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Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User





So after a break of about 15 years, I’m opening up my dusty figure cases and hope to continue painting my models. My citadel paints are all very very dry. I’ve heard that other companies make paint of the same quality but much less expensive. If I had only one or two armies, I could see buying a dozen or so GW pots…but I have something like a half dozen WH/40k armies, and almost a score of gangs/warbands for necro/mordheim/kill team. So, I’m posting here for recommendations:
1. What kind of paint are the citadel line?
2. What brands/companies sell the same kind, same quality, but less expensive.
3. As a subset of #2, are there any good deals on sets of at least a few dozen paints, with a range of colors, metallics, etc.
4. I’ve heard of airbrushes being helpful for saving time on large numbers of models. If I’m going to paint my greenskin, space marine, and other armies, saving time sounds great. To narrow my research before I turn to google, could folks suggest any reviews or overviews of current airbrush options? IOW, rather than putting airbrush into amazons search box, is there a generally acknowledged list of models or brands that make sense as starters?
5. Bonus question- I expect to need a lot of superglue. I used to use liquid, I see gel is now available. Which is better for GW plastics? Metal?
Thanks, Eph
   
Made in gb
Leader of the Sept







Welcome back to the fold

Hopefully some useful answers below

1. Citadel paints are all water based acrylics. However the newer Contrast line has some funkier chemistry going on and benefits from the specific contrast medium for diluting.

2. Vallejo have huge lines covering wargaming and military model making, so if you prefer modern or historical schemes the. They provide specific colour matched paints, or you can go for the brighter fantasy/sci fi lines. Two Thin Coats is a relatively recent addition to the market, Army Painter is another range of water based acrylics at the much cheaper end of the spectrum. Then there is P3 and scale 75. If you liked the old old Citedel range then I thing coat d’arms (GW’s original supplier) still makes basically all of them under their own names. Dakka even has a handy dandy colour range comparison chart that is reasonably accurate for colour matching between ranges https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart

3. Almost certainly yes. There are now quite a lot of themed sets available from most manufacturers. Local suppliers may differ in their stock of these things.

4. Airbrush wise, the big names are Badger in the US and Harder and Steenbeck in Europe. They have entry level sets at about the £150 or so. Some people report good experiences getting ultra cheap Chinese knock off equipment as a starting point as it’s so cheap it doesn’t matter if you wreck it. YMMV.

5. I have always used polystyrene cement for plastics, ranging from ultra-thin and ultra-fast bond wicking styles through thicker more gel-like stuff. Revell Contacta has always worked well for me with its metal needle applicator. For metals a gel style superglue helps bridge gaps between ill fitting parts, but pinning is the best approach that widens your available glue types.

Please excuse any spelling errors. I use a tablet frequently and software keyboards are a pain!

Terranwing - w3;d1;l1
51st Dunedinw2;d0;l0
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
   
Made in au
Fixture of Dakka





Melbourne

Welcome back to the hobby!

1. Citadel paints are water based acrylic. Just about every paint line aimed at miniature painting will be water based acrylics.

2. There are a glut of brands on the market at the moment, with some being more or less readily accessible depending on where you live. The most well known one would be
-Vallejo. They have hundreds of paints across multiple ranges (Model Color, Game Color, Air, etc.), so you can nearly always find something to suit what you're looking for. They're also widely available, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding somewhere that sells them.
-The Army Painter. Another commonly used brand with a rather large selection of paints there widely available. The Fanatic range is proving to be quite popular.
-AK Interactive. Their 3rd Gen range is very highly rated.
-Scale 75. An interesting brand in that they use a gel based medium for their paints rather then water based. Still perfectly acceptable for model painting and can be mixed with waterbased paints with no issue. Absolutely astounding range of metallics, among other things.

Those are probably the most common and accessible paint line used for miniature painting. Others that might be harder to source include.
-Two Thin Coats
-Monument Hobbies: Pro Acryl
-Ammo by MIG (Not paints as such, but does a wide range of technical "paints" used to enhance paintjobs.)
-Turbo Dork
-Kimera Colors

There's no One is Better Then The Rest paint line when it comes to miniature painting. Some people prefer a particular brand over others, for what ever reason. While many people mix and match paint brands as they see fit. Even Citadel, expensive as they are, shouldn't be overlooked. They have some absolutely amazing colours.

3. Most brands will do paint sets. Vallejo have a few different types, as do Scale75 and Army Painter. Searching a brands website is often the best place to start looking.

4. I've just recently got myself a new airbrush/compressor and it's been quite useful for priming and basecoating. I don't use it for anything more advanced then that though, so my opinion on airbrushing is based around that limited set of uses. Most people will start throwing brand and model names at you with claims of being "cheap" and beginner friendly. But it still ends up being a big investment for something you might not be sure about how useful it will be.
I bought a offbrand airbrush/compressor combo off ebay for $140AUD and honestly I think that's all you need for doing basic work like priming/basecoating. Its certainly a the cheapest way to dip your toes into airbrushing. Considering even branded beginner airbrushes can cost hundreds of dollars and that's without a compressor. If you find airbrushing is for you, then great, you can safely start looking at more expressive branded brushes. If not, well you haven't broken the bank on something that you might find is hard to sell on.
I'm sure others will... vehemently disagree with me though.

