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Bah... I've never meet anyone who really cares what brand paints, brushes or hobby tools someone uses.

I'm probably what a lot of people here on Dakka would call a GW White Knight (haters gonna hate), but hell, I don't care one bit about what brand paints, brushes or hobby tools someone uses.

Personally I do use all GW paints, brushes and hobby tools, but that's because...
1. The Citadel paints are readily available.
2. The Citadel brushes are actually a good value.
3. The Citadel tools are quite good; admittedly they are very over priced, but none the less good.

My first land raider I built from a pizza box, and I still use it for games.

I buy already painted and assembled minis off E-bay for less than the cost of a new box from GW. I've been blessed the ones I've picked up have better paint jobs than my own.

I generally use the Walmart and Hobby Lobby paints, Kylon paints for primer. I've tried the GW paints and Reaper paints and wasn't really impressed. Though I prefer GW's metallics (they tend to have a better sheen) and like their consistency for ink washes vs. mixing my own.

Don't ever let someone get you down about "going cheap". If they want to give you grief, tell them they can spend their money to buy it for you.

I don't see how using alternative paints as "going cheap". It's not like you are using cardboard squares as proxies for actual minis >.>

Haven't found a great way to be cheap with my wild west buildings.
Save paper terrain.
Never been great at making terrain.

 fellowhoodlum wrote:
I don't see how using alternative paints as "going cheap". It's not like you are using cardboard squares as proxies for actual minis >.>

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Played many a game of "battle at the farm" using nothing but cardboard chits and card terrain.

 fellowhoodlum wrote:
I don't see how using alternative paints as "going cheap". It's not like you are using cardboard squares as proxies for actual minis >.>

When I purchased a Forgeworld Deimos Rhino, I ended up stretching the kit and a few spares to build a second Rhino thanks to the glory of Cardboard. The one with Card parts look decent with a Deathguard scheme.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I tried looking for a complete picture of the Rhino I mentioned above, but sadly don't have any saved to computer or on the camera.

Here is a WIP before I finished painting or added tracks.



About 50% card. Decided to scratch build the top access doors despite having plastic ones spare. Am still torn on whether to remove the existing top doors and replace them with 'official' plastic ones.

Anyone know any good paper terrain sites?

Worldworks http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/ Very nice stuff. And some is western themed.


For freebies, hunt around for stuff from Ebbles, or just search for papercraft terrain. There is quite a bit out there.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
Anyone know any good paper terrain sites?

There's a free (if slightly cartoony) wild west town set here. If you read french you're golden. If not, they aren't exactly complicated builds to work out.

Nowt wrong with being cheap says White Dwarf

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
Anyone know any good paper terrain sites?

Are you looking for free or sale and what scale and theme?

It's probably not quite what you were looking for, but lasercutcard has some remarkably sturdy and quite realistic (due to layering) structures that are also darn cheap.
http://lasercutcard.co.za

Wild West 25mm (I'd rather it be free)

Scratch building is what got me interested in this hobby back during the RT era and is what has kept me around.



I use craft store paints for almost everything. I have hundreds of bottles of craft paint, bought on sale 3 or 4 for a $1, and a dozen or so bottles of GW paint, for odd things that the technical paints handle well.

My P&M blog is littered with penny pinching scratch builds

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Ehhhhhh, I recommend getting miniature paints.
Their made for miniature paints, art paints are too thick and dont dilute well.

I disagree I have been using Craft smart Paints from Michael's about 2-3 2oz bottles for a buck when on sale and I find them the same as the top shelf paints if not better in some aspects and they are so much cheaper then brands like GW or Vallejo and the real secret is acrylic paints are pretty much similar across all brands with a slight thickening or thinning between brands I have used them all and a few years ago came to the realization why the hell I was using GW when the cheap paints were just as good, they may not have the color selection GW has, but its not hard to mix colors to get the color you want.

Nothing wrong with saving money, especially if there is little or no downgrade in quality.

Most of the really fancy custom armies Ive seen over the years barely have any actual gw models in them, so much scratchbuilt stuff. And the stuff used to make it is considered "junk" by plebty of people out there.


Hell Im tempted to have a contest and see who can make the coolest xxxx point army for the cheapest. See how creative some people can get. Could be fun and entertaining to watch.

 xevv wrote:
Nothing wrong with saving money, especially if there is little or no downgrade in quality.

Most of the really fancy custom armies Ive seen over the years barely have any actual gw models in them, so much scratchbuilt stuff. And the stuff used to make it is considered "junk" by plebty of people out there.


Hell Im tempted to have a contest and see who can make the coolest xxxx point army for the cheapest. See how creative some people can get. Could be fun and entertaining to watch.

I'd definitely take part in that.

There is being sensible and then throwing away your money... I try to fall somewhere in the middle.

