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ive been reading a lot about people using vallejo paints rather than GW paints. Which paints are better and why ?? PS sorry if theres already a thread about this.

There are several topics discussing this already.
Largely it boils down to personal preference. I use a mix of both, but am slowly changing to Vallejo paints. Not so much because of the paint quality, but because of the dropper pots.

There are some (more or less) hard facts though:
- Vallejo paints are cheaper/ml than GW paints.
- I you use a palette Vallejo dropper bottles are more convenient.
- Vallejo has a much larger selection of colors (if you count both VGC and VMC).
- GW washes act superior to Vallejo washes

I like Vallejo, but I also like the GW metallics, foundation paints, and washes.
I find the Vallejio washes are a bit gritty, but the regular colours are very good.

Don't stick to just one paint manufacturer, each range of paint has it's good points and bad points, take the best of each and you won't go far wrong.

Vallejo paints taste minty, foundation tastes bitter.

Phototoxin wrote:Vallejo paints taste minty, foundation tastes bitter.

You know this because...?

I only use GW paint, but this is mainly out of preference. I like GW paint, and I haven't seen any better alternatives where I live (I don't think you can get Vajello in the UK). I will, however, use non-GW paints for particularly large bits of scenery, as painting a board with little pots of paint is not practical.

Speaking of gritty paint, if you want to coat a board with textured paint, don't splash out on pre-mixed stuff. Just buy some emulsion and a large bag of sand (they're cheap from Wickes) and mix them together. It works fine.

There are many different factors why people tend to choose one brand of paint over the other: quality, price, container the paint comes in, availability of the brand etc. And these are only the basic differences.

P3 paints are mixed with a higher amount of drying retarder than say GW or Vallejo - which makes them better for techniques like wet blending. Vallejo paints come in dropper bottles, so you can use them more easily with a palette than say GW or Coat d' Arms.

Even in a single brand, there can be huge differences. I personally have found the the Vallejo Game Color paints Dark Green and Orange Fire quite difficult to work with and I'm sure, that others can say the same things about other lines of paint.

So basically, it just comes down to personal preference. I started out with GW but soon switched over to Vallejo, because I found them better for my style of painting.

Cheers,


IK-Painter

marv335 wrote:I like Vallejo, but I also like the GW metallics, foundation paints, and washes.
I find the Vallejio washes are a bit gritty, but the regular colours are very good.

Don't stick to just one paint manufacturer, each range of paint has it's good points and bad points, take the best of each and you won't go far wrong.

I agree 100% with thus post. Vallejo metallics are not good in my opinion. They have larger metal flakes and look like cheap craft paint metals. I use GW metallics instead. As for washes, I make my own. There are a few great posts on dakka about this and you really do get great results and the exact color you want.

Good luck.

Squigsquasher wrote: (I don't think you can get Vajello in the UK)..

Ummm yeah you can, you just have to look for them , Langleys toymaster have them i believe, or if ur anywhere near Norwich, Starwyn Games has them

Model zone stocks them too.

Also it's because sometimes I shape the brush with my mouth, so i sometimes taste the paint. Seriously vallejo tastes minty or something.

Brother Azul wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:Vallejo paints taste minty, foundation tastes bitter.

You know this because...?

Honestly, you've never washed your brush (but not as thoroughly as you thought) then popped it in your mouth to lick it to a point?

That's how we know.

Grimtuff wrote:

Brother Azul wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:Vallejo paints taste minty, foundation tastes bitter.

You know this because...?

Honestly, you've never washed your brush (but not as thoroughly as you thought) then popped it in your mouth to lick it to a point?

That's how we know.

Yeah... that's proabably not good. Vallejo's also popular because their game color range replicates some of the older GW colors that were discontinued.

Squigsquasher wrote:I only use GW paint, but this is mainly out of preference. I like GW paint, and I haven't seen any better alternatives where I live (I don't think you can get Vajello in the UK). I will, however, use non-GW paints for particularly large bits of scenery, as painting a board with little pots of paint is not practical.

Speaking of gritty paint, if you want to coat a board with textured paint, don't splash out on pre-mixed stuff. Just buy some emulsion and a large bag of sand (they're cheap from Wickes) and mix them together. It works fine.

You can get vallejo from maelstrom games in the uk and it's damn good.

Grimtuff wrote:

Brother Azul wrote:

Phototoxin wrote:Vallejo paints taste minty, foundation tastes bitter.

You know this because...?

Honestly, you've never washed your brush (but not as thoroughly as you thought) then popped it in your mouth to lick it to a point?

That's how we know.

Oh i do that for sure, I just dont think ive ever left enough paint on the brush to be able to taste it. I did however dip my bruch into my cup of tea insted of my water once. I had just been using brown ink so i had all these little steaky pattens through it.

Gorillawizard wrote:

Squigsquasher wrote: (I don't think you can get Vajello in the UK)..

