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Does anyone else find that buying paints of the internet is quite hard because the colour shown on the website is quite different from what you get when look at the paint and then paint with it?

Just bought some more pro acryl paints and they are all very good to paint with but they aren’t the colours I was expecting and so not much use for my current project.

I've founas well that what is annoying is that sometimes the website won't show pictures of the paint at all, so you have to look it up somewhere else on the internet, and even then I feel like they simply don't render the colours good.

mrFickle wrote:
Does anyone else find that buying paints of the internet is quite hard because the colour shown on the website is quite different from what you get when look at the paint and then paint with it?

Just bought some more pro acryl paints and they are all very good to paint with but they aren’t the colours I was expecting and so not much use for my current project.

Oh, that happens to me all the time. I think I've bought more duds than keepers, and that is regardless of whether I'm buying online or in-store.

Judging color is tricky as it is, and then we have to deal with things such as monitor colorspaces, vast majority of online images using lossy compression algos such as JPG which desaturates and distorts colors further, incorrectly calibrated monitors, photos taken without correct white balance adjustments..

Would be super useful if paint manufacturers gave out pantone codes of their tones, at least there'd be some universally accepted swatch to check the colors with but what can ya do

It's almost as bad ordering off a printed catalog.

Blues have a long history in the print industry of never quite looking like the actual colour/shade - for example. Any colour that uses the blue inks also taints the others, so a lot more colours don't show up quite right.

 chromedog wrote:
It's almost as bad ordering off a printed catalog.

Blues have a long history in the print industry of never quite looking like the actual colour/shade - for example. Any colour that uses the blue inks also taints the others, so a lot more colours don't show up quite right.

Yeah our living room wall was not the colour we expected

Heck, even if you see the paint bottle in person, the color of the paint liquid is rarely exactly the same color it is dry.

Solution: be rich and buy every possible shade of blue...




Aïe! Stop throwing stones!!!!

Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

 tauist wrote:
Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

It's not possible to mix every hue from red, blue, yellow, white and black. Go ahead, try and make neons. or most purples. Or cyan or magenta.

 tauist wrote:
Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

I don’t have time for this

Fire_Forever wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

It's not possible to mix every hue from red, blue, yellow, white and black. Go ahead, try and make neons. or most purples. Or cyan or magenta.

Neon colours sure, but I see no reason why purple, cyan & magenta would be a problem, assuming your primary colors are 100% pure

 tauist wrote:
Neon colours sure, but I see no reason why purple, cyan & magenta would be a problem, assuming your primary colors are 100% pure

The pigments just don't mix that way. Remember, "pure" paint colors aren't RGB values on a computer screen. The pigments have complex interactions, "pure" colors often use a mix of pigments to get the right color, and mixing colors usually reduces saturation.

This is why w/e I want to invest in a paint brand, I make sure they have the REAL primaries of CYMK- royal blue and fire engine red don't cut it. If the color is slightly off, I can move it into the hue I want.

As for colors being true to being as advertised... Here's a story: I have 2 colored pencils, both same brand, same color.. BUT! the color on the casing are off by 2 shades! I have to remind myself they are the same color by sampling them constantly.

I do wish people would put together an online resource of actual color swatches scanned- but again, there's that problem with screens, resolutions and whatnot. Dick Blick has this in their artist's catalogs, which is a huge benefit vs. looking at a computer-generated swatch. Wish mini paint companies would do this too!

But, when it comes down to it, you should be getting a color that's near to what you want- No browns in green marked bottles.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

This is why w/e I want to invest in a paint brand, I make sure they have the REAL primaries of CYMK- royal blue and fire engine red don't cut it. If the color is slightly off, I can move it into the hue I want.

As for colors being true to being as advertised... Here's a story: I have 2 colored pencils, both same brand, same color.. BUT! the color on the casing are off by 2 shades! I have to remind myself they are the same color by sampling them constantly.

