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I've decided on Army Painter's paint brushes. Now I need paint. I'm not going to pay for GW paints, due to the general fact that I know better. My question is what paint brand is better? The two I'm looking at is Vallejo and Reaper.

Also, what's the big deal about wet-palette painting? Does it make that big of a difference?

Wet palate is awesome. Try floating the foam from a blister pack in a tub of water and using that as your paint mix area. You can literally come back the next day and paint the same color.
Honestly, I use the model car paints from hobby lobby mostly. Cheap, vibrant, crazy high pigment.

Does using wet-palette techniques work out to where I don't have to water down paints as much?

Yes it does as the water seeps through the thin material on top of the foam to keep it wet longer . Be aware that some paints (like older GW ones) didn't need watered down in my experience so some paints may end up too watery. Best thing to do is trial and error and learn
For paints I am very impressed with vallejo and P3 ranges I've used. But the GW washes and foundation paints are worthwhile using as well. Still using a lot of the old GW paints too (before the switch to the hexagonal clear plastic tubs at 3rd ed 40k ) I think coat d'arms do these or the really nice as well range before these ones.

Heres the deal: water comes UP through the foam floating on the surface through capillary action. But since its floating, gravity is also pulling the water down.
What results is usually a pretty happy medium much akin to how you'd water it down normally. Quick touch to some paper towels can dry the brush back out.
Try it out with a color that isnt vital, see if you like it.

I would recommend Vallejo paints on the strength of the paint pots alone (though it is also good paint). They have a dropper on the pot so you waste way less paint and it doesn't dry out so easily like the GW ones.

If you are looking to save a bit of cash then you can use ordinary artists acrylic for some colours. Though probably not many because it has a lower pigment count. Black is usually a safe bet, even the cheapest £1 a litre bottles of acrylic black will work just as well as Chaos Black.

As for the wet palette... Yeah it makes a huge difference. If you want to do anything more advanced than table top standard you really need a wet-palette. It allows you to mix every shade of colour you are going to need to shade and highlight your miniature and then keep it wet for days. This makes it so much easier to do smooth blends for highlight, and just generally makes things faster because you aren't having to open up pots and remix colours every 2 mins because your paint has dried out again.

It can be a bit unpredictable though, and takes some practice. Sometimes paints will go to watery, sometimes they will stay perfect for days, other times they may dry out in a few hours. I think a lot depends on the humidity.

So it's worth investing in then. Good to know. So the general consensus is Vallejo is better than Reaper?

Xelkireth wrote:So it's worth investing in then. Good to know. So the general consensus is Vallejo is better than Reaper?

Investing? I wouldn't buy a wet palette (well actually I did buy one), but you shouldn't because they are easy to make yourself. Invest in some biscuits instead and then keep the tin, then put a wet sponge in it and some baking paper over the top and you're done.

I haven't used Reaper so I couldn't comment on if it is better than Vellejo, I have heard it is excellent though.

I'm leaning toward Reaper for the convenience of the triad system. I've used some Reaper paints before and they last forever.

Go to hobby lobby, and there are 3 grades of the acrylic paint.

Only the lowest grade has less pigment than all of these companies.
The professional and master grades are so dense with pigment that you HAVE to water them down. Say.... in a wet palate?

Vallejo FTW if you're keen to put money into the industry and give someone other than GW a bigger market share. Simply because reaper pre thins the paint (waters them down) ad vallejo has the cool dropper bottles so you can measure the paint out.
But seriously. Give the high grade Hobby lobby stuff a try as well, see what suits you.


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Lol "Invest" in some biscuits. Thats the best advice ever.

I think the closest Hobby Lobby to me is over two hours away. I live right in the middle of Kansas.

Oh dear GOD. The dark city indeed.

I've never heard of the baking paper thing smacks was talking about. Baking paper = wax paper? Wax paper repels water and so would negate the effect, right?
Anyway, if you're ordering vallejo off the webs, Hobby lobby also has a website!

I found two decent looking How-To's on making your own wet-palette.

Some girly looking blog.
From Brushthralls.

I had no idea that there was a non-waxed version of baking paper.
Good luck with it, post yours if you make something cool!

I'm gonna be honest. I'm lazy. I'll probably end up buying one.

I'm *really* happy with Vallejo Game Color. You don't have to dilute them for the most part, but if you want to then they perform wonderfully provided you use the right ratios (more paint/medium, less water). They're quite compatible with an airbrush, too.

I tend to buy them from thewarstore. Shipping is something like $5 per box that they send you, in which they can cram like 10 of those dropper bottles ($25 of paint).

