I know I’m late to the party but I don’t see the appeal of contrast paints. I followed a cult of paint video on lizardmen, which led me to a different tangent I’ll touch on later.

I’ve tried diluting with contrast medium, lahmian, different brands of thinner, straight from the pot…it always looks like shit, no matter how you use it. I know, I know, you’re supposed to work on highlights after you use contrast, but here’s the tangent:
I’ve been painting for 15+ years (not saying I’m perfect at it, just saying I know what I’m doing most of the time) and I’ve followed their tutorial 100% because I want to add contrast to my arsenal/techniques. There’s no fucking way the model turns out as they say in the video by following their steps.

So my 2 questions would be: do contrast have any type of use outside of slapchop+contrast to get armies looking awful but finished in little time at least?
And how often have you found painters using different techniques as the ones they’re showing on their videos? Like I get you want views and maybe hide some proper schemes behind paywall but don’t show them for free then if you’re being purposely misleading.
Pic related is the wip on the lizard man, which I’m hating