Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review

Last Updated on Agosto 7, 2023 by Jordan

It’s that time again – and what time you ask? Time for a wet palette review! This time, we are looking at the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette by Game Envy Creations and putting it through the wringer to see if it’s a worthy addition to your hobby collection and the wet palette world as a whole. To find out if this is the palette for you, read our Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review to see what we thought.

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Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Summary

Game Envy Creations are injecting themselves into the wet palette scene with a unique entry of their own. They boast of innovation, and this claim certainly holds up – the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette is not just a wet palette, but an all-in-one hobby storage tool to boot – with a compartment in the lid allowing you to hold a number of brushes, tools and you can even lean your phone against it. It also does what it says on the tin and keeps your paints fresh for days on end.

However, it is not without flaw, as we found out with the paper stock provided not being up to scratch in our copy. If that kink is ironed out, then Game Envy have introduced a worthwhile entry to the wet palette world worthy of your consideration.

Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Introduction

“What’s that?”, I hear you say, “Another wet palette review? Nani?“

But this ain’t just another wet palette. After all, it’s got a new hat!

All kidding aside, this new wet palette is one recently introduced by hobby company Game Envy, of whom we’ve actually reviewed a painting handle of theirs a year past. It was originally listed on Kickstarter and reached its target and then some – and is now available for general purchase since meeting its goal. So today, we are going to see how the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette holds up to close scrutiny and if it really is the best on the market for miniature painters.

We’d also like to thank Game Envy for sending us this sample for review.

Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Contents

We’re skipping past the unboxing section, as I didn’t receive one – but we’re all imaginative people here, so we’ll theatre-of-the-mind it. Instead, we can just dive right in and list what we get;

• Exemplar Premier Wet Palette
• 50 sheets of wet palette paper
• Mixing tray
• 2 Wet palette sponges
• Squeegee
• Anti-microbial strip

It’s a complete package, to say the least. Le’ts go over each item individually.

La tavolozza

Here is the main entree itself – the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette. Take a look and tell me what it invokes in you.

It’s a really swish looking design, but those flip-on latches really make me think tupperware.

That’s not a criticism mind, as those latches serve an efficient practical purpose, and differentiates this from the usual wet palettes you’ll find on the market, most of which are sealed with an elastic strap and a TPE seal. The use of latches secures the palette and lid very tightly – so tightly and compact that no water will leak out (yes, I’ve tried). I do appreciate the diversity in wet palette designs, as it gives you the choice and chance to see what holds the palette tighter.

I’m not personaly a fan of lime green as a colour, but if you’re as picky as me, there are other colours to choose from, like blue, red or just black (for all the Batmen in the room).

Now, you see that large swathe of lime green in the centre? You can actually flip that up to reveal a neat little compartment. Observe.

Now this is where Game Envy’s claim of an innovative product comes into play. This is the first wet palette I’ve seen that effectively incorporates a storage space for brushes and tools. I know the Tavolozza bagnata del pittore dell'esercito provides a space for brushes in its lid, but Game Envy take this idea to the next level by providing larger space and adding in little partitions to separate brushes from clunkier tools like clippers. You can also store the mixing tray in the middle partition, which appears to be designed exactly for the tray.

Here is an example of how I’ve put this great feature to use.

It fits my usual selection (bar quite a few brushes, which would need to be swapped out for the clippers to store) quite well, and even though the clipper handles go over the partition, the lid can still close. Granted, dependent on what you use, the space could turn out limited if want absolutely everything in there at all times, but if you’re out and about and only need select brushes and tools, this feature is a little god send.

You can even prop your phone against the open lid if you want to watch your favourite hobby channel while you paint or read a Fauxhammer review of this wet palette while you use this wet palette.

Speaking of features, let’s highlight another interesting one that will be raising eyebrows. It’s something I’ve not seen on any other wet palette to date, and is quite peculiar. It’s called a lid vent.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it at first. There’s a silicone seal on top covering a hole to your wet palette. I looked at this and thought, ‘why is there a hole in my wet palette? Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of keeping things sealed and moist inside?’