Ummm yeah you can, you just have to look for them , Langleys toymaster have them i believe, or if ur anywhere near Norwich, Starwyn Games has them

You can also get them from various online retailers, and also recently Some branches of Boyes stores started selling wargamig stuff - including Vallejo paints.

I've transitioned over to Vallejo paints for a couple of reasons:

- I paint with a palette, which, if you're interested in controlling your medium, you really need to do. A lot of people will say they paint without a palette, but if they're wiping excess paint off their brush on the edge of the GW pot, or in the reservoir in the cap, they're using a palette, just a really poor palette. Vallejo paints are much better for palette painting (use an old-CD-R! It doesn't take much!)

- I find Vallejo paints respond *much* better to thinning with water than GW paints. Along with this, they cover much more consistently when thinned, allowing for light, even coats to go down.

- Vallejo has many more colors available. Their "offwhite" should be in everyone's paint box. It's a white paint that goes on smooth an consistent.

- GW paint pots are downright user unfriendly. They can be relatively hard to pop open, they don't have a tab to keep the cap from hanging over the paint pot, and if you get paint along the edges where the lid closes, you can cause MASSIVE paint splatter when closing one.

- GW paint pots are more prone to drying out than Vallejo's dropper pots. Ever accidentally leave a GW pot open overnight? Better get stirring!

I understand that Vallejo isn't readily available to a lot of people. GW isn't *bad*, Vallejo IMO is just better. If you have a Vallejo display at your FLGS, pick up some core colors and give them a shot. You will not be disappointed.

I'm in the big camp on this one. Vallejo for 99% of things. GW foundations, washes, metals and the occasional color that vallejo does strangely.

I actually want to post an update regarding GW washes vs Vallejo washes and make the case that you *strongly* consider using a glaze medium based, hand mixed wash, as opposed to GW washes. I posted this in one of my threads in the Showcase forum (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/400230.page), so I'm going to repost it here. The product in question is literally called Vallejo Glaze Medium:

I buy my Vallejo Glaze Medium at my local hobby shop: they have a great supply of all Vallejo paints, which are the paints I use. I find they thin better, have much more consistent coverage, color better, mix better, etc. They come in droppers so they don't dry out, you don't have to use the crappy pots from GW, etc.

Glaze medium is like clear gel. That's the best way I can describe it. You mix it with a paint color to create a wash, but a wash that has a gel consitency, instead of a water consistency like GW washes. This means that the glaze medium goes on extremely smooth and even, and isn't as adversely affected by gravity. It takes a lot longer to dry, but is worth it by far.

What I do is take glaze medium, and put a drop on a palette, then the paint color I want to wash with, and add it near the medium. I then mix the color into the glaze medium, a brush tip amount at a time, until my mixture is consistent. You then paint either like you're highlighting, or you paint like a wash. Because it's a gel, it goes on so much smoother. No pooling, no clumping. Because it dries so much slower, it's more more "pliable," meaning you can correct things, or shift the wash around, or smooth it out. With GW washes, you can easily get pools, or settling very quickly, which is near impossible to fix/correct. With glaze medium, you get a better wash effect (it dries to a smoother gradient) and you get much more control over your shadowing/highlights. It's actually easier to use than washes, and gives you more control/better results.

For example, the eyes on my Paladins are Vallejo Deep Sky Blue. You paint the eyes like normal, being careful to get them painted cleanly (you still have to be able to paint!). After they dry, I then made a mix of Vallejo Glaze Medium and Vallejo Royal blue. I'm estimating here, but I'd say it's probably 5:1 Vallejo Glaze Medium to Royal Blue. You could even say 10:1 and I wouldn't argue. Just make sure you stir it up on your palette until it's consistent. It will look like a blue translucent gel. I then dabbed that onto the Paladin eyes. Being a gel/paint like consitency, I had the control to do this, and it wasn't runny, so it didn't run off down the face or anything, it just sat there, filling in the tiny crevasses. I think the effect speaks for itself.

One look I'm kind of tired of is the "dirty" look that really means "I washed the hell out of this model." I'm guilty of it in the past as well, and I think it's a shortcut technique to cover bad/sloppy painting. I'm not talking about weathering, just the process of slopping a lot of wash on a model, and letting it do the majority of the work. It leaves the model looking like it was in an ash storm most of the time. That's why I went clean with these models, and switched to using the glaze medium after doing some practice on my dummy figures (go go AoBR Terminators!)

There are great tutorials on the web for using glaze medium, and you can do a lot with it besides just replacing washes. Remember, this will work with lighter shades of colors too, so you can "whitewash" with it, or lighten paint up in a wash-like fashion. All it takes is a little practice.

You can do that with any medium, not just glaze medium, but I am not sure you can call it a "wash" at that point. It's just an acrylic paint with very low pigment. When it's as thick as you are describing it, surface tension no longer matters, so the wash mechanic isn't happening anymore.

I mean it seem super useful, but it's not a wash.

Like, you describe it going on "smooth and even". That sounds like the opposite of what I want a wash to do.