Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, how many paints do I need when getting started painting say orks or marines?
I'm looking at citadel paints. Are there any good guides?

It's kind of up to how much work you want to put into them, for one thing.

Also the GW Citadel app has a lot of handy info and is a free app you can download.

If you check out the GW site for say Ork boyz:

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Ork-Boyz

Near the bottom, there is a list of recommended paints.

Also, on youtube, WH TV Tips puts out a LOT of useful short tutorials, have a gander and it'll help get you started

https://www.youtube.com/user/GamesWorkshopWNT/search?query=ork

Melackholy wrote:
Hi, how many paints do I need when getting started painting say orks or marines?
I'm looking at citadel paints. Are there any good guides?

If you are hard set on GW paints then yeah look up the recommended color scheme and watch Duncan on youtube paint a thing. they usually list what paints you need

You will want the following minimum: really depends on your budget.

PRIMER black is easier if your brand new to paining, but your colors will look darker.
Black
White
Base coat main color- say you do Ultramarines, then pick the base blue
Washes (probably nuln oil (black)
Maybe the blue wash as well
Leadbelcher/Boltgun Metal needed for guns
A secondary color (gold for ultramarines)
A medium Brown for ammo pouches
A Blood Red for eyes and purity seals

SO your looking at about 10 colors.

Colors that will be most used
Black
White
Primer
Nuln Wash
Sephia wash (brown)
Ironbelcher (boltgun Metal)

pretty much every army uses these colors, unless you are going for some crazy bright color schemes.

 Dynas wrote:
You will want the following minimum: really depends on your budget.

PRIMER black is easier if your brand new to paining, but your colors will look darker.
Black
White
Base coat main color- say you do Ultramarines, then pick the base blue
Washes (probably nuln oil (black)
Maybe the blue wash as well
Leadbelcher/Boltgun Metal needed for guns
A secondary color (gold for ultramarines)
A medium Brown for ammo pouches
A Blood Red for eyes and purity seals

SO your looking at about 10 colors.

Colors that will be most used
Black
White
Primer
Nuln Wash
Sephia wash (brown)
Ironbelcher (boltgun Metal)

pretty much every army uses these colors, unless you are going for some crazy bright color schemes.

I recently started up. This is a good guide.

If you want to save a bit up front, the 40k starter paint set has most of this. Albeit in smaller pots.

Ever thought I don't have all the time in the world with work and family life, if I do this I would like to do it properly. I have painted models in my youth, but not acrylics and not layered paint so I'm looking forward to it.

You might want to check out our INSTAR Range, cheaper paints and larger sizes than GW and Vallejo and the same high quality you would get from them.

Not only is it easy to use but you can use it straight from the dropper bottle and get fantastic results and once you’re feeling more confident you can always start thinning them down to get even better results.

It’s great for those just starting out and doesn’t hit the wallet....oh and our paints are 99% comparable to the GW Base paint range as well as our Vintage line having some older colours that are not readily available anymore.

INSTAR Paint Webstore

Honestly spending oodles of money on GW paints/prime is something I wish I could time travel back to myself 10 years ago and slap myself silly over. There's a lot of cheaper and better options worth checking out! Unless you're set on GW paints, I'd say check out Vallejo or Reaper for instance. Better bang for buck and, more importantly, come in dropper bottles so your paint lasts for much longer than Citadel pots. Recently I've switch to Reaper paints: Their "Triad" kits are really neat.

Also, you're going to hear a lot of dissenting opinions about prime spray, but save yourself an assload of money and poor-performing cans (Sometimes resulting in ruined minis) and just use Krylon Camouflage Fusion spray paint < https://www.amazon.com/Krylon-K04293007-Camouflage-Technology-11-Ounce/dp/B00176TH8C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523306329&sr=8-1&keywords=krylon%2Bcamouflage%2Bspray%2Bpaint&dpID=410Jvi0aw2L&preST=_SY300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch&th=1 >.

I've been using it forever with amazing results and never looked back. If you can find it in a brick and mortar store it's usually $4-$7 (I think WalMart carries it). It goes on easy, dries quick, and covers really, really well in a sweet sweet matte. It's also totally chip resistant which is a plus, especially if you plan on dealing with metal minis. While they don't have a "white" camo spray, I honestly just use the Sand camo spray because it's fairly light and most minis I paint tend to have earthy tones anyways to some degree.

