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Yes, yet another paint tread, you are free to chastise me for creating it if you feel it's pointless.

Anyhow, I just put in a fairly large order at Maelstrom for about twenty Vallejo colors to complete my collection of paints. That includes some more unusual ones such as tentacle pink and it's ilk. Thing is, I like to follow tutorials to try new things out and those often contain some colors or specific nuances I don't own, which blunty, really bug me as I suck at mixing my own colors.


And as I am a bit of OCD when it comes to things, those empty slots in my paint racks annoy me .


But enough about me, my question to you is:

Do you own a large range of nuances or do you make do with a more basic selection?
If you do own a large set, do all colors see use or do they collect dust?
If you have a more basic selection, do you feel limited by it or do you make do with what you got (or mix your own)?

I really would like to know how you approach this side of the hobby!

And by the way, this tread might look like the ideal place to brag about your complete collection of paints, but please try to take it the right way, that is, as a tread to discuss how you use the paints you own!

Edit: updated tread title to something more suitable for the topic at hand.

Wow, nice paint racks Pharcae! ALl mine are just thrown in an old cigar box i have lol.

I only have about 10 paints
(Chaos Black, Scab Red, Adeptus Battlegrey, Elf Flesh, Iyanden Darksun, calthan Brown, Skull White, Boltgun metal, Catachan Green, and blood red)

I combine paints if i need a different color, or if i just need a lighter color i just throw some white in. For orange's (like the end of my flamer barrel) i used scab red and calthan brown and it made a pretty nice rust like color.

I feel pretty limited in my paint selection and i dont really like combining paints as i usually make to much and waste some paint. I wish i had some more paints but at 4 bucks a pop i'd rather just buy models lol.

not all my paints are in here but this is the box i keep them in haha.

Pharcae wrote:
Do you own a large range of nuances or do you make do with a more basic selection?
If you do own a large set, do all colors see use or do they collect dust?
If you have a more basic selection, do you feel limited by it or do you make do with what you got (or mix your own)?

I started off with what most do, 3 paints I decided would be great for painting my first ever models, white, black, and red for some skeletons. (they were atrocious)
As time passed and I decided to start working hard on improving my painting skills I branched out the collecton massively. I stick with citadel and Vallejo, but have a mix of the Vallejo varieties as they all have their uses.

I store them in cut cereal boxes inside my old GW paint set case, which keeps them nice and neat, something I have to have or I get distracted by the messyness as I paint.I also transferred all my GW paints to dropper bottles with beads to help mix them, the only things left in pots are foundations, inks, and washes. The dropper bottles are an improvement over the pots in every way.

I use pretty much everything, each paint as a dot of its mixed final shade on top of the pot, then I organise them by shade. It means finding the right colour to highlight or mix is really quick, and I do most painting straight from bottles with very little mixing. There are some shades that do get used a lot less than others, and some that get used a LOT more, but I do tend to use a bit of everything, even if its just to lighten or darken a tiny bit.

A lot of these shades are extremely close in colour to each other, but the varying Vallejo types each give different final effects and have varying consistencies, some are perfect as glazes straight out of the pots.

Stormcallers wrote:Wow, nice paint racks Pharcae! ALl mine are just thrown in an old cigar box i have lol.

I only have about 10 paints
(Chaos Black, Scab Red, Adeptus Battlegrey, Elf Flesh, Iyanden Darksun, calthan Brown, Skull White, Boltgun metal, Catachan Green, and blood red)

I combine paints if i need a different color, or if i just need a lighter color i just throw some white in. For orange's (like the end of my flamer barrel) i used scab red and calthan brown and it made a pretty nice rust like color.

I feel pretty limited in my paint selection and i dont really like combining paints as i usually make to much and waste some paint. I wish i had some more paints but at 4 bucks a pop i'd rather just buy models lol.

not all my paints are in here but this is the box i keep them in haha.

Yeah, you make a great point there, when you are on a budget it's much more fun to spend it on models!

Ifalna wrote:
I started off with what most do, 3 paints I decided would be great for painting my first ever models, white, black, and red for some skeletons. (they were atrocious)
As time passed and I decided to start working hard on improving my painting skills I branched out the collecton massively. I stick with citadel and Vallejo, but have a mix of the Vallejo varieties as they all have their uses.

I store them in cut cereal boxes inside my old GW paint set case, which keeps them nice and neat, something I have to have or I get distracted by the messyness as I paint.I also transferred all my GW paints to dropper bottles with beads to help mix them, the only things left in pots are foundations, inks, and washes. The dropper bottles are an improvement over the pots in every way.

I use pretty much everything, each paint as a dot of its mixed final shade on top of the pot, then I organise them by shade. It means finding the right colour to highlight or mix is really quick, and I do most painting straight from bottles with very little mixing. There are some shades that do get used a lot less than others, and some that get used a LOT more, but I do tend to use a bit of everything, even if its just to lighten or darken a tiny bit.

A lot of these shades are extremely close in colour to each other, but the varying Vallejo types each give different final effects and have varying consistencies, some are perfect as glazes straight out of the pots.

You got things nicely organised, and putting a dot of color on top of the bottle really helps when you are looking for a shade in a hurry.

I like to keep things simple. painting isn't an arms race for me and i can go as good a job with 2 or 3 shades of each primary color, black, white, and two shades each of gold and silver as I can with a full line of whatever range. I also keep Elf Flesh around too.