After a little digging, Game Envy themselves explain it as this;

The silicone vent on the lid helps control moisture levels while the lid is locked on. The vent also doubles as a vacuum seal to keep out air and preserve paints longer and keep the palette mold free.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gameenvy/exemplar-premier-wet-palette-system

It’s honestly not something I would have considered before, but I can see why this feature would be innovative. If you wanted to let a little air in to prevent pile-up of condensation or live in a particular climate where humidity is high, this feature will be rather useful. Living in Britain, it is, generally speaking, not humid, unless in times of heatwave. We are approaching summer weather right now, but it’s nowhere near hot enough right now for me to be concerned about the humidity inside my wet palette. But in other regions of the world, this is definitely something worth putting to the test and see how it effective this lid seal is.

Last thing to note about the palette is its size – it’s approximately 28x20cm, putting it at just above standard wet palette size (if we’re using the Army Painter Palette o il RedGrass Games Painter Lite palette as examples), as it is a bit of a monster, but not so intrusive that it would dominate a small table like the RedGrass Games Studio XL does. This is the right medium for me – it doesn’t impose on my hobby space too much, which is rather small (and by small, I mean the end of the kitchen table).

The Sponges

The most essential part of a wet palette after the wet palette would be the sponge. You are given 2 with the palette, and here they are.

I don’t think there’s much more commentary to add other than they’re definitely spongey. They absorb water well and will need to be wrung out when you know you’re not going to use your palette for a while, because I’m not sure these pads are anti-fungal themselves – as you need to put a copper film strip under it, which is the anti-microbial part.

The Paper

What palette is complete without the special paper to actually put your paints upon?

50 sheets come with this palette, which is standard and more than enough to keep one occupied for a while. Upon first glance, these sheets seem standard and fine – but we’ll put them to the test shortly.

The Extras

We’ll conclude the contents part of the review by quickly going over the miscellanea. Game Envy have kindly provided a squeegee with their name and logo emblazoned on it to help with applying the paper onto the foam.

You also get a strip of blotting sponge, useful for wiping water off your brushes instead of going with kitchen roll.

Game Envy recommended you cut up the blotting sponge, using the squeegee as a template, to slot nicely into the mixing tray like below.

The mixing tray is removable and a great little extra (although I didn’t use it as I didn’t indulge in any colour mixing) that invokes a traditional style of painting. The fact that it can store any little extras make it something special. If you want to mix and experiment with paints outside of the palette, this tray will do wonders for you.

The last thing is this anti-microbial strip.

I thought I had won entry to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory when I first saw this.

This goes on the bottom of your wet palette, with the copper foil lining acting as a deterrent against mould and microbes (hence the ant-microbial). This is a first I’ve seen in a wet palette – as most of them boast in-built anti-fungal measures. But keep hold of it. You’ll need it shortly.

Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Using the Wet Palette

It’s time to put this baby to the test. We’ll show you to put it together.

Set-Up

My copy didn’t come with instructions, but if you’ve ever used a wet palette before, you won’t need any – except for one step, which we will outline below. Game Envy also have a downloadable PDF guide Qui if you’d like to peruse.

First off, take the lid off like so.

After that, grab your anti-microbial strip and carefully peel off the foil, which will have adhesive on the underside. Carefully stick it down at the centre of the palette and iron any creases without the squeegee. And when I say carefully, I mean not like me. It’s like a chocolate wrapper, it is easily destroyed, like so.

Ignoring my neanderthal method of slapping down strips, we’ll move on to applying the sponge on top, like so.

Now, this is the part where we get wet. Take your palette to the nearest faucet and drench it in water. Tip out the excess water once you’re done – you don’t want a layer of water sitting on top, rather you just want the sponge to be thoroughly moist.

Next up, it’s time to roll out the paper. Grab a sheet and carefully lay it on top, using the squeegee (or your hand) to iron out all the air pockets and creases. If it begins to curl up at the edges, keep padding it down. You also want to make sure the paper itself hasn’t got water on top.

And voila, we are done. You have graduated from Wet Palette University with flying colours.

Pittura

Now we can get started on the fun part.

I had to think what model in my exhaustive pile of shame should step up to the plate for this review, and I settled on the Frog God himself, the comet chucking old world-ending madlad amphibian Lord Kroak.

And his big floating gamer chair too.

To give a little background, I started painting this model shortly after his release, but this was the first centrepiece model I had painted in many many years so got a bit intimidated and never finished him – that is, until today.

You might look at that progress and think ‘there’s barely anything left to do!’. Well, I wish that were the case. This model is brimming with so many tiny details that it’s so easy to get bogged down in them, things like all the small animals, plants and trinkets. This was quite a hill to climb, and the Exemplar Premier would be the palette to finish it.