But despite all my anti-establishment recommendations, I do really like GW Foundation paints (Though I have no idea what they've been renamed too, if they're even still around. I still have a bottle of Mechrite Red), washes, and their texture paints.

What I would recommend is starting with the base coat, layer, and shade for what ever will be the single most prominent part of your army (ork skin, space marine armor, kabalite armor, etc) and gunmetal. Start out by painting your armor/skin and guns, then when you're ready to move on to the next item on your models, but the paints for that.

Nothing wrong with starting with Citadel, they make some good paints. However you should be aware before you jump in that they are pricy compared to some of the alternatives and their flip lid pots do dry up relatively quickly compared to the dropper bottles that other manufacturers use. (Relatively being the word there, not overnight!) For the longest time I only bought Citadel, then I was out of the hobby for a few years and when I came back most of my paints had dried up (gutted!). Since I've come back I've rebuilt my collection mainly with Army Painter and Vallejo.

Ultimately I think trying paints from different ranges to find the ones you like can only be a good thing. They're all a little different and you might end up liking the colours, consistency, bottles, whatever from different makes for different sorts of paint. To illustrate the point - I'd missed Supershandy's threads because I've not been in the painting forums much, but now I'm browsing his webstore because it's potentially a different paint for me to try.

Anyway, probably best to get going on one brand and Citadel is a good place to start because of all the guides - though you'll need a fair few paints to hit all of your base colours, highlights and details. It depends to a large extent what sort of paint job you want to do and how much effort you want to put into each model (e.g. tabletop quality, display quality etc.) Pretty much figure out what scheme you want to paint, have a good look at a painted model and try to pick out the colours that go into it. Making a paint job look good usually requires lighter and darker tones of the same paints in order to create shading and highlights. If you give an example scheme, I'm sure it won't take long for the folks here to come up with some paint recommendations for it.

Buying paint never ends.

I've tried a few brands over the years, Citadel, army painter, vallejo, secret weapon to name some. Here are my two cents.

Citadel are great paints, but they're too expensive for what you get compared to other brands. They dry out much quicker and the tubs are just inconvenient imo. I buy dropper bottles from amazon and pour them over.

This might be special circumstance, but i was in the US last year and bought the 50 paints mega paint set from army painter from amazon and I'm really happy with it. I wish I had done it earlier. If you buy that set you pay less than 15 NOK pr bottle for 18ml. From GW in Norway you pay 35,- for a tub of 12ml. Not sure what you have to pay for a bottle of army painter in Norway, but i dont think its that much cheaper than GW. I saved a lot of tax, customs and shipping, no im not sure how much you'll save if you order it from amazon to norway, but its worth considering.

There are some Citadel paints and technicals I cant be without though, flash gits, ryza rust, typhus corrosion and colored washes, army painter washes are great too, but I use the green, blue and red washes from citadel.

Bear that in mind before your self is full of GW tubs like mine is.

 NoIAMDirtyDan wrote:
But despite all my anti-establishment recommendations, I do really like GW Foundation paints (Though I have no idea what they've been renamed too, if they're even still around. I still have a bottle of Mechrite Red), washes, and their texture paints.

Our INSTAR Vintage line recently recreated all the shades of the Foundation line due to it’s unavailability, it’s proving to be a top seller!

But I agree with your comment, There are better and cheaper options out there, problem we find is that because you can’t use GW imagery, all the paint schemes use GW colours so I get why people don’t always look at other options.

Last thing. Make yourself a cheap wet palette.

Buy some cooking paper (non stick), some paper towels, and a tuppaware with a lid.

This will help beyond belief. I painted years before I made this and realized how helpful it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbDsf3J0vEI

So people recommend army painter over citadel?
Think I'm gonna do orks, any paints otherwise than the mega pack I should get?

And what do people prime with in general, what are the options?

A wet palette is on the checklist.

My go to is Vellajo. Mainly because they are 1.) cheaper than GW & 2) Get dropper bottles instead of pots.