In light of that, I have about 30 paints: 7 inks/washes, the rest paints that I've collected over the years. They all have their uses at times, but I've found I typically only need the ones above for any task.

Oftentimes, I'll be painting a model though, and say 'i really need so and so color for this' and i'll zip out and buy it. But nothing makes me madder than crappy citadel pots drying out because I bought them for one squad and didn't use it again, so I try to use those 'flavour' colours when i can.

I'd say I have about 30 paints in all, 20 of which are some shade of red or blue, kept scattered on my desk. Most are for blending, and I have a few washes as well, for metals or bone. I also have a ton of different spray paints and primers for dusting/vehicles.

I have almost the entire citadel range except a few usless colours. I keep mine in Stanley toolbox.

I use this thingy and I have about 2 rows' worth of pots left over, so about 100 total.


I don't care about complete sets, I buy what I need from whichever manufacturer has the closest hue to what I want and the best coverage.

I'm no stranger to mixing but if I need a lot of one colour (like the basecoat for a whole army) I prefer a prefabricated colour so I can buy it in bulk. Even if I have to look for the desired colour for months or years. I finally found a range that includes good lavenders for my Pretty Marines just the other day after 2 years of searching.

Do those of you that use a more limited selection of paints feel that it has made you a better painter (doing more with less)?

My paint collection was preety basic to begin with, it consister of Chaos Black, Boltgun Metal, Mithril Silver, Scorpion Green, Blood Red and shining Gold. Basic colours for a basic colour scheme.

But since I restarted the hobby last year I have branched out a fair bit, most of my old paints i replaced due to them either having very litte paint left or being rock solid(had stopped the hobby for 2 or 3 years).

Its safe to say that since I currently have 3 armies ongoing a fair number of my paints will be used, mosty Dark Angels green for my Chaos Marines, Necron Abyss and Ice Blue for my Tau, Hormagaunt purple and Liche purple will be used for my High Elves.

My most used colours though are my metallics, in pretty much every model I have you will see Gold, Silver and Boltgun.

All other colours and such are situational.

Mine is still basic by most standards, maybe 30 paints all GW except for a pot of Tamiya Clear Red, which all conveniently fit into my 'hobby case'

I play horde armies, so not a lot of mixing goes on for me. I have a pot of pre-mixed 1:1 Orkhide Shade/Goblin Green for my Ork's skin, but otherwise it's mostly 'paint this colour, shade this colour, highlight this colour' to speed up the processes.

Typically I only purchase more paints if I ABSOLUTELY need to. E.g. I have no need for a pink (except for the odd tongue) so I don't buy pink paint, just use red + white.

I've been painting for a decade (almost exactly...) at this point, so I've got a prety huge collection. LIke most gamers, I like to try the new thing.

I started with Ral Partha's, and quickly expanded to craft paints (Delta Ceramcoat) and a few art paints, along Reaper Pro paints and a few GW.

I soon branched into Vallejo Model Colors, and bought big into them at various points (and got a ton as gifts).

At this point, I'm collecting the Reaper Masters. I use GW foundations and washes, along with Les's washes. I have art inks, Vallejo Inks, a deep bench of Vallejo Model colors, and a bunch of craft/reaper/ral partha stuff left over as legacies. I also use Vallejo Air Color metallics.

All told? Like all of my wargaming stuff, my paint collecttion is way bigger than it needs to be.

Polonius wrote:I've been painting for a decade (almost exactly...) at this point, so I've got a prety huge collection. LIke most gamers, I like to try the new thing.

I started with Ral Partha's, and quickly expanded to craft paints (Delta Ceramcoat) and a few art paints, along Reaper Pro paints and a few GW.

I soon branched into Vallejo Model Colors, and bought big into them at various points (and got a ton as gifts).

At this point, I'm collecting the Reaper Masters. I use GW foundations and washes, along with Les's washes. I have art inks, Vallejo Inks, a deep bench of Vallejo Model colors, and a bunch of craft/reaper/ral partha stuff left over as legacies. I also use Vallejo Air Color metallics.

All told? Like all of my wargaming stuff, my paint collecttion is way bigger than it needs to be.

As you seem to have extensive expirence with Vallejo paints, how well to they store on the long term, do they dry out after a couple of years?

I have most of the citadel colours, I just keep them in an old plastic container.

They've never dried out on me. The dropper design keeps them pretty fresh. The bigger problem is that they separate like oil and water, and take extensive shaking to work right.

Polonius wrote:They've never dried out on me. The dropper design keeps them pretty fresh. The bigger problem is that they separate like oil and water, and take extensive shaking to work right.

Yeah they require a lot of shaking alright. I stuck some small ceramic beads in the pots of some of the worst offenders and it helped a lot. Mine are at least 6 years old and none show any signs of degrading, bar one particular model colour interior red that clumped its pigments into sand grain sized clumps.

They last even longer if you store them upside-down.

Ifalna wrote:
Yeah they require a lot of shaking alright. I stuck some small ceramic beads in the pots of some of the worst offenders and it helped a lot. Mine are at least 6 years old and none show any signs of degrading, bar one particular model colour interior red that clumped its pigments into sand grain sized clumps.

Thats a pretty good idea! Considder it stolen.