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Just realising how expensive the paints themselves are if you want to do any sort of layering and details. Does anyone have any good places to buy paints?

I was looking on triple helix wargames as they seem to have good discounts off most things but it's still adding up.

thanks

Boyes: they do cheap drop bottles. Not bad for the price but a bit watery.

Keep in mind that model paint in general is going to be more expensive than cheap craft paints because they contain much more pigment.

It may be useful to read up on color theory; hone your eye for color and practice mixing. Premade colors are great for convenience, but you should be able to achieve whatever you want with primary colors, black, white, and metallics.
So if you're looking to cut down costs, I'd suggest only buying 'layering' paints for the main colors of your scheme and try to achieve details and minor colors through mixing. It isn't necessary to pick up a pot for every layer. I often wing a highlight or shade by just adding a bit of black, white or brown to the base color.

Don't know about UK availability, but Createx airbrush opaque black and white are only about $4 Usd each and can get a lot done.

Generally The Warstore - I've enough paints now that a bottle or Vallejo become a common "add on" when I'm making another purchase. Vallejo's at discount are maybe $2.75 a bottle which is very reasonable considering how much work you get done with them.

I have another paint line called INSTAR i'm developing that is currently in testing at the moment, prices should be very competitive as well as worldwide delivery.

Feedback so far has been positive with features such as fast delivery, coverage, good mileage, child proof caps, optional smaller bottle sizes for colours that you don't use often on the paint as well as colour matched to current GW colours being some of the top points for the paint.

I hope for them to be available to the public before or soon after 2018.

 Supershandy wrote:
I have another paint line called INSTAR i'm developing that is currently in testing at the moment, prices should be very competitive as well as worldwide delivery.

Feedback so far has been positive with features such as fast delivery, coverage, good mileage, child proof caps, optional smaller bottle sizes for colours that you don't use often on the paint as well as colour matched to current GW colours being some of the top points for the paint.

I hope for them to be available to the public before or soon after 2018.

Interesting. Keep us posted on this mate!

I generally just buy a pot when I go into my local gaming store, since I don't buy anything else there. I do buy my whites and blacks from crafts stores though.

Usually just from GW itself, the 50c discount from online retailers isn't really worth it.

I may be mobbed for this but... Amazon. With prime you get them in two days, ensuring they won't cook before they get to you, and you can get just about any brand you like. As for the brands, I've been using Reaper Master Series Paints and Citadel, I'll be buying a batch of Vallejo paints since they get high marks from EVERYONE and I'll probably grab a couple from P3 because while their colors are limited they get very high marks for quality and are supposed to be quite cheap. Across the pond though you folks seem to have a more flourishing miniature painting market going, so you'll have brands I don't know of. However, Vallejo / P3 / Citadel and Reaper MSP are brands that are pretty universally recommended by pros, primarily Vallejo and P3, though everyone swears by Citadels washes such as Nuln Oil (I love it too). The real deal is this, make sure you are buying quality model paint. Don't just get a paint because it's the cheapest, simply a hobby is going to cost you money, if you want something cheaper take up reading or something. I'm not trying to be snide, I'm just trying to share my experience. I have tried to cut corners everywhere since I don't have much spending money, but in the end I found I saved more by buying better stuff and just learning to mix my colors and how to 'lift' and 'drop' shades with others colors I already owned. Instead of buying 4 blues, it's cheaper to own a single mid tone blue and just lift and drop it with white and black respectively. Possibly a purple as well to change hue and depth. Some people will say craft paint works fine, if you want you can try Apple Barrel, of most of them I find a few people say Apple Barrel works well. Personally I think even the best jobs with craft paint look like junk and are chalky and drab, and when you think of it, putting .45 cents worth of paint on a 2+ dollar model is actually a bit absurd. There you go though, my very wordy and over complicated answer. Amazon for professional grade model paints like Vallejo or Reaper or P3, Citadel can be bought anywhere and never at a discount, so if you have a local hobby shop, support them and buy a pot from them when you must have a Citadel, because it is good though expensive paint. If you are willing to drop down in quality to craft paint, well I'm not sure if you have Wal Mart out where you are, but pretty much any 'Super store' should offer craft paint, the colors are more muted though and the pigments are much more coarse making paint control, coverage and thinning in general not just more difficult but even impossible in some circumstances. Good Luck!

I'd say there is a huge difference between a junk craft paint and a real paint. Don't shoot at Walmart or other such stores for quality paints. Go to a craft store or an art supply store and get good paint.

Hate to admit this but I use GW paints. I know they're expensive and you don't get much, but I've painted every single mini with them and I don't want to switch to a new paint in case the shades are off. It's what I've gotten used to so I'm sticking with it.

Also I learned not to try using generic store acrylics. My first models never fully recovered from that trauma, Emperor protect them.

I mostly use Vallejo. They're a little cheaper and the bottles irritate me way less than pots. As vizier mentions, you can do highlights and shades just by mixing on your palate. For some kind of extensively used custom color, you might want to get ahold of some empty bottles and mix a lot all at once. If you follow some of the videos I've seen online, you might think that every single color you ever use needs to come from the official assortment of GW.

As for buying them, well, I usually get them at the Hobbytown that I am lucky enough to drive past every week or so. I have some miserably aged bottles that I got at a Hobby Lobby, and I actually do like a few of those, because the aged paint screws up predictably. I've got one that falls out of solution and sort of looks like algae, for example.

I use mostly Army Painter. It is cheaper than Vallejo (slightly) and just as good, but the reds and yellows for Vallejo and Army painter have fairly bad pigments, and Vallejo bottles tend to get clogged really easily. I got 50 17Ml bottles of Army painter off of Ebay for like 80$

I use GW paints myself. They are expensive, but they work very well, until the bad pot design causes them to dry out too fast. I buy them at my FLGS, usually along with purchases of models, but sometimes alone.

I've bought most of my paint from Amazon, but I also go to Wargames Emporium when I'm in Sheffield.
I pick up vallejo game / model colours and thier air equivalents, they are almost the same as GW and cheaper per ml. They also last longer.
I also use Tamiya's clears and thinners.

I want some Scale75 metallics, apparently they are excellent to brush on.

Never had a GW pot dry out. Well, once, because I left it completely open, but definitely not because of bad design.

GW pots I buy from my LGS. Vallejo, Scale 75 - ebay.

GW or Valejo via internet.

I've not had a GW pot dry out yet, but I've had a few that accumulate paint in the rims for reasons unknown to me. My Ushtabi Bone closes funny, and I'm afraid of it leaking, which is bad because that color seems to like to separate. Tamiya's clears are good, as DaemonJellyBaby mentioned. I've put them on uncolored acrylic and quartz, and it makes them both look perfect.

Hobby Lobby sells some strange large pots of a "Precious Metals" branded metallic paint in various colors that I personally like. Their gold isn't bronze like GW's, and their particles seem small. The stuff's also tough as hell. I tried scratching an unvarnished coat on the flat back of one of the Dreadfleet rulers with my finger nails, and I wasn't able to damage it.