Citadel has some good glazes and washes.

Primer depends.
Airbursh Vellajo primer and paint up for center piece models.

If I am just painting a table top army, a lot of times I just the Army Painter Spray Can primers. Nids I used Skeleton Bone, Necrons I used Gunmetal (or w/w its called). Then just hit with a magic wash, pick out the details and base.

As far as orks go probably use Army Painter GOblin green. Then pick out the details. Pick a green wash for the skin and use scorpy green or some other brighter green for highlights. Get you some browns, boltgun metal, and maybes some reds or yellows depending on what clan you go with. (yellow is harder to paint)

Melackholy wrote:
So people recommend army painter over citadel?
Think I'm gonna do orks, any paints otherwise than the mega pack I should get?

And what do people prime with in general, what are the options?

A wet palette is on the checklist.

Army painter is how I rebuilt my paint collection when I started hobbying again and discovered all my old Citadel pots had dried up. A friend pointed out a webstore that had the Army Painter Mega Paint Set on offer, so I ended up buying that and it worked out about £1 a bottle, which is massively cheaper than Citadel, and for bigger bottles too. They're not perfect - they tend to require a really good shake before use, and some of the colours cover better than others, but for the price they're pretty good. Some of the colours are great. And for the price, the Mega Paint set forms a great basis for a paint selection which you can then expand with whatever brands you feel like. Army Painter colour spray cans also match exactly to the equivalent bottle, so if for example you wanted to use 'Greenskin' as the base of your Orks, you could get the Greenskin spray, use the regular bottled paint to touch up any bits you miss and the colours will match. I'm happy enough with them that I'm still expanding my stash by buying new colours. One of the standouts of the Army Painter range is their quickshade washes, so they're always worth a try even if the basis of your paint set is a different brand.

But in addition to that I've started buying quite a bit of Vallejo too, mainly just for the different range of colours (given that my main armies are Salamanders and Biel-Tan, I've been trying lots of different greens!). They're a bit more expensive, but you'll generally find more consistent coverage and higher pigment - particularly in the model color line. However note that some gamers find that model color is a bit less durable than paint ranges designed for gaming, so a varnish is advised if you use those. And as of late I've been tempted to give Scale75 a try. Even if you don't use Citadel for the bulk of your paint collection, keep in mind that they have a lot of useful technical paints which you may not get an equivalent of from other brands, so it's a good idea to see what they have.

There are quite a lot of options for primers. Some paint brands may advertise a spray can as a coloured primer when really it's just a spraypaint. For most purposes that will do for tabletop models, but I'd advise making sure you get a proper primer. I buy Autotek Auto Primer from Boyes here in the UK, which is less than £5 for a big can and is a true primer so it provides a really good base for a paintjob. I suspect most brands of Auto primer will do a great job and will probably be half the price of something from a miniatures painting company. Then, if you still want to use the colour spray can for a basecoat, spray it over the primer. You can get brush on primers, but they have a reputation for not being as durable. Or airbrush primers, if you end up getting an airbrush!

 Dynas wrote:
Last thing. Make yourself a cheap wet palette.

Buy some cooking paper (non stick), some paper towels, and a tuppaware with a lid.

AKA Parchment Paper. It helps slow the paint from drying out on the palette, though a beginner still has to learn how to water down the paint in the first place, and the wet palette doesn't help in that regard. It does save some time keeping the paint watered down, which is nice. I'd recommend buying a standard palette (with big dimples) regardless, for dealing with things like PVA glue, large amounts of mixed paint and the like.

It might not be a bad idea to first just see what your local hobby store has available and buy that brand. That way, when you run out of a color, you can just go pick up a replacement easily.

It's the cool thing these days to poop on Citadel paints, and because of all the stuff I read about them I bought just about every other brand besides them--Army Painter, Vallejo, P3, Reaper. What I've found, though, is that some Citadel paints are actually excellent. I quite like their metallics that I've used, and I recently bought Celestra Grey because I got sick of the poor coverage of the other brands' greys. Say what you want about the price of Citadel and the bottles, but I'll gladly pay a little extra for getting much, much denser pigments for base coating.

