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A friend has traded me some assembled but unpainted Space Wolf minis in exchange for some old stuff of mine he liked, which I'm gonna use to get back in to the hobby portion of 40k-- I want to not be rusty at painting minis if or when plastic Sisters come out (one can always hope).

Problem is, all my old paints have dried up or been given away, and I basically don't 'have any any more. No surprise, really, given that it's been since the 5th edition Imperial Guard codex since I've gotten new miniatures, and near the end of edition since I last painted any minis.

And it's been so long since I've bought paints that I honestly am not sure where to look to get good quality stuff, especially since right now I basically have about ~25 USD to my name (some more will be coming mid-February, around the 18th). Do people here in the painting forum have recommendations?

Given the color scheme I've picked out, I'm going to need a black primer, a black base coat with blue secondary layer (going for navy blue look) for the armor, a way to get a nice metallic silver look on the detailing and shoulder corners, skin tones, black for the hair (can probably be the same black as the base coat?), gunmetal grey for weapons, and a brown base coat with red top layer for the decorative fur on some of the minis.

I admit it's probably not a look most people would go for with wolves. But unfortunately this means I'll need several colors and I'm not sure where to start looking.

If economy is the main concern, I'd look to craft acrylic paints for earth tones, white/black, greens, and blues.

For primer, I recommend Rustoleum Painters Touch primer, which is available from Home Depot (usually).

I'd go with Delta Ceramcote (available at Michaels) for browns, blacks, and blues.

For Red, I'd go with a heavier pigment if going over black (or blue), which means the Reaper HD, Vallejo Heavy, or even Citadel Base.

For everything else, I'd go with Vallejo game colors, which are best blend of price, availability, and coverage. Army painter might be cheaper, but they are thin.


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If there's a local gaming facebook group, you can probably also ask if anybody has extra paints they're looking to sell or trade. Most hobbiests have a ton of stuff they'd let go for cheap.

Yeah, I'm not wanting to sacrifice quality for this, so what you said about Vallejo has my interest.

What would you do for metallics, silver or steel specifically?

Well Hobby Lobby sells Vallejo now, and every once and a while they have 40 or 50% coupons either on a item or everyone you purchase, would save you some money that way.

I agree with the Rustoleum primer, they have the best that I've used, and can even get it at walmart as well.

Now this is terribly unfashionable of me but GW do some cheapish paint bundles now for Space Wolves, one is less than $25 the other albeit with smaller pots is less than $15 (less whatever discount you get in your part of the world).

The latest GW paint range is pretty good and it's paint-by-numbers guides are quite the boon if you havent been paint for a while (or terrible like me!).

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Space-Wolves-Paint-Drop
https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/mobile/search/searchResults.jsp?No=24&Nty=1&Ntx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntk=gwsearch&N=0&Ntt=Space+wolf+&searchTerm=Space+wolf+&sorting=srl&categoryId=undefined

I did note you paint scheme but wanted to highlight the relevent parts of the range. There might well be another faction paint set that better suits your desired scheme.

I'll take a look at their guide then, for tips on how to paint SW details and such.

But am not interested in the base SW scheme, it's kinda dull and I'm hoping for something a little more striking.

Army painter do bigger bottles for similar price.

There metalics are very good, some colours better, some worse but the washes and metalics I cam vouch for strongly.

 DarkKnights44 wrote:
Well Hobby Lobby sells Vallejo now, and every once and a while they have 40 or 50% coupons either on a item or everyone you purchase, would save you some money that way.

Not 'sometimes'. They have a 40% off of one item coupon every week.

http://www.hobbylobby.com/ (upper right corner).

I painted exclusively with craft paints for a long time myself. Some pro painters use Martha Stewart - with using a 50% off one item coupon for Micheals you can buy very affordably - but only at the rate of one a day.


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My avatar for example is done with $50 tube paints. Inks are more value for your dollar, IMHO, if you are going to pay for the good stuff.


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$.50 that is. : )

 Melissia wrote:
Yeah, I'm not wanting to sacrifice quality for this, so what you said about Vallejo has my interest.

What would you do for metallics, silver or steel specifically?

I'd use vallejo, specifically the game color, for metallics. They're reliably good.

Craft acrylics aren't really lower quality. They tend to be thicker, and the pigment isn't as finely ground, but unless you're doing very high end work, they can produce perfectly good results. The bummer is that the metallics are often poor, while bright colors (red and yellow) can require many coats for good coverage.

If you want something that will work well out of the gate, Game color is the best overall value for your dollar.