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Now excl;uding the GW ones, because they are overpriced..

What brands do you guys use for paints? and if you have a link to an online store that would be great..

Also whats your views on Matte paints? and has anyone used HUMBROL brand paints?

I use GW, but Minitaire is the paints I use much more frequently, much better consistency, although the colour range is somewhat limited in brighter colours, which is why I also use GW. As to links, I use thecombatcompany, but I think that's Australia only. You should be able to find them online though.

Common question, you'll get a lot of results from searching.

Summary: basically any hobby paint is fine. Find a range you like as your predominant one but pick up biuts and pieces from multiple ranges. I use Vallejo predominantly, specifically Vallejo Model Air they're by far my favourite range for air bruishing and brushing alike. To them I add Vallejo Game Colour for vibrant colours - which I'm replacing with the just launched range Vallejo Game Air, which looks to be VMA but with VGC colours which will be awesome. I have some Secret weapona nd army painter washes, a couple citadel shades and bases too sadly as they work well. Tamiya clears are very useful. IO have the full minitaire set which is great price per volume when you get it 50% off.

For example this guy on my avatar was: Vallejo primer, Minitaire nebula red, VMA hull red and light red shading, Secret weapon ruby wash, VGC black detailing, VMA silver or chrome for the gun iirc, citadel nuln oil wash for the metals, Vallejo Liquid Gold detailing, VMA sand, radome tan and light brown on shoulders and iirc VMA olive green for the eyes and seals. So yeah, multiple ranges will help you out a lot.


You have some good options for shops in the UK:
- Wayland Games
- Firestorm Games
- Element Games
- SnM Stuff

These guys are all good enough for Aussies to import from so that should say something if we're willing to pay int'l shipping to buy from them ; )

edit: Royal Mail are bastards with shipping paints lately, most places will only ship 4 paints at a time through royal mail, if you want to buy a lot you tend to need to pay for courier shipping. One of these might be local to you though if you're lucky.

Yep, the majority of my collection is Vallejo Game Colour or Model Coloursupplemented by paints from the following:
P3, Coat d'Arms, Reaper Master Series and GW.

I recently discovered a newish brand called Scale 75 who have some interesting colours alongside some pretty standard ones and if I didn't already have a lot of paints I would have bought their entire range as I'm really impressed with the few I did buy.

darksphere and wayland are where I've bought most of my stuff but The Troll Trader also has quite a lot of decent paints in stock and there's a number of ebay hobby supply stores, just type a specific paint into the search bar and see what shows up.

thanks for this folks, really appreciate it!

I will not say that they are the best... but of all I have tried Vallejo in general is my favourite. I have some gamecolor but in general prefer modelcolor.

For metallics Vallejo Model Colour are my favorites. http://atticwars40k.blogspot.com/2011/10/great-gold-rush-quest-for-best-gold.html

Otherwise I stick mostly with P3 and GW because they have the best colors. I also like the Andreas and Scale75 paints too but I have far less of them.

 Kharnivore wrote:
Now excl;uding the GW ones, because they are overpriced..

What brands do you guys use for paints? and if you have a link to an online store that would be great..

Also whats your views on Matte paints? and has anyone used HUMBROL brand paints?

I don't know what paints are "best." I use lots of different paint. I'll pretty much try anything and the only things I've found I don't like are cheap craft paints. What I have been using more and more, though is this line of tube-based artists acrylics from Jo Sonja. You really can't get much cheaper than a tube that has several times as much paint as any of the hobby paints, costs about the same as a pot of hobby paint, and needs to be thinned quite a bit to be used (meaning you're going to get more out of it).

I actually started using these paints about 10 years ago and I still have a couple of tubes from that period that haven't quite run out yet. If you're curious, I would recommend grabbing a tube of white and black as an experiment and see if you like them. You can thin them with water, but I like to use airbrush medium to thin with.

Right now I think that I have about 20 different tubes of their colors and I'm pretty sure that I used at least a couple of their colors on every mini that I paint.

 Kharnivore wrote:
...and has anyone used HUMBROL brand paints?

Now that you mention it, yes. I use Humbrol enamel paints for all my modelling.

I had a huge collection of them when I started with miniatures, from a background of scale model kits, and didn't see the point in buying completely different paints. I've stuck with them since.

Having not used any acrylic paints I can't make any direct comparisons, but I've been told that enamels are more difficult to use for fine details than acrylics.
However, I don't seem to have any problems. This maybe because I am used to them and how to use them properly. Check my galleries for examples of what is possible with enamel paint.

The other main problem some people have with enamel paints is the smell. It's strong and many don't like it. Equally, you need to use white spirit for clean up and dilutions, and that also smells (you can get equivalents that don't smell, but that doesn't stop the paint from smelling).

You can achieve different things with enamel paint to acrylic. They are oil based and so behave differently to the water based acrylics.

They are also cheaper.

Humbrol do also make acrylics. I haven't tried them though, so I have no idea. They're quite cheap compared to GW acrylics, and are cheaper per pot than Vallejo at my local hobby store, but I haven't had a chance to try them as of yet.

I am a fan of Reaper Master Series for brush work, GW washes and Valejo Model Air in the airbrush.

Reaper has been selling lots of 50 - 60 - 70 bottles of paint on EBay under the seller:
kruppdora

I saved a ton of money ordering in larger lots from EBay. The price went up when Reaper shipped all the Bones minis from their Kickstarter, but it is back down to a reasonable level now.
Also, I have had very good luck with the Reaper MSP paint thinned down in my airbrush. Using a Sotar 20-20 with a fine needle.