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Hey all, anyone know if it is possible to get GW paints in larger quantities than the little pots?

Painting a whole SM army is going to take a lot of pots! Hmmm... Maybe I could get a match made at Home Depot?

Not the citadel ones you can't. Best bet there is to get the pots cheaper at some 3rd party retailer.

There are other brands of paint that offer a better price point, vallejo being the usual favorite, p3 being another.
You could mix your own using artists acrylics and mediums, but getting the right consistency will be a headache to start out.
Also craft acrylics offer better value per ml, but usually not quite as high a quality.

It might be worth looking to the coloured sprays, GW just put a handful out, and army painter have a well established range. These offer a quick way to lay down a lot of base colour, particularly for marines as theyre 90% one colour usually.
Airbrushes are another solution.

You might be surprised how many marines you can actually paint with 12ml of paint properly thinned though. I only usualy run out of colours that are the main part of a scheme, 12ml of some colours is enough to last a few years!

Liquitex ultra matt medium can extend paint a fair bit without changing the dried colour too much while keeping opacity (i.e base colours)

Regular matt medium can do the same but boosts transparency (layer colours)

Hairy-- you make a good point regarding the airbrush. A friend lent me theirs to use today just after I put this post up, and I was shocked how little paint it actually used and was still able to apply a nice, even coat.

 geektom wrote:
Hey all, anyone know if it is possible to get GW paints in larger quantities than the little pots?

Painting a whole SM army is going to take a lot of pots! Hmmm... Maybe I could get a match made at Home Depot?

I do color matching for terrain paint at Home Depot all the time. I don't think that you'd want to use it on your models, but I'd be curious about your results if you tried it.

Best bet would be to just switch to a paint with a higher value before you start painting.

There are plenty of paints that are as good or better than GW paints (quite often better IMO) which offer a much better volume per dollar ratio.

While I agree that paint can go a long way - it can also disappear really fast...especially when doing things like vehicles. For armies like Space Marines that tend to be so monochromatic, I would look into finding a less expensive option for my base color...ideally a less expensive option I could source locally without trouble (Createx has a good range of colors which are airbrush friendly and brush paintable that would work for most the core colors of SM armies).

Definitely look into one of the other "hobby" ranges of paints. Vallejo offers some good ranges, from the vibrant Vallejo Game Colour that closely matches the old GW range (even has a comparison chart to find exact matches) to the Vallejo Model Air range that is a more muted, "realistic" range of colours that are pre thinned and finely milled specifically for airbrush use, but are great to brush on too. There's also the Minitaire range which is an airbrush ready vibrant sci-fi/fantasy range, but it behaves a little differently.

I use VMA where possible, and VGC when I need more vibrant colours, both for brush and airbrush. The price per volume is much better than GW (especially in Australia). I also have the full Minitaire set which at 50% off at product launch was ridiculously awesome value.

GW: $6 / 12 ml
Vallejo: $3 / 17 ml
Minitaire: $1.50 / 30 ml

Is the prices I have/had in Australia for ranges. iirc GW is ~$4 in the US? And Vallejo should be something like ~$2.50. You're still paying less for more. Then you look at the tubs vs bottles, which is somewhat subjective, but bottles are simply better for airbrush use and exact measurements.

Depending on the colour scheme of your SM's, you might find a certain range has a better formulated paint for it. ie. if you want a silver scheme, you can't go past VMA metallics for airbrush, but the VMA yellow range is a bit limited iirc and the VGC range can be a bit harder to work with as they separate and require stirring.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Best bet would be to just switch to a paint with a higher value before you start painting.

There are plenty of paints that are as good or better than GW paints (quite often better IMO) which offer a much better volume per dollar ratio.

While I agree that paint can go a long way - it can also disappear really fast...especially when doing things like vehicles. For armies like Space Marines that tend to be so monochromatic, I would look into finding a less expensive option for my base color...ideally a less expensive option I could source locally without trouble (Createx has a good range of colors which are airbrush friendly and brush paintable that would work for most the core colors of SM armies).

This ^

As a person who has painted several armies and gone through a lot of paint, I would suggest switching to a base color that is available in an airbrush paint.

Yes, you can thin or mix paints - but to do so consistently - well, maybe some can do it well...but I would suggest just going with an airbrush paint.

After using createx, vallejo model air, golden and minitaire (and a few others I forget) - I would suggest minitaire or vallejo, but any will be better than non-airbrush paint.

best of luck!

Wow! This has been an awesome thread, thank you. Unfortunately, it is too late to start with colors I can buy in larger quantities (that would have been so smart!) but I have found a craft acrylic that matches my light gray base exactly. So far I am only airbrushing in small amounts, so thinning it down was not a big deal. When it comes time to o my first vehicles, though... You have all given me a ton to think about - thank you!

davethepak wrote:



Yes, you can thin or mix paints - but to do so consistently - well, maybe some can do it well...but I would suggest just going with an airbrush paint.

If you decide to mix and thin your own. For Citadels I have great joy using Liquitex Airbrushing Medium as my thinner. No water, no alcohol, no windex.. just medium. And in hot weather a spot of drying retarder to help with tip dry.

I tend to go for this, as when I started airbrushing, it was with artists soft body acrylics, for fine art purposes, rather than on models.
I moved onto acrylic inks when I couldnt achieve high levels of detail with thinned acrylics; clogging issues. But for block colour and shading they worked great. I still use them a lot, just not on my mini's. I tend to prefer the finish from citadels, and the colours matching for my later brush work is convinient.

Without an airbrush, I'm sure I'd look to army painter coloured sprays (and the matching 'war paints' for touching up later)