I do wish people would put together an online resource of actual color swatches scanned- but again, there's that problem with screens, resolutions and whatnot. Dick Blick has this in their artist's catalogs, which is a huge benefit vs. looking at a computer-generated swatch. Wish mini paint companies would do this too!

But, when it comes down to it, you should be getting a color that's near to what you want- No browns in green marked bottles.

Yeah my burnt orange from pro acryl is a leather brown. So I assume the “burnt” in the name means we added brown to the colour. Which is fine. But it’s not orange. Although I think it would make a good base for orange

 tauist wrote:

Fire_Forever wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

It's not possible to mix every hue from red, blue, yellow, white and black. Go ahead, try and make neons. or most purples. Or cyan or magenta.

Neon colours sure, but I see no reason why purple, cyan & magenta would be a problem, assuming your primary colors are 100% pure

Have a go, you'll quickly figure out the impossibility of your statement.
If you can paint any of those with only R/Y/B/K/W, you're a magical unicorn.

Fire_Forever wrote:

 tauist wrote:

Fire_Forever wrote:

 tauist wrote:
Or buy primary red/yellow/blue, white, black and neutral grey, and mix all your shades manually. Tedious, but ultimately gives you most control

It's not possible to mix every hue from red, blue, yellow, white and black. Go ahead, try and make neons. or most purples. Or cyan or magenta.

Neon colours sure, but I see no reason why purple, cyan & magenta would be a problem, assuming your primary colors are 100% pure

Have a go, you'll quickly figure out the impossibility of your statement.
If you can paint any of those with only R/Y/B/K/W, you're a magical unicorn.

In that case, please list me the minimum number of paints required for mixing most colors from the chromatic circle. I am just beginning to learn this stuff after all

 tauist wrote:
In that case, please list me the minimum number of paints required for mixing most colors from the chromatic circle. I am just beginning to learn this stuff after all

Depends on the brand, the specific combination of pigments used in each color, etc. There is no single answer other than that it's a senselessly impractical way of trying to do things, far more difficult than conventional painting with no advantage to make up for it.

(Also, the chromatic circle is only a tiny subset of the complete color space.)

Whenever starting a new paint set, I get 12 colors: the 3 primaries (CMY), 3 secondaries (Green, orange, purple), red, white, black, payne's gray, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre. Even though "fire engine red" is marked as red, it's really more 50.50 orange according to some color wheels, and orange is more yellow-orange. But I get a red to avoid making a "raspberry" that's too magenta-ish. The last 3 colors are like the "dirty" primaries in that they are darker/ less saturated so they can knock back colors. I've also seen some (pro/ Bob Ross type) painters use these for any skintone you'd want.
Going back to wanting a catalog of swatches, I also wish mini paint companies would come up with a system of equivalency- color names are standard in pro acrylic painting. I happen to be extremely good at noticing similarities of colors by eye, but it's a headache for anyone to get a "Red" that's not "Blood for the blood fire hawk scarlet robin carmine" Red.

 TheChrispyOne wrote:

Whenever starting a new paint set, I get 12 colors: the 3 primaries (CMY), 3 secondaries (Green, orange, purple), red, white, black, payne's gray, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre. Even though "fire engine red" is marked as red, it's really more 50.50 orange according to some color wheels, and orange is more yellow-orange. But I get a red to avoid making a "raspberry" that's too magenta-ish. The last 3 colors are like the "dirty" primaries in that they are darker/ less saturated so they can knock back colors. I've also seen some (pro/ Bob Ross type) painters use these for any skintone you'd want.
Going back to wanting a catalog of swatches, I also wish mini paint companies would come up with a system of equivalency- color names are standard in pro acrylic painting. I happen to be extremely good at noticing similarities of colors by eye, but it's a headache for anyone to get a "Red" that's not "Blood for the blood fire hawk scarlet robin carmine" Red.