5. I don't think it makes any difference what sort of superglue use for plastic models. Gel might be easier to control, but I can't imagine either type will do a better/worse job then other.


Hope some of that helps you with what you were looking for.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/01/02 00:53:08


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Made in gb
Steady Space Marine Vet Sergeant





United Kingdom

Welcome back!

Some sounds advice from Flinty and Snrub.

The only two things I'll add:

If you go the Airbrush route, go cheap first. I bought a cheap Airbrush and compressor combo from Amazon for about £120 (10 years ago, so adjust for inflation). I ended up breaking the first 2 airbrushes I had as a result of not really knowing what I was doing. After a while, I went for a much nicer airbrush (Iwata) which is still working perfectly fine today (about 8 years later).

On glue, use plastic glue for plastic models. It hasn't been said, but plastic glue causes a chemical reaction resulting in the plastic essentially melting and refusing together. Super glue works fine on plastic models, but plastic glue is a better bond.
On super glue, the gel stuff was a revelation to me when I first got it. The liquid super glue had the tendency to go everywhere. Especially when your working on a really fiddly model. The gel does not. One blob, that supports its own weight, and doesn't run, is a game changer. I swear by this stuff now.

   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut





Oh Canada!

An important correction to the answer for 2;

Coat D'arms is a match to the original Citadel range, the one from the 90's. It will NOT match paint from only 15 years ago, in colour or consistency. Coat D'arms paint is extremely vibrant but thin, with poor-to-average coverage meant for working over a light primer and in many, many successive layers. The old school 'Eavy Metal style, if you're familiar.

For a 15 year veteran, I'd strongly recommend going with the aforementioned modern brands like Vallejo, Pro Acryl, Reaper, AK Interactive, Army Painter, etc. See if you can order from a shop that carries multiple and sample a few colours from each, see which ones suit you best.

4. An airbrush is a major investment, and shouldn't be your first step back into the hobby. I wouldn't even put it as the second, third or fourth step. It's a time saver but a costly one unless you're doing army commissions as a job.
   
Made in fi
Posts with Authority






If you are seriously considering an airbrush, I recommend the Iwata NEO starter package. Still using it myself, the tiny compressor which comes with it might not wow an experienced airbrush affectionado, but its very quiet and very easy to store. Regular airbrush compressors are LOUD af, using them will surely annoy anyone living with you..

For glue, my two go-to's are Mr Cement SP (for plastics) and AK Interactive Black Widow (for metal/resin).

There are a bunch of paint brands out there, hard to recommend any one of them over the others. I personally like AK Interactive Acrylics, but I'm biased. Everyone has their favorite.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2025/01/04 13:24:40


"The larger point though, is that as players, we have more control over what the game looks and feels like than most of us are willing to use in order to solve our own problems" 
   
Made in us
Pewling Menial



Atlanta, GA/USA

For glue, go with Tamiya ultra thin (plastic) cement. Comes in a small square glass jar with a green plastic lid. This does not work at ALL with anything other than plastic, but it is perfect for plastics. It melts the material where you've applied it, creating a weld at the join. You can then scrape/sand it down and the seam will disappear.

Plus, if you drop a plastic model, it hardly ever comes apart since it's basically welded together.

For resin or metal, the above recommendations are good.
   
Made in us
Neophyte Undergoing Surgeries




Las Vegas, NV

Foxtrot45 wrote:

4. I’ve heard of airbrushes being helpful for saving time on large numbers of models. If I’m going to paint my greenskin, space marine, and other armies, saving time sounds great. To narrow my research before I turn to google, could folks suggest any reviews or overviews of current airbrush options? IOW, rather than putting airbrush into amazons search box, is there a generally acknowledged list of models or brands that make sense as starters?


Tons of people buy airbrushes for all kinds of reasons, use them once or twice, and then sell them on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and similar sites. This $150 kit is very popular and I got it barely used for $75.

https://www.amazon.com/Airbrush-Professional-Master-Multi-Purpose-Airbrushing/dp/B00EKT30JK/?th=1

Just last week I upgraded to the cheapest nice Japanese airbrush and it's awesome. If you have Amazon Prime, the same company also sells it there for $90 but with free prime shipping. It's $125 everywhere else.

https://spraygunner.com/products/iwata-revolution-hp-cr-gravity-feed-dual-action-airbrush

I paint in front of a window with a fan. Definitely buy this or something very similar-

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00079FOK0/

I started out buying cheap paint because I assumed it wouldn't matter to a beginner. Then I got a bottle of Pro Acryl and immediately became a fanboy.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2025/01/16 02:07:24


 
   
 
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