The first colour I started with was Armatura del Retributor (note, I only used Citadel paints on this model). Being a metallic paint, I expected it to be watery before it hit the palette. But then this strange thing happened.

The paint actually started to recede, as if it the paper was hydrophobic. I hadn’t diluted the paint with water or medium beforehand, this was straight from the pot. A bit odd, but not unworkable – I just scooped out a larger glob out of the pot to make up for the bizarrely disappearing paint.

Whilst spending some time working on the golden details, I notice my paper begin to curl up at the sides.

Now, it looked like there was too much water under the paper – hence the curling. I had already tipped out the excess water, but I tried again anyway. I promptly binned this bit of paper and put on a fresh bit, making sure to use the squeegee to thoroughly iron out all the emerging bubbles and creases underneath. Things were going alright for a few minutes until it started happening again

I really wasn’t sure what was going wrong. In hindsight, perhaps the sponge was too wet? But in my experience, you need to douse a wet palette foam pad, tip out the excess and let it absorb the water. Maybe my sponge didn’t absorb the water as well as previous palettes of mine did, or the paper is of poor stock. Hopefully, this is just a fluke with my copy rather than a more widespread issue.

Regardless, I carried on, as I was eager to begin. I started with doing everyone’s favourite thing to paint – gold trim. Despite the paper curling issue, I was able to get some smooth painting done – though my gold still kept receding a bit when dolloped onto the paper.

Despite those issues, I was able to get a few details done with a few different paints – like contrast paints Akhelian Green e Blu etermatico for the various crystals that were prevalent throughout the model. Like the gold paint, the contrast paint did not react well with the palette paper, which also shrunk when it made contact, resulting in me having to put down more than I normally should.

After an afternoon filling in the small details, I felt enough was enough and would come back to this later. You can see above where I left off – all the gems and crystals were done, as well as gentle highlights of Moot Green on the leaves on the palanquin.

This is what the palette looked like when the day was done.

As you can see, the curling got progressively worse as the hours went on. It wasn’t unusable, but the creases in the paper itself began to rise and elevate above the sponge, resulting in an uneven surface that slid some of the less solid paint around. It was not palatable, to say the least.

But it was time to put the lid on and see if the paint would survive to the next day. Here’s what I saw upon the day after.

You’d be forgiven for asking ‘What’s the difference? It’s the same picture?’. Despite the problematic paper, the paints have survived a night – even the contrast paints were still there, ready to be used.

The Moot Green was right as rain, the tiny blobs of Aethermatic Blue were still pooled and the Corteccia di Driade had separated – but could be reactivated with a small dabbing of water.

Only the Orda di scheletro I had used to paint the ivory tusks had dried out and became a tea stain, but there wasn’t much of it left that was useful anyway.

Satisfied with the ability to keep the paints moist, I carried on, wanting to focus on painting the various snakes that the venerable Lord Kroak squats upon.

Being a big fan of reptiles, I elected to paint these snakes based from real recognisable species, like the Coral Snake, Emerald Tree Boa, Yellow Eyelash Viper, Reticulated Python, Mangrove Snake, Albino Python, Rattlesnake e Anaconda. Being such small parts of the model, as well as choosing some difficult patterns for inspiration, it was quite a challenge to paint them up as realistic snakes, but with a finer brush and plenty of space on the palette to provide brush control, it was easily done.

After a few hours, I felt I was finished, so I slathered the base in Sitrland Battlemire e Caliban Green with copius amounts of Rot di Nurgle to simulate a swamp. The Nurgle’s Rot sitting atop the thin layer of Caliban Green came out really well, looking like globs of algae upon a swamp river.

After those finishing touches, this is what my palette looked like.

To say the least, it saw an unbelievable amount of use for one model – a centrepiece model, no less. But you can see how the paper has reacted rather poorly to being on a damp sponge, which is disappointing. However, the paper wasn’t unusable, but awkward to get around. However, the palette did its job for the most part and retained moisture for the paints.

And here is the finished model.

Overall, despite the issues I’ve had, I’m very pleased with the result. Here, you can I’ve pulled more from nature and gave our Frog-King a peacock feather for a hat.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, there’s also the little guy on his right. None of my Seraphon army are likely to follow the suggested colour schemes, instead drawing inspiration from real reptiles and amphibians, so this skink was modelled after the Leopard Gecko, with eagle feathers on his tail and helmet. His skin was achieved with a base of Averland Sunset, some layering of Yriel Yellow e poi Corvo Nero for the spots and feathertips and Rakarth Flesh for the tail.

