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My wife bought me a fairly nice set of Liquitex acrylic paints. I use Citadel and P3 paints, and have no experience with Liquitex, other than their mediums (Matte medium is an absolute staple in my kit). How do their paints stack up to dedicated "hobby-quality" paints?

well they're made for large (to us) paintings, so as I understand it the pigment 'count' will be less, and a lot depends on the grade of acrylic. Basic stuff is meant for school kids or students more kind of so it's not as good as the upper end and thus is cheaper.

I've not used mine for actual mini painting, only terrain, where I need the larger volume of paint.

Sorry can't help you otherwise :(

Maybe give it a go on a test piece see if you like how it comes out. Might be suitable for at least basecoating. Anyway, good luck!

Traditional "Artist" acrylics and "Hobby" acrylics have no discernible differences at the basic level. Paint is always a mixture of medium + pigment.

In fact, you'll find that it's usually the case that traditional "artists" acrylics have a higher pigment density than most hobby acrylics.

In which case you would just have to be able to learn to work with the higher pigment count, perhaps add more medium (water) to the paints for creating things like glazes, washes, etc.

You may also find that traditional artist acrylics give the finished product a mighty glossy sheen - in these circumstances, you could use something like "AK Interactive Ultra Matte" to spray on (airbrush) the model and bring the whole thing down to a really super-flat matte finish. It's incredibly useful for a LOT of things, I highly suggest heading to Amazon and making the small investment in it.

You can also make ANY (non-metallic) color you could possibly need out of just five colors. Red, Yellow, Blue, Black and White.

If you search for Roman Lappat and Rafaelle Pica from Massive Voodoo, you'll often see those two using traditional artist acrylics to paint their miniatures.

You can really use ANY paint you get your hands on, most miniature painters do use anything they can to get what they want on the mini. It's just a matter of learning how to use the materials you have in your hands and having FUN.

Because the only way to paint wrong, is if you're not having fun doing it.

The main difference between art-store acrylics and gaming paints is the thickness. Art acrylics are usually much thicker out of the tube, for large canvas paintings with a stiffer brush. You'll have to thin them significantly if you want to use them on tiny models with the same techniques you're used to. IMO this makes them not worth it for anything but things like large terrain pieces where you use a ton of paint at once, the extra work to use them is just too much for such a small difference in price.

^^ What he said.

The "heavy body" tube acrylics from Liquitex and other art companies basically are intended to be used like oil paints on traditional canvas paintings using techniques including spatula. They are very thick and need a lot of thinning with media to make them work on models.

The "medium body" paints are easier to work with but still need careful thinning.

Thanks for all the information guys! I really appreciate it. I'm planning out a terrain project soon, so it'll give me an opportunity to try these out.

On a side note I love their auxiliary acrylic products. I use their gloss/matte varnish on my minis, their Iridescent medium to make metallic paint and their airbrush medium as a way to make airbrush paints out of standard citadel paints. They all work really well and mix with citadel and vallejo paints perfectly.

Edited to add: I also use their Flo-Aid in my airbrush and to slow drying times when I paint.