Wow, I’m 42 and I don’t think I know what red is anymore……

What is pauses grey? I have burnt sienna and yellow ochre and just learning what good colours these are to work with


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and I should ask what is the citadel/Vallejo/GSW/pro acryl version called

mrFickle wrote:
What is pauses grey?

Payne's gray is an off-black that is useful for all the standard off-black things.

If anyone want to flesh this out more then they are more than welcome too;
https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/paint_range_compatibility_chart

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

mrFickle wrote:
What is pauses grey?

Payne's gray is an off-black that is useful for all the standard off-black things.

It's a dark blue-grey color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payne%27s_grey

 ingtaer wrote:
If anyone want to flesh this out more then they are more than welcome too;
https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/paint_range_compatibility_chart

Needs an API to the paint rack app

 Ghaz wrote:
It's a dark blue-grey color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payne%27s_grey

Yes, that's what an off-black is. See the color range as you add white:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fileaynes_grey.png

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
It's a dark blue-grey color.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payne%27s_grey

Yes, that's what an off-black is. See the color range as you add white:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fileaynes_grey.png

Off-black is a group of colors, not all of which are blue-grey (e.g., Charleston green is black mixed with yellow and blue making it a dark shade of cyan).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shades_of_black#Variations_of_black_(off-black_colors)

 Ghaz wrote:
Off-black is a group of colors, not all of which are blue-grey (e.g., Charleston green is black mixed with yellow and blue making it a dark shade of cyan).

Ok? I really don't get what your point here is, I said that it's an off-black not that it's the only off-black or that all off-black colors fall in that blue-gray range.

 tauist wrote:
In that case, please list me the minimum number of paints required for mixing most colours from the chromatic circle. I am just beginning to learn this stuff after all

There is, sadly, no absolute list of "these pigments can mix every colour known to humanity". You can cover most of the spectrum with primary red, blue, yellow, black, white, cyan, magenta. Some difficult colours include anything neon, certain intense browns, deep rich reds and purples, certain shades of blue and teal, rich vivid greens. Basically the more vivid the colour, the less likely you are able to mix it.

Colours can be broken down in multiple ways. Many are compound (made of more than one), while some are primary (cannot be mixed), and it's not just the three standard primary colours we all learned in kindergarden of red, blue and yellow. There's a metric ton of colour theory videos out there to consume so I won't bore anyone with the nitty, gritty details, but learning the difference between a tint (colour+white, aka pastel), shade (colour+black), tone (colour+black+white) and a pure hue (colour with no white or black added) is a good place to start. Colours can also be desaturated by adding their complement, or the colour that is opposite to them in the colour wheel. Generally pulls the colour towards grey-brown.

I've had this issue. I don't buy new paints that often, but I've been using an app called PaintRack.

You can compare colours between all the brands and it gives you a list of their closest colours ect. A useful tool to have for a few £

It's an absolute nightmare.

I come from a scale modelling background where it wasn't so bad as you would have paint ranges colour matched to specific real world paints. So all you really needed to know was that if you wanted RAF Sky for example that its code is Humbrol 90, Tamiya XF-21, Vallejo 885, etc. The website doesn't need to show the colour (and many don't) as you are picking the name of a known shade. Easy peasy.

Coming to more artistic side of the plastic model hobby one of the things I found a shock was the lack of standardised colours. It makes total sense but it does mean that everything becomes subjective and shopping for paint online becomes a nightmare. Especially as some companies give paints non-descriptive names (Citadel are noticeably bad here but not alone). I have no idea what a 'Gal Vorbak' is so naming a paint Gal Vorbak Red could be anything from a bright crimson to a deep burgundy. Seeing the paints live in the flesh is vital. It's one of the reasons I'm so sad GW has removed a lot of the range from instore when they did the range refresh last year. Citadel is my main paint brand for wargames because I can go instore and see the paints for myself rather then order 5 paints online that look about right just to get the one I actually want.

You do have the right to return but once postage is taken into account there is no point.

Yeah that’s one of the reasons I started buying citadel again, my town has a store so I can look at what one buying.