I like finding inexpensive "base" materials and build pretty much anything from there.

I have an old IKEA kitchen table that is my craft table that I have drilled and put bushings in for all kinds of stuff (swivel lamps, airbrush holder) no worries doing anything to it.

My "spraybooth" is the bottom end of a clear tote with modifications to contain the spray and ventilation plumbed into it.

I do not quite "cheap out" with paint but cost per volume they are: Liquitex paints are true artist paints and I lean on them.
Mid-body paints, mix their matt-medium 2 to 1 and you can paint almost out of the pot (drop of flow-aid).
Add to that 1:1 of the airbrush medium and you are ready to airbrush.

All supplementary artist supplies at "The dollar store":
- Mixing sticks
- Makeup applicators for wiping of bad shading.
- Blush brush for cleaning off dust from models left out too long.
- Various cups for brush waters.
- Toenail clippers for sprue cutters.

When I made my gaming tabletop, most building box stores will do a variety of cuts for you: I get most of my work done there.
Then it is a simple matter of clamping, gluing and screwing it all together and we have a cheap board.

Walmart curtains or bed sheets can be hacked up to act as the first layer or cover for the table: black for space, green for fields, etc...

28mm miniature storage containers that do not damage the paint job?

The double-fold egg carton. Stacks nice too. Good enough not to break eggs, good enough for your miniatures.

Need something to act as a mixer in your paint pots?
Glass marbles.

...... I could go on... I am cheap but I like elegant solutions.

 Talizvar wrote:
There is being sensible and then throwing away your money... I try to fall somewhere in the middle.

I like finding inexpensive "base" materials and build pretty much anything from there.

I have an old IKEA kitchen table that is my craft table that I have drilled and put bushings in for all kinds of stuff (swivel lamps, airbrush holder) no worries doing anything to it.

My "spraybooth" is the bottom end of a clear tote with modifications to contain the spray and ventilation plumbed into it.

I do not quite "cheap out" with paint but cost per volume they are: Liquitex paints are true artist paints and I lean on them.
Mid-body paints, mix their matt-medium 2 to 1 and you can paint almost out of the pot (drop of flow-aid).
Add to that 1:1 of the airbrush medium and you are ready to airbrush.

All supplementary artist supplies at "The dollar store":
- Mixing sticks
- Makeup applicators for wiping of bad shading.
- Blush brush for cleaning off dust from models left out too long.
- Various cups for brush waters.
- Toenail clippers for sprue cutters.

When I made my gaming tabletop, most building box stores will do a variety of cuts for you: I get most of my work done there.
Then it is a simple matter of clamping, gluing and screwing it all together and we have a cheap board.

Walmart curtains or bed sheets can be hacked up to act as the first layer or cover for the table: black for space, green for fields, etc...

28mm miniature storage containers that do not damage the paint job?

The double-fold egg carton. Stacks nice too. Good enough not to break eggs, good enough for your miniatures.

Need something to act as a mixer in your paint pots?
Glass marbles.

...... I could go on... I am cheap but I like elegant solutions.

Egg one is pretty cool recycling, there just free after you use eggs, everyone uses em. Just not so space efichant as a foam case. I have two now, there brilliant investment for storage. One holds all my marines with space left. The second my bac set all both safely packaged.

 Talizvar wrote:
There is being sensible and then throwing away your money... I try to fall somewhere in the middle.

I like finding inexpensive "base" materials and build pretty much anything from there.

I have an old IKEA kitchen table that is my craft table that I have drilled and put bushings in for all kinds of stuff (swivel lamps, airbrush holder) no worries doing anything to it.

My "spraybooth" is the bottom end of a clear tote with modifications to contain the spray and ventilation plumbed into it.

I do not quite "cheap out" with paint but cost per volume they are: Liquitex paints are true artist paints and I lean on them.
Mid-body paints, mix their matt-medium 2 to 1 and you can paint almost out of the pot (drop of flow-aid).
Add to that 1:1 of the airbrush medium and you are ready to airbrush.

All supplementary artist supplies at "The dollar store":
- Mixing sticks
- Makeup applicators for wiping of bad shading.
- Blush brush for cleaning off dust from models left out too long.
- Various cups for brush waters.
- Toenail clippers for sprue cutters.

When I made my gaming tabletop, most building box stores will do a variety of cuts for you: I get most of my work done there.
Then it is a simple matter of clamping, gluing and screwing it all together and we have a cheap board.

Walmart curtains or bed sheets can be hacked up to act as the first layer or cover for the table: black for space, green for fields, etc...

28mm miniature storage containers that do not damage the paint job?

The double-fold egg carton. Stacks nice too. Good enough not to break eggs, good enough for your miniatures.

Need something to act as a mixer in your paint pots?
Glass marbles.

