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I come by my Vallejo Game Color (VGC) collection honestly. It had to be the summer of 2010 when GW hatred was at an all time high in my neck of the woods. Hating GW was not only fashionable but it was pretty much a way of life where I went for all my gaming and gaming related products.

I knew hating GW was "alright". They are the evil empire, the Yankees of hobby wargaming. So naturally they were just an evil corporation ready to bleed me dry and the heroic little guy was who i should support. I would vote with my dollars.

I bought stock in VGC and started buying every single paint I needed from them and now a few years later heres what I found out. Of my several hundred bottles of paint from every single manufacturer readily available in northern california only one companies paint has turned into colored tooth paste. You guessed it. VGC bottles full of magenta, gory red and turquoise flavored toothpaste came out when I finally got around to needing them.

And don't even try using VGC on a wet palette. I mean I end up with huge chunks of pigment all over my models when I try this method.

My pot of dark angels green, now a venerable 4+ years old still flows as nice as the day i bought it.

This rant is only half serious but as now sort of experienced painter the difference in quality of paint is starting to really become evident to me.

most of it is crap. some of it i threw away it was so bad.

the products that i like from game color are:

-some of the "heavy" paints they released to match GW foundations work just fine for me. but be warned ive seen variations in them, they seem to have good and bad batches.

-i have a game colour black that seems to work well enough.

-their inks are great. i went through all 17 mils of brown ink. you know a paint is good when you reach for it often. that said i just bought a liquitex brown ink that also seems to work very well and it's alot cheaper.

-glaze medium is also good.

they seem to have some quality control issues or they try to cut costs. i had one pot of paint that was all thinner, no pigment. i shook and shook and stirred and stirred and it was still crap.

I do not hate VGC. Your experience seems atypical.

Vallejo paints do seem to be quite thick even in ideal circumstances. I do not think this is a bad thing though.

Get some Vallejo AB thinners (I use it for all thinning) or some Tamiya x20 and you'll find it's good.

The dropper bottles are a bit of a pain as if the paint has been laying flat you might get some crap in the thin part of the bottle that won't mix no matter how much you shake it. I put glass beads as agitators in all of mine.

Yeah, your expirence is atypical... The paint line isn't perfect (some of the greens are a little weak), but overall it's been just as good or better than GW. Not to mention they still have some awesome colors that GW, in all of their infinite wisdom, discontinued.
If you are so dissatisfied with VGC, try Privateer Press P3. Those paints are of fantastic quality with some pretty neat colors.

Yeah I've got some fairly thick VGC but i've got some perfectly thinned. Add some airbrush thinner to them and there fine... :( paint.

I've gotten the "toothpaste" problem a few times, before, but managed to resuscitate the goop that came out without issue. Every time, it was simply a matter of paint congealing in the nozzle, due to improper sealing, and once that goop was cleared, the rest of the bottle was fine. Some might consider the thickening a blessing, as that's still usable paint, instead of a wasted crust like one normally gets with flip-top pots.

I've also found that chunks usually chip off the tip of the nozzle, instead of coming from inside the bottle, so a quick wipe of the tip avoids 99% of that issue. I've yet to squeeze out clumped pigment, let alone larger pieces of dried paint, but I have deposited some on my palette when dragging the tip across it. Whether the palette is wet or dry is irrelevant - moisture doesn't make acrylic paint congeal.

The biggest complaint I usually hear about VGC is color separation. Apparently, they reformulated the more problematic paints some time ago, but people were still being sold old stock by independent vendors - the problem is getting rarer and rarer with time. With proper mixing (roll bottle between palms instead of shaking, so you don't lock a portion in the nozzle without mixing it, first - a stir will also do far more than a bit of shaking), VGC functions nearly identically to GW paints, in my experience - which colors behave better or worse than others don't necessarily align, but the proportions of great, passable, and problematic colors are similar.

