |
|---|---|---|
| Catalog size | Large, dozens of colors across the current line | Smaller, focused core palette |
| Positioning | Built specifically for wargaming armies at scale | Newer entry aimed at the same fast painting audience |
| Bottle format | Dropper bottle, similar handling to other Army Painter lines | Dropper bottle, similar handling to other Vallejo lines |
| Site coverage | Full catalog and cross brand matches in our converter | Not yet in our catalog |
We track Speedpaint 2.0 in full inside our catalog, with cross brand matching available through the converter, so if you want to see how a specific Speedpaint color lines up against Citadel Contrast or another one coat line, that comparison is available today. Xpress Color is not yet in our catalog, so anything specific to its individual colors is outside what we can verify here rather than something we will guess at.
Which one should you pick
If you already paint mostly Army Painter, or you want the widest one coat catalog with a track record across several release waves, the Speedpaint 2.0 starter set(affiliate link) is a low risk way to try the whole approach in one purchase, simply because there is more of it and more community experience to lean on. If you are already deep into Vallejo's ecosystem for base coating and want to stay inside one brand's supply chain, Xpress Color is worth trying on a spare model before committing an army to it, the same way you would test any new paint line.
Neither line replaces traditional layering entirely. Most painters who use one coat paints still keep a small set of traditional base and layer colors from Vallejo or elsewhere on hand for edge highlights, freehand details, or areas where the automatic shading effect looks muddy, particularly on very large flat surfaces like capes or vehicle hulls where a hand controlled highlight still reads better than an automatic one. The broader Army Painter versus Vallejo comparison covers how the two brands differ outside of just their one coat lines, if you are deciding which ecosystem to commit to overall.
Getting a smoother result either way
A few habits improve results with any one coat acrylic, regardless of brand. Prime with a lighter color if you want brighter, higher contrast results, since these paints rely on primer showing through thin areas. Apply in thin, even coats rather than one thick pass, since pooling defeats the automatic shading effect. And keep a wet palette on hand so the paint does not skin over on your palette between brush loads, which matters more with these fast drying formulas than with standard acrylics.
FAQ
Is Vallejo Xpress Color the same as Citadel Contrast
They solve the same problem, one coat base and shade in a single pass, but they are separate product lines from different companies with their own formulas. They are not interchangeable one for one, though a similar workflow applies to all one coat paints.
Can I mix Speedpaint and Xpress Color on the same model
Yes, there is no chemical reason you cannot use paints from both lines on the same model, the same way traditional acrylics from different brands can be layered together.
Do one coat paints work over black primer
They work best over lighter primers, usually white or light grey, since the automatic highlighting relies on primer showing through thin areas. Black primer will mute the effect significantly.
Which is better for a beginner, Speedpaint or traditional layering
Speedpaint and similar one coat paints are genuinely beginner friendly for getting an army table ready fast, but learning traditional layering first, even briefly, makes it easier to understand why one coat paints behave the way they do.