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Hey guys and girls what are cheap but good paints I can use on my models. I want them to look good but am not rich so I can't spend 4$ a bottle.

Could just stick with basic colors and mix as you go. There aren't that many mini paints that I know of that are Cheap but good.

Army painter warpaints - $2.49 / 18ml bottle

Vallejo Game Colour - $3.49 / 17ml Bottle

Badger Minitaire - $3 / 30ml bottle

P3 - $2.79 / 14ml bottle

Reaper Master Series - $2.79 / 14ml

Citadel - $4? / 12ml

theres a lot of choice other than Citadel, who are one of the most expensive at the $4 ish mark you stated with the smallest portion size. I've listed the big competitors here. Another that springs to mind is Coat D'Arms, but I don't know the price for them (they are one of GW's older suppliers)

Sounds weird, I know, but I've used nothing but Jo Sonja's fluid matte acrylics for about 4 years.

Easily as good as some miniature-specific paints IMO - they're professional artist paints, around $8 for a 75 ml tube here in Aus.

I've got to start checking if Hairy Sticks is online before I start typing out long posts. He's a skillful ninja, that one... To piggyback, instead:

One quibble with his list - he seems to have mixed MSRP and internet discount seller prices. Warpaints, Reaper, and P3 all have higher MSRPs than shown, but are commonly sold for the prices listed. VGC, however, from the same sellers, is only $2.79. According to the Warstore (which agrees with all of the other prices), the MSRP is $3.29, not $3.49. As a sub-quibble, Reaper and P3 are sold by the 1/2oz, which is closer to 15ml - you can choose whether to round or truncate.

If you're really strapped for cash, there are always craft paints (Folk Art, Apple Barrel, Delta Ceramcoat, etc.). I occasionally use a bit in my painting, but generally find them sub-par. Others manage just fine using them, exclusively. By far the lowest cost per ml, but your money is largely going to bulk, not variety. For painting tiny models, they pass a point of diminishing returns for all but the most prolific painters. I wouldn't recommend them, but some people use them, exclusively, to decent ends.

Jo Sonja must be an AU brand - I've never seen them, stateside. For soft-body artist's acrylics, we've mostly got Liquitex (utter garbage, in my experience, for model painting) and Golden (lovely paints, but not much of a savings over hobby brands). YMMV.

Personally, I suggest VGC and/or Warpaints, starting with your most used colors (for convenience) and a few of the other essentials (primaries, a brown or two, black and white). Depending on how willing you are to mix paints, you can do quite a bit for under $50, without having to sacrifice quality. After you have a workable core (if you don't already - you never mentioned if you're starting from scratch), you can then expand piecemeal, as most of us do, to soften the financial blow.

Oadie hehe, yeah those prices were all from the Warstore, except the citadel one which I guessed at?
Simply got them from there because I'm UK and the Op is USA, so the prices I know and use don't really apply to him.

I took an ounce to be 28ml, as an ounce in weight is 28.something grams.

All good points though.
I personally like citadel's for convinience, but the price hitting £2.40 has actually pushed me to purchase some Vallejo Model Air this last week. Having only tried the grey surface primer and a mix of scarlet red with mahogany to base some khorne marked csm, I'm really pleased with the VMA's. Convinience factor in not needing to thin and premix is a definate boon when airbrushing. Yet to try them with a regular brush so far.

Edit; just looked over at my box of paints... all I can say is ouch! my wallet! 88 pots of citadel, 15 bottles of Liquitex acrylic ink, full range of liquitex mediums, and just lately 20 or so VMA paints,and about 80% of the Windsor and Newton Galeria artists acrylic range in 250 and 500ml portions. I can assure you I did not buy all of them in one go Originally I got 15-20 citadels for my skaven army, and then added to that set for any following projects bit by bit.

Yeah, they could be an Aus brand. They're fairly rare to find here too though, unless you're in art supply stores, and I was pretty sure they're based in the US.

But basically, go with mini paints if you're unsure.

 oadie wrote:


Jo Sonja must be an AU brand - I've never seen them, stateside.

I think it is an AU brand, but are available in the US. I started picking them up about 8-10 years ago at AC Moore. Not sure if they still carry them, but as I get them from Dick Blick now they are certainly still available in the states.

Huh. Looked up the paints and they are, in fact, based in the US (wherever the paints are actually manufactured ). Looks like a relatively small operation, hence the limited availability and lack of brand recognition. If they're as good as Maxorhead says, they're a great value at roughly $1/oz, but again you're getting a massive volume for your money, not a wide variety (could be a good option for basing/terrain colors). Your call which is more important to you.

This is one of those topics which where you could rattle off several pages of information. In this case, the short answer is that almost all paints are cheaper than GW's and they are almost all as good or better.

The long answer has been touched on a bit already. There are a dozen or so brands of hobby paints (Reaper, Coat D Arms, P3, Vallejo, Renaissance Ink, Derivan, Iron Winds, Ral Partha Europe, Army Painter) which are all as good or better than GW and provide a lower cost per volume than GW.