Honestly, I think a number of people have run into the same problems that you have, they just saw them for what they were and either fixed them (thick paint, mixing issues) or avoided them in the future (dried chunks from tip-drag), instead of washing their hands of the entire line. There are other brands out there, though, so by all means try them until you find what you prefer. I wouldn't expect to find too much active hate for VGC here, though.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Yeah, your expirence is atypical... The paint line isn't perfect (some of the greens are a little weak), but overall it's been just as good or better than GW. Not to mention they still have some awesome colors that GW, in all of their infinite wisdom, discontinued.
If you are so dissatisfied with VGC, try Privateer Press P3. Those paints are of fantastic quality with some pretty neat colors.

P3 is also pretty hit-or-miss. I have a pot of black from them that positively sucks.

Have to agree frankly, I find I prefer the current GW range to VGC. It's honestly a shame because Vallejo's other lines of paint are truly exceptional - VMC has some lovely colours, and combined with the Panzer Aces stuff they've got every military-related colour under the sun, plus I won't even touch metallic paints from any line anymore thanks to the Liquid Gold paints.

I just hope nobody is put off from trying their better ranges because of the oftentimes poor experience of using the VGC paints.

 Yodhrin wrote:
It's honestly a shame because Vallejo's other lines of paint are truly exceptional .

mostly... yes except a i had a bottle of liquid gold "old gold" turn to a dull coppery brown on me. To be fair it was the old style bottle but it was the only one available at my local place.

So as always, caveat emptor, don't buy older looking bottles and whatever you do don't get VGC, ITS PANTS!

Well if you are not going to use them for a long time you should store them up side down. The paint seals the nozzle of the bottle so no air comes in. That way the paint will not get dry and you will get to use it after many months or years. Truth is that VMC is a bit thicker but nonetheless they are great paints. They only paints that are of lesser quality are the metallic ones. Nothing runs as smooth as boltgun metal, chainmail or mithril silver. Those were fantastic paints that now are replaced by the "huge pigment" metallics of the new GW range.

I prefer Reaper, but I have more problems with GW paints than I've ever had with Vallejo. That, and GW's habit of discontinuing and changing paints on a whim makes it irritating to try and maintain a specific, army-wide color scheme.

I'm as frustrated as the next person with GW and this thread was never a "yay" go gw and a "boo" vallejo it just so happens that I was sitting down to paint this weekend and i had not one but two tubes of VGC go south on me and I'm pretty sure a pot of charred brown thats just waiting till my back is turned to congeal on me.

I was never hugely dependent on any particular gw color so their switching around has not really ever affected me a great deal but as I get deeper in to the dark arts of weathering I'm realizing that I should have bought some charadon granite while I could because tons of tutorials point to it as being an all purpose weathering and chipping utility color.

I can agree to disagree. Other opinions are available. Just as long as you know they are wrong.

Damn you people are super unlucky. Going by how old the paint is I'd contact the person you bought it from asking for a replacement or refund :( but just a tip for everyone. I lernt this the hard way.

only by what you need. try and never store them. I don't care if its GW, reaper, Vallejo I don't think any of them are made to really last :( just my opinion tho.

Nope.

Works great.

Use a lot of different paints:
VMC, VMA, VGC, GW, Reaper, Aztek Airbrush, golden Airbrush, miniatire.

I did have one vallejo paint with problems once, but I have also had some bad bottles of most of the other brands as well.

I tend to use VMC not the game colours. Where I need a brighter yellow or orange or whatever, I use my leftover GW paints (the ones before they went to foundation mix) and haven't had a problem.

I have been using Vallejo for years now, and my experiences with them are a mixed bag. Most of them are fine, some need agitators spheres to work. But with the addition of those (small lead balls you put into the bottle before you shake it), they work well.

The Vallejo Model Colour range, however, is superb. Especially since it actually has a lot more different colours so that I don't have to mix my own all the time.

All my Vallejo paints are still fine ~4 years after buying them, the eyedropper style pots could be better though.

At the risk of sounding like a dick I would like to reiterate that this thread is about specifically why you do or do not hate VALLEJO GAME COLOR. That is all.

That seems to be the discussion? With relevant comparisons to other ranges.