...... I could go on... I am cheap but I like elegant solutions.

My paint brush holder is a large pill bottle, my pen holder is a couple rolls of shipping/duct tape stacked on top of each other. made a tower out of a can of oatmeal, use little solo cups my sauces from the chinese place come in for water and small storage, and I too use Toenail clippers for cutting sprue connectors (for some reason they give a nicer cleaner cut then regular sprue cutters do and not as much pressure on the piece.)

Ever since I started a non-buying pledge and limited by wargaming budget to that which can be raised through selling unpainted miniatures I've been seeing so much more potential with historical kits, japanese model kits, toys and scratchbuilding. As well as free or cheap rules offered by creator-owned companies or just fellow hobbyists.

 Rainbow Dash wrote:
Anyone know any good paper terrain sites?

DriveThruRPG has a HUGE collection of paper terrain you can download and print. Some is even free.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?filters=0_2220_0_0_0

I will note that craft paints do tend to have a slightly lower pigment density than dedicated hobby paints. All this really means is that you need an extra coat of properly-thinned craft paint to match what a hobby paint can do.

In the meantime, that very tendency to 'show through' means you can do some astonishingly subtle color graduations that hobby paints, with their higher pigment density, cannot match without wetblending.

ah I love threads like this!

honestly, if I had the ridiculous kind of spare cash floating around, I probably would buy a lot of stuff from GW, just out of simplicity...and to be fair, they do some quality stuff - it's just too bloody expensive!

let's see...I buy...the majority of my models, usually very "second hand", off ebay (I mainly collect/play orks, so in my opinion, acquiring my army this way also feels a bit "fluffy" - looting stuff and absorbing smaller waaagh-bands into my own massive waaagh!)

for priming, I'm not a fan of rattle-cans...so I spent a whopping $50 on a cheap'n'nasty airbrush+mini-compressor kit, it's not fancy, but it does the job just fine for priming/basecoating...I've bought 250ml bottles of both black and white vallejo primer, either of which I just use straight, though I often wind up mixing the two to get different levels of grey primer, depending on how dark/light I want to start out as.

for paints, well...actually I've wound up with a rather large amount of GW paints of all ages and pot versions, due to several big assorted ebay lots including a bunch of old paints with them...I also have a dozen or so armypainter paints...for the most part though, I really only use metallics and washes from those lines, oh and some of GW's technical paints....the vast majority of my painting is done with "JoSonja's" "artists' colours" paints...I get them from my local art store, 75ml "toothpaste tubes" for about the same price each as a 12ml citadel pot...and there's loads of colours - I just counted my collection, and realized I have 43 different colour tubes - and still I mix a lot of colours!

washes. I do like GW and armypainter washes, that has to be said. and I do use them. however, I make my own washes too...just a simple mix of some josonja paint, a lot of water, and a little drop of detergent (acts as a flow aid)...I keep them in little 25ml dropper bottles I found at my local art store...I've made a black wash, a dark muddy-brown wash, a medium earthy brown wash, a rust wash, and a dark green wash...also a "satin" wash - basically just super-watered down citadel "'ardcoat"...I mainly use that one, mixed with some black wash (I'm having a good laugh now, seeing GW's new "gloss nuln oil" ), to finish off my nurgle daemons...a dark wash in all the crevices, while also making it all look all kinda damp and glistening...

basing texture paint...bought a 250ml tub of atelier "moulding paste" ages ago for...probably about 4x the price of a pot of gw texture paint...I can't remember what I thought I was going to do with it back then, but anyway...it looks like chalky white smooth peanut butter, real thick...I mixed in a load of beach sand and grit, and some dark muddy brown paints, and now I basically have a 250ml pot of stirland mud ...that, combined with a pack of 6 1'x1' 6mm thick cork tiles I got for about $10-$15 from a diy store, loads of great-quality basing!

hmm...think that about covers all my cheapskating that I can think of...anyway, if I'd always just bought ALL of my models AND assorted tools/paints/hobby supplies, from GW...everything that I have, and have used, over the past ~2 years that I've been doing this....I think I'd literally be in about $30,000...easy....as it stands, I think I'm in about $5,000....(conservative estimates here, but I have at least: 15k points of orks, 2k points nurgle marines, 2k points nurgle daemons, 2k points of space marines, and a bunch more assorted stuff...and a LOT of paints/hobby supplies)

That's a great way to do it Zobo.

It's also amazing how good some of those cheap knock off airbrushes can be. I got mine for like $20 and then just used my shop compressor. I do want to get a quieter compressor though because it's just so loud (well, not that it kicks in very often considering the large tank).

 MattofWar wrote:
That's a great way to do it Zobo.