Overall I've had the best luck with Citadel, P3, and Reaper. Vallejo and Army Painter have had way too many separation issues for me.

I strongly recommend white primer.

For beginners, and seasoned painters that prefer production to perfection, using thin paints over white primer creates natural highlights on raised details, no extra effort. The paint is thin enough when a little bit of white shows through on the raised parts.

Then, wash the area with a darker "wash" paint. GW used to sell goblin green paint and waaagh flesh wash, which worked out great for me. I'll post a link to an Ork I painted in the "wet over white" style that I like to use when I get home.

I've always used GW paint, no particular complaints and some of those paints are 20 years old and still workable. No shade on other companies, but I've had good results with GW paint so I stick with it.

Melackholy wrote:
So people recommend army painter over citadel?
Think I'm gonna do orks, any paints otherwise than the mega pack I should get?

And what do people prime with in general, what are the options?

A wet palette is on the checklist.

I don't recommend Army Painter. They are "thicker" but have about half the pigment levels of citadel base paints. I DO like their stay in place shades though. But their paints when thinned to proper flow are translucent. Now mind you that the pigment spreads evenly when thinned which means they are great for very thin coats but the binder is too thick and thus even thinned builds up too much if doing multiple glaze coats.

Now, Vallejo paints are great! It is an aggravation that they are not everywhere... they should be. They've got their stinkers but, so do everyone.. citadel jellied metallics anyone? Or the troll slayer orange.. also kinda gelatinous.

Hands down, Vallejo paints are some of the best and their airbrush paints are proper for brush painting and have even higher pigment than their regular line. Thin but great coverage ends up with me using them for brushing when I don't want to use a wetpallet to get normal paints to that level of consistency.

Citadel paints are actually quite good, they thin well, have a reasonable level of pigment. Their only down side is cost. They are the highest.

Wet palette is nice but not necessary.

I'd rather invest in a vallejo flow improver/acrylic medium and a few dropper bottles to keep my paints moist.

If you have an old frame/any piece of glass, put a cradstock (pref. white) backing on it and masking tape the edges. Made mine back in high school, still use it to this day. The paints can be scraped off by applying a wet papertowel over the glass few few minutes, and go over it with some sort of scraper (I use flat blade) once the acrylic is soaked and detached itself form the glass.
Here's an example http://en.louiselamirande.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/5_la-palette-apr%C3%A8s-usage.jpg

 skchsan wrote:
Wet palette is nice but not necessary.

I'd rather invest in a vallejo flow improver/acrylic medium and a few dropper bottles to keep my paints moist.

If you have an old frame/any piece of glass, put a cradstock (pref. white) backing on it and masking tape the edges. Made mine back in high school, still use it to this day. The paints can be scraped off by applying a wet papertowel over the glass few few minutes, and go over it with some sort of scraper (I use flat blade) once the acrylic is soaked and detached itself form the glass.
Here's an example http://en.louiselamirande.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/5_la-palette-apr%C3%A8s-usage.jpg

Wet Pallet is just another style. It is rather different in method than dry pallet painting. Has to do with paint consistency, brush uptake, speed, etc.

I use wet pallet when I want it's features, dry pallet (with flow improvers and water) when that is what I want. No different than swapping to air-brush or brush. They all have their place and wet pallet isn't the be all end all. It's just another tool and method.

For example, you can't use Vallejo airbrush paint on a wet pallet as it does not play nice with the extra thinning. In fact the paint will separate out. Some colors might work but most give poor wet pallet results. So wet pallet when applicable, dry when applicable. There is no be-all end all. Ye-Olde Glass Pallet method is quite an old trick.

 NoIAMDirtyDan wrote:
Also, you're going to hear a lot of dissenting opinions about prime spray, but save yourself an assload of money and poor-performing cans (Sometimes resulting in ruined minis) and just use Krylon Camouflage Fusion spray paint

I've been using it forever with amazing results and never looked back. If you can find it in a brick and mortar store it's usually $4-$7 (I think WalMart carries it). It goes on easy, dries quick, and covers really, really well in a sweet sweet matte. It's also totally chip resistant which is a plus, especially if you plan on dealing with metal minis. While they don't have a "white" camo spray, I honestly just use the Sand camo spray because it's fairly light and most minis I paint tend to have earthy tones anyways to some degree.

