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How do art store acrylic paints compare to GW or Vallejo paints? They seem to have the same properties as GW paint, at a much better price. Is there any reason to not buy them, apart from patronizing my FLGS?

It really depends on the paints.

Paints made specifically for use on models tend to have smaller pigement particles. Artist's acrylics are often thicker, grainier, and/or don't thin or mix as easily.

That being said, there are a whole stack of people out there getting reasonable results on models with artist's acrylics. It's just down to finding a brand that is a reasonable quality for what you want it to do.

I've used Prism Acrylics on bases for years, and a friend of mine did several armies pretty exclusively with them. Although they're probably not even still available... mine are pretty old

If in doubt, buy a tube and try it.

I use dollar store acrylics and Calligraphy inks. GW paint as slightly better coverage, but for the price you really cant compare.

That's great news. With each bottle holding twice as much paint for half the price, I was worried that there would be a catch somehow.

I use several different art store colors as well.

GW paints tend to have better coverage than art store brands, so your even more likely to need multiple thin layers of paint to get good coverage. Other than that (and an interesting time color matching), they do just fine.

iv used gw paints for 6 years now and im just starting to use Vallejo yellow and brown inks on my fists as gw no longer produce there yellow ink, but vallejo and gw both use citadel paints its just the name and the colour are ever so slightly different. Plus gw paints are now £2:30 each and vallejo are 1:80 each an arrived less than 24 hours after i ordered them.

Here is the site if anyone is interest: http://www.em4miniatures.com/acatalog/Vallejo_Inks.html

I am not sure if im allowed to put that link there so sorry if im not.

Cheers

I use Reaper and Vallejo. Not sure how the prices compare, but I find they flow better, don't dry out as easily, and in the case of Reaper, come in triads, so you don't need to mix paints. Just start with the shadow, then the middle, then the highlight and you're done. Reaper paints are $2.99 for a half ounce, GW are $3.70 for 12ml (about .4 ounce). So, if for no other reason than cost and ease of highlighting, I go with Reaper.