It's also amazing how good some of those cheap knock off airbrushes can be. I got mine for like $20 and then just used my shop compressor. I do want to get a quieter compressor though because it's just so loud (well, not that it kicks in very often considering the large tank).

regarding that cheap little airbrush+compressor kit I bought for ~AU$50...yeah, I have no doubt that a "proper" airbrush and compressor would be a lot better...but hey, mine does the basic stuff well enough, and that's all I wanted out of it...~AU$100 for an airbrush, compressor, and 400ml of vallejo primer - that beats the heck out of 4 gw rattlecans imo!

the compressor is one of those tiny mini-compressors...it's like 6"x6"x3"...the noise is kinda loud, but not that bad...though it does kick in whenever you're passing air through the airbrush...so it can get a little old if your doing a large amount of work ...a compressor with a tank would be an improvement over my setup

I have no real complaints about it though...it's allowed me to prime and basecoat so much stuff, so easily and quickly...without needing to spend hours brush-priming, or needing to go outside to rattlecan-prime.

For all Germans: Teddy is selling a set of 5 small tubes of superglue for 1€. Best superglue I ever used. I tried to ripp off the arm of my metal dread again, I coulnd't

 ZoBo wrote:
~AU$100 for an airbrush, compressor, and 400ml of vallejo primer - that beats the heck out of 4 gw rattlecans imo!

When you put it that way it pretty much seems like a no brainer. Even getting a cheap single action paint sprayer type air brush would be better than just the rattle cans.

the compressor is one of those tiny mini-compressors...it's like 6"x6"x3"...the noise is kinda loud, but not that bad...though it does kick in whenever you're passing air through the airbrush...so it can get a little old if your doing a large amount of work ...a compressor with a tank would be an improvement over my setup

My shop compressor gets into the range of needing ear protection indoors. There's a local hardware store that has an airbrush compressor (a store brand generic chinese one) for like $70. My friend who has one says that while you couldn't sleep in the same room, he was able to use it in the room next to where his daughter sleeps and she hasn't woken up from it yet.

I have no real complaints about it though...it's allowed me to prime and basecoat so much stuff, so easily and quickly...without needing to spend hours brush-priming, or needing to go outside to rattlecan-prime.

What did you end up doing to evacuate the spray? I know there's nothing super toxic in vallejo primer, but it's still not great to breathe in atomized paint. I found some youtube videos about turning a plastic storage container into a spray booth using a bathroom exhaust fan. Right now I use mine in the garage with my exhaust fan going, but I still wear a mask and hearing protection.

 MattofWar wrote:

My shop compressor gets into the range of needing ear protection indoors. There's a local hardware store that has an airbrush compressor (a store brand generic chinese one) for like $70. My friend who has one says that while you couldn't sleep in the same room, he was able to use it in the room next to where his daughter sleeps and she hasn't woken up from it yet.

oh, yeah...definitely don't need hearing protection for my little compressor - it sits on my desk about a foot away from me while I work, doubles as an airbrush stand...it's honestly not too much louder than the actual spraying, just, a deeper "vrrrrrt" kinda sound...and it has no tank, so it has to be running the whole time whenever you're passing air through it...so, it's not bad, it's just not "pleasant", and can get a kinda annoying by the time you've say, primed 30 orks or something

What did you end up doing to evacuate the spray? I know there's nothing super toxic in vallejo primer, but it's still not great to breathe in atomized paint. I found some youtube videos about turning a plastic storage container into a spray booth using a bathroom exhaust fan. Right now I use mine in the garage with my exhaust fan going, but I still wear a mask and hearing protection.

I probably should be a little more concerned about that stuff than I am most of the time really ...I've been looking at painting masks, but haven't gotten around to buying one yet...but generally, I just sit between a desk-fan and a big open window...it seems to do the job well enough...

My compressor cost me $90 (AUD).
It's designed for small jobs (spraygun painting, inflating tires) as opposed to pneumatic tools. but it handles airbrushing fine (just needs a second moisture trap).

Noise isn't an issue - my suburb is light industrial, and I only use it in daylight hours, outdoors in the carport (because house isn't large enough to do it indoors, and we don't have a garage) - but the noise can't be heard over the power tools from the local sign maker 2 doors down. It has a substantial tank that gives me about 8 hours of airbrush time @ 25psi. That said, it still fits on a 600x300 concrete slab paver.

A clear storage container with clear drop-sheet liner works with a bathroom fan cut into it.
Trap a filter sheet into the front baffle and a discharge "sock" onto the discharge end to catch fine mist.
I still wear a face mask to be safe but the ventilation really stops overspray dust.
Note: you need a brushless or enclosed fan if you use solvents and then you really should discharge outside.

Getting a bunch of badly used models and stripping them down of paint and into component parts and building them up again is the cheapest way to get an army together.
My friend made a company of 40k marines this way.