All in all, a successful little jaunt, but not without some trials.

Will Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Improve My Hobby?

This should be a slam dunk.

The wet palette is innovative – it can hold your brushes and tools, making it all the better for leaving the house with it if you want to do a spot of painting elsewhere. It functions as a wet palette should too – my paints were fresh and ready to go after a day, even as the climate is starting to warm up in the UK.

It is unfortunate that it’s let down by the paper stock – but then again, how do I know the specific issue lies with the paper quality? I don’t, but the fact that it keeps curling up long after being placed on a moist (not soaking) sponge after the creases and air bubbles were squeegeed out really put a hamper on my ability to use it. I shouldn’t have to work around these issues – it’s not a problem I’ve had with previous wet palettes.

If that blip could be ironed out (and for all I know, it could just be a bad paper batch I’ve got), then this wet palette will absolutely improve your hobby.

Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Price and Availability

The Game Envy Creation’s Exemplar Premier Wet Palette can be purchased directly from their negozio online (based in the US) for $34.98 USD, which converts approximately to £28.07 GBP/ €32.65 EUR. There are currently sold out in other places like Amazon, so your best bet is to buy directly from them.

The price is reasonable, and on par with the other ones on the market that we’ve reviewed previously. It’s a good entry price point for beginners starting the hobby as well, if they all want all the bells and whistles the Exemplar gives, like the locking system and hobby tool/ brush storage space. Experienced painters will also appreciate these extra features that sets the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette from all the others in the market.

Game Envy Creations’ Exemplar Premier Wet Palette Review – Final Thoughts

The Exemplar Premier Wet Palette, as a concept, is an excellent product that stands out in a market that can be a tad oversaturated with wet palettes, that are ultimately, the same thing with slight variations. Game Envy have gone out of their way to offer new features to a basic concept – and it really works. Locking the palette with lunchbox-like clips is a great idea, adding extra security you might not feel with just an elastic strap, that over a period of time, can evitably loosen and slack. The bespoke storage tray in the lid is another great feature seldom found – especially that it’s made to fit with the extras they provide, like the mixing tray. It’s an all in one package.

However, the Exemplar is let down by the most basic of things – its paper. It doesn’t feel as thick as the wet palette paper I have from RedGrass Games, so I do wonder if that is the source of the issue – thicker paper, perhaps? Regardless, it did unfortunately marr the experience and it would be remiss of us not to mention it in this review. I shouldn’t have to keep patting the paper down or replacing it when it has barely any paint, as it does put the painting experience to a grinding halt. Hopefully, this is something that can be rectified by Game Envy for current and future releases, because otherwise, this is a terrific product.

Aggiornare: Based on prior feedback, Game Envy are aware of the issue with the curling paper and has released brand new paper stock alongside small corner weights to combat this. Hopefully, this fix sticks and will halt this issue with the product.

At the end of the day, the results speak for themselves. I was able to paint up a large centrepiece model in Lord Kroak, and if I can do it, so can you. There are other options on the market to explore, sure, but the Exemplar Premier Wet Palette is definitely worth a look.

Notare che: This site uses affiliate links. Our Affiliate Partners are shown below
(Affiliate links will result in compensation to the site on qualifying purchases)

Fare clic su questo collegamento e acquistare i propri hobby da Element Games per il Regno Unito e l'Europa supportare FauxHammer.com - Usa il codice "FAUX2768"Alla cassa per doppi punti premio.

I nostri negozi affiliati / hobby

• UK: Element Games, The Outpost, Wayland Games, Possente Lancer, Goblin Gaming, Forbidden Planet, Forniture per paesaggi modello, eBay, Amazon
• USA / Canada: MTechCave, GameKastle, eBay (Stati Uniti), eBay (CA), Amazon
• Germania: Taschengelddieb
• Europa: eBay (DE), eBay (FR), eBay (ES), eBay (IT), Amazon
• Australia: eBay, Amazon
• Globale: RedGrass Games, Warcolours

• Stampanti 3D: Phrozen 3D, Elegoo, Anycubic

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Sommario

recensore

Jordan

Data della recensione

Articolo recensito

Game Envy Creations' Exemplar Premier Wet Palette

Valutazione dell'autore

3

nome del prodotto

Exemplar Premier Wet Palette

Prezzo

Dollaro statunitense $34.98

Disponibilità del prodotto

Disponibile in magazzino