You also have Airbrush paints, the most of which work quite well for painting miniatures. Be careful though to look at their end use - certain ones like Americolor are made for painting cakes while or Mehron which are made for body paints are not suitable. Most are quite good though, and although designed for airbrushing - they work quite well with regular brushes.

Then you move into model paints. Brands like Testors, Mr. Hobby, Hombrol, Tamiya, Lifecolor Andrea and several others are available in acrylic and again - work quite well for miniatures and are often much more readily available than miniature hobby paints. Testors in particular can be found nearly everywhere in the US.

From there you move into the liquid body (or fluid bodied) art paints. Golden, Liquitex, Dr. Ph Martin, Da Vinci and Lascaux all make pretty good liquid acrylics. They are dirt cheap by volume - but the color selections are made for artists who generally want to mix colors.

Then you have two different choices for value. Regular artists acrylics provide a good value, but require a lot of thinning in order to be useful. I know a guy who uses those and mixes them with Future floor polish to make some quite good miniature paints with for pennies on the dollar compared to regular miniature paints. He buys empty bottles and premixes his colors ahead of time. Again, the selection of colors is limited, but most use quite smooth pigments and because of how much they are thinned down you can stretch those tubes of paint to last for a very long time.

The other direction for about the same price per unit are craft paints. They generally are not quite as smooth as the paints listed out already, but you can pick up large bottles for less than a dollar each - especially if you pick them up when they are on sale at places like Hobby Lobby and AC Moore. They often have huge selections of colors (especially handy for some odd ball pastel paints that are needed from time to time).

And all of that just keeps things neatly within the confines of acrylic paints but only really scratches the surface of them without getting into intricacies of the differences between each line of paint and the colors within them. If you want to branch out from there - then you have a list which is just as long.

 oadie wrote:
Huh. Looked up the paints and they are, in fact, based in the US (wherever the paints are actually manufactured ). Looks like a relatively small operation, hence the limited availability and lack of brand recognition. If they're as good as Maxorhead says, they're a great value at roughly $1/oz, but again you're getting a massive volume for your money, not a wide variety (could be a good option for basing/terrain colors). Your call which is more important to you.

I liked the Jo Sonja paints well enough 8 years ago that I contacted them about the possibility of repackaging and rebranding them for the hobby trade. They weren't interested.

They are wonderful paints. Not sure why I thought they were Aussie. Of course, Eureka might as well be AU.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
This is one of those topics which where you could rattle off several pages of information. In this case, the short answer is that almost all paints are cheaper than GW's and they are almost all as good or better.

The long answer has been touched on a bit already. There are a dozen or so brands of hobby paints (Reaper, Coat D Arms, P3, Vallejo, Renaissance Ink, Derivan, Iron Winds, Ral Partha Europe, Army Painter) which are all as good or better than GW and provide a lower cost per volume than GW.

You also have Airbrush paints, the most of which work quite well for painting miniatures. Be careful though to look at their end use - certain ones like Americolor are made for painting cakes while or Mehron which are made for body paints are not suitable. Most are quite good though, and although designed for airbrushing - they work quite well with regular brushes.

Then you move into model paints. Brands like Testors, Mr. Hobby, Hombrol, Tamiya, Lifecolor Andrea and several others are available in acrylic and again - work quite well for miniatures and are often much more readily available than miniature hobby paints. Testors in particular can be found nearly everywhere in the US.

From there you move into the liquid body (or fluid bodied) art paints. Golden, Liquitex, Dr. Ph Martin, Da Vinci and Lascaux all make pretty good liquid acrylics. They are dirt cheap by volume - but the color selections are made for artists who generally want to mix colors.

Then you have two different choices for value. Regular artists acrylics provide a good value, but require a lot of thinning in order to be useful. I know a guy who uses those and mixes them with Future floor polish to make some quite good miniature paints with for pennies on the dollar compared to regular miniature paints. He buys empty bottles and premixes his colors ahead of time. Again, the selection of colors is limited, but most use quite smooth pigments and because of how much they are thinned down you can stretch those tubes of paint to last for a very long time.

The other direction for about the same price per unit are craft paints. They generally are not quite as smooth as the paints listed out already, but you can pick up large bottles for less than a dollar each - especially if you pick them up when they are on sale at places like Hobby Lobby and AC Moore. They often have huge selections of colors (especially handy for some odd ball pastel paints that are needed from time to time).

And all of that just keeps things neatly within the confines of acrylic paints but only really scratches the surface of them without getting into intricacies of the differences between each line of paint and the colors within them. If you want to branch out from there - then you have a list which is just as long.

^ THIS.

There are so many options within the realm of acrylics that it's not funny. I actually do a bit of everything myself. I've got Citadel pots, reaper, 2-3 tubes of artists acrylics (thinned like you mentioned), and a large number of craft paint tubes (I like Americana range). I also have a growing number of airbrush specific paints (Badger, Badger Wicked, and Badger Wicked Detail).

I would suggest doing a little experimenting when you get the chance. Keep some thinner on hand (for the artists and craft acrylics) and play around a bit. I'd say start with some primary colors (because even if you don't like them you can always use them for mixing). Thin them out nice, and see how they flow for ya.