I use Krylon Camo Grey as a white primer. It's a very light grey that works very well as a white primer. Like yourself, I use Sand for earthy/skin priming.

I've also just learnt that I've been using them wrong. Used as per instructions (on can) I end up having to do 2 or 3 passes to get good coverage with a fairly rough tooth on the priming (I find it too grainy). Apparently, if you hold it close, like 3 inches or so and do a very quick swipe across, it leaves a much smoother coat, a single pass each side covers very nicely and dries a lot smoother with a nice fine tooth.

I'm leaning in favour of the Krylon Camo over airbrushed/brushed on primers.

For primers there's a lot of options. Really it's more of a question of what to avoid than what works best.

Avoid Citadel (crazy overpriced)
Avoid filler primers (they obscure or soften tiny details)

My primer of choice is vallejo (white, grey, or black) through a cheap airbrush for models with lots of details like cloaks and cables, etc.

For minis where all the surfaces are easily reached, I use Duplicolor Sandable Primer. It's an automotive primer, but works great on plastics because guess what: most cars have painted plastic bumpers. Goes on smooth as a baby's bottom. You can buy it in the US at most auto parts stores.

The reason I don't like using rattle can primers on a mini with lots of recesses and slightly hidden details, is that it's hard to get those inner surfaces properly primed without flooding the surrounding surfaces with primer. I can get exactly what I need where I need it with an airbrush, but it's definitely slower. Also, the airbrush is great for spraying in the winter.

If you got the cash to drop, buy the reaper master series core color 1 set, its like 300 bucks, but it will have pretty much every color you need.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I strongly recommend white primer.

I'll post a link to an Ork I painted in the "wet over white" style that I like to use when I get home.

Or a day or two later... you know.



If you click on the picture, you can zoom in on the details.

If you look at the face, and hands in particular, you can see where the raised edges are much more pale (highlighted) compared to the rest of the flesh, while the recesses are dark green. You can see this as well on the upper sides of the arm muscles, where some of the white showed through creating a highlight, to the base colour, to the wash darkened recesses.

The Ork's right hand, the bottom of the choppa handle. You can see how basic silver is helped by a black wash. The black pools at the base, sharpening the shape of the bulbs and creating contrast for the raised bits that seem highlighted by comparison.

Similarly, the bronze / brass colour has had Reikland flesh shade washed over top, which helps to define the bibs and bobs on the metal while maintaining a warm, reddish brown hue.

The pants are a medium brown, washed with a dark brown. Again, the raised edges have some lightness showing through, the medium base colour, and dark wash has settled in the recesses.


Basic painting should be about creating contrast on the model, to help show the details of the shape. The easiest way I've found is as I've mentioned earlier, white primer, thin base coat (let some white through) and then wash the entire colour with a darker wash, to add depth.

As for colours, to the best of my recall...

Ork Flesh: Goblin Green with Waagh Flesh Wash

Steel: Mithril Silver with Nuln Oil Wash
Charcoal Shirt and Boots: Mechanicus Grey (?) with Nuln Oil Wash

Bronze / Copper: Balthazar Gold with Reikland Flesh Wash
Red: Mephiston Red with Reikland Flesh Wash
Human Flesh - drained: Reikland Flesh Wash directly over White Primer, 2 to 4 coats, in that ballpark. Leaves a palid colour to the flesh, rather than basing in Elf Flesh first.
Blonde Hair: Sunset Yellow with Reikland Flesh Wash
Teeth and Claws: Ushabti Bone with Reikland Flesh Wash (might have been a custom wash, I can't remember)

Leather Pouch: Snakebite leather with Agrax Earthshade Wash
Leather Pants: Bestial Brown with Agrax Earthshade Wash
Wood Handle: Scorched Earth Brown (?) with Agrax Earthshade Wash (forgot to touch up the steel around the handle)

Plus you'd want to have Black and White available, just cause. Depending on how you want to base, you might need more colours. This is for my son's D&D character, mostly dungeon crawling so I didn't do much except glue sand and then do a couple washes of Nuln Oil over it.