I know I've used Reaper paints, and they're excellent. I'll have to give the Vallejo paints a try though, because I keep hearing good things about them.

@ Xarian: good in an airbrush? Sweet...

Gonna have to give the wet-palate a try as well, I'm pretty good at table-top quality, but would like to start doing some nicer stuff.

Stuff required: bin (tupperware w/ lid probably)
sponge (size of tupperware bottom)
tracing paper

Sweetness...

I'm a mediocre painter at best currently. I'm hoping that with my new models, I can improve some more and make my investments (better quality brushes, better quality paint) worth it.

Cat's Rundown on paint.

There are four main properities of paint that are usefull to talk about when minature painting. They are, pigment type, pigment size, pigment qunatity and the paint base.

As far as pigment type is conserened there are two major types, natural pigments and artificle pigments. Natrual pigments cover the best and last the longest without fading. Most hobby specific paints are made with Natural pigments, i.e. GW, Vallejo and Reaper. Artificial pigments cover well, provide very bright and vibrant shades, but they don't hold their color nearly as long. Artifical pigments are very cheap to manufacture and therefore find their way into cheap paint, Apple Barrel etc. For an easy comparison of this that you can see, paint a model useing Games Workshop paint, paint another with Apple Barrel then put them out in the sun, after a month or so the model painted with Apple Barrel paint is going to fade.

Next up we have pigment size, this may not be something you've ever though about before, but the level to which the pigment in paint is ground plays a big role on how well that paint looks on your minature. Model specific paints are going to have a very finely ground pigment and will give you the best possible finish. A paint with a more coursely ground pigment can appear chalky especially when applied in thin layers or with a dry brush.

The next important property of paint is going to be pretty self explanitory. A higher quality paint is going to have a larger consentration of pigment. The higher the concentration of pigment the better coverage you get, it also allows you to thin down a paint more.

Finally we come to the most important part of paints in general, the base. The paint base determines the overall properties of the paint, hows its going to cover, dry, flow etc. There are many different bases for paint, but the most common, atleast in minature painting, are acrylic, oil, resin and alchol. Its hard to say which is better because each type has an area in which it excells, but the majority of paints used are going to be acrylic or resin simply because they offer a paint that is ok at everything.

Now that, that explination is done with we can look at the three types of paints you mentioned specifically, all three of which appear in my collection. The paints your talking about fall into two major catatgories, blending and layering. Vallejo and Games Workshop are both blending paints, they are very opaque. Vallejo has the best coverage while Games Workshop adhearse the best to a model. Reaper on the other hand is a layering paint, its slightly transparent. Because of this it doesnt cover quite as well GW or Vellejo paints, but then its not supposed to.

Regardless of your painting technique, layering or blending you can achieve amazing results. My advice to you, pick whatever paint you feal most comfortable with.

Cat: That was an amazing explanation. Thanks! I'm still going with Reaper, but it's nice to know that I'll be do a few more coats than I would have with GW. I would have been pissed and been all rabble rabble rabble WTFsauce?!

The Privateer Press Formula P3 paints (created by Mike McVey) are very good and heavily pigmented. Not so much as Foundation Paints, but more than average, yet still not so thick and well enough to paint with out of the bottle. They also make a very nice Wet Palette with refill sheets.

Single Paints: http://www.thewarstore.com/PrivateerP3SinglePaints.html
Wet Palette: http://www.thewarstore.com/product48389.html
Refill Sheets: http://www.thewarstore.com/product48391.html

I also recommend watching their DVD, on Core Techniques. It's "out there" on the internet.

The biggest problem I have with P3 paints is that other brands of paints don't adheare well to them.

Doomthumbs wrote:I've never heard of the baking paper thing smacks was talking about. Baking paper = wax paper? Wax paper repels water and so would negate the effect, right?

I'm not sure, I discovered baking paper after running out of the paper that came with my wet-palette, and being too lazy to go buy some more. But it turned out to be much better than the paper that came with the wet palette.

It doesn't say on the pack if it is also wax paper, but it does certainly have a water repelling quality. However I usually soak it in hot water for 15 mins before I start painting, and it seems to work well. I don't know if this is because of the soaking in water breaks down the coating a little, or if it is just general humidity in the box that stops the paint drying. Either way it seems to work... The paint will still dry out after about a day if I leave the lid off and neglect to top it up... I'm okay with that though as I've stopped getting the problem of my paints becoming overly watery on the palette, and I don't mind remixing colours if it's only once every few days.

Wow @ cat, thanks for the run-down. That's some grade-A stuff, and will probably make the difference for my painting skills in the not so far future. Rock on.