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Hi All,

I've been pottering around for the past few hours, reading through a number of threads here (and elsewhere) in an attempt to get my head around paint. In hindsight, that may have been a very broad and overly expansive concept to try and understand in a few hours, but I've managed to do fairly well for myself.

I have a couple of questions --- and, if you're living in Australia, your input would be doubly appreciated, as I suspect we have a more-limited supply of hobby shops here than elsewhere.

1) Craft Paints --- with the right thinner (see question 2), can they be of use? I know there's an inherent bias against them, but if money is a serious barrier to building up a large collection of paints, do craft paints (on their own, and mixed to make different shades) do a 'good' job (or better)?
2) Naming conventions are always difficult, so I'm looking to buy the best thinner/flow-aid to give my paints --- be they craft paints or GW paints --- the best chance of being great.

Investing in GW paints (over a space of months and months) is not the worst thing in the world, but there is something in my that reacts violently to the idea of paying $6 for that small little bottle of paint. If nothing else, this process of mine will help me better understand the intricacies of what I'm doing.

Thanks in advance,
Cheers,
Joshua

I use tons of craft paints. I find them about the right consistency for most painting. They may require more coats at times, but really only the specialized "base coat" paints are better. I use GW for technical paints and bases, use craft paints for shades. Reaper's paints are also very good. GW paints are a terrible value particularly since you rarely get to use the whole pot before it gets dried out. May "Pro Painters" in this area are using Martha Stewart craft paints extensively. Personally I like apple barrel because I don't have to thin them.

I make good use of craft paints but it does take extra effort. They aren't as finely ground & need heavy thinning & mixing. I cut mine with a 3:1 water to pledge with future shine. When airbrushing they need even more thinning or they will clog often. For this I use a 3:1:1 of the above plus 70%+ isopropyl alcohol.

Me, I was pleasantly surprised by a few bottles of Anita's and Folkart I managed to find over here. Not so wowed by Royal & Langnickel (glossy) and Lefranc & Bourgeois Multi (horribly chalky, and discontinued now anyway). The lesson I took away was 'look for American craft paints, not European'.

Ditto on the 'a bit of extra effort needed but they're not too much worse' bit.

Thinners... I have a few bottles of OOP Klear floor polish hoarded, and I was pleasantly surprised by GW lahmian medium. But I don't think any of that'll be much use to you. Pledge with future shine is the replacement for ye olde Klear and Future, but I haven't used it. I'd take Red Starrise's word for it.

Like any paints, craft paints vary pretty widely from brand to brand and color to color. I have a few that I would have no qualms using on a model and others that I only use as fine filler, globbing on the horrid goop and sanding 95% of it away, once dry.

Whether they'll work for you, I couldn't say, but considering their cost relative to hobby paints, it's likely worth giving some a try. Speaking of cost... GW paints. They aren't bad paints, but lag pretty severely behind just about any other hobby brand in terms of value. If you want 'the good stuff' without having to sell an organ for every dozen pots, look into AU importers for Vallejo, P3 (Privateer Press), MSP (Reaper), or Warpaints (Army Painter). There are also high quality soft body art acrylics (Golden is my favorite, by far), but while they compare favorably in terms of cost per unit of volume, they're larger containers, generally, so your starting cost is equal or greater.

As for thinner and flow improver, it's not just an issue of naming conventions - there's also a lot of overlap between products, in terms of their effects. A drying retarder will reduce opacity, while a glazing medium may also slow drying. Flow improver is the easy bit - Liquitex Flo-Aid is what just about everyone uses (works better than the only alternative I know - dish soap).

For 'thinner' you have more options. Acrylics can be thinned with simple water. Add too much water, though, and you overstretch the acrylic medium, causing a weak, chalky finish (pigment drops out of suspension and clumps, polymer chains can't mesh). To thin paints heavily, you need to add extra acrylic medium, to compensate. Liquitex and Golden both sell matte (and gloss, if you prefer, but most go matte) mediums.

I would echo the previous suggestion, though, for whatever your current and local equivalent of Future/Klear is (I've heard 'Pledge with Future Shine', my bottle is 'Johnson's FloorCare'). It's often called 'floor wax' or 'floor polish', but it's neither - it's a clear acrylic coating. Since it's designed to be a protective layer, it's strong. Since it's designed to go down smooth and glossy with a simple 'squirt and mop', it has to be thin and self-leveling, so they added a surfactant. Boom! Thinner, acrylic medium, and flow improver in one, and a big bottle only costs a few dollars!

I use Folkart and clear acrylic floor polish, pretty much exclusively.

In my experience, when you get to a quality that's actually usefull for painting miniatures, you pay just as much for craft paints as you would for specialised miniature paints.



As for the "You just have to do more coats" argument: Especialy for a beginner, I feel that getting an even coat is one of the more complicated things, something that becomes exponentially more difficult if you have to work with several paint layers.

I crank it up just a tad, and go for Decoart Americana craft paints. If you wanna use craft paint, go for it. But the comment about a little extra elbow-grease being required is true. I'm actively attempting to bump up the quality of my tools and such, so I'm pushing over to the Valejo line, I figure it'll be easier to up my game if I don't have to fiddle with finicky paints.

I just got my first set of W&N Series 7 brushes! So very excited...

if you're not aiming for very high quality work, you could go for it. It'll be harder to use for sure.

There's not much more I can add to what people have posted, but as a person who's used a wider variety of acrylic paint for non mini use (painting on wood and canvas), I will vouch that in a lot of cases you get what you pay for. A lot of the craft acrylic is good, but if you're getting the $.99 paint from the local craft store, make sure that you test it on some cast off material like sprue or something to see how it flows (after putting a little primer down of course).

The cheap (under $1.00USD) stuff is usually pretty blah. The ~$3.00USD Folkart and Americana is very useable in thin coats/thinned down.

An addendum, on craft paint brands: I wholeheartedly agree that the $.99 lines (CraftSmart, whatever the Walmart house brand is called, etc.) are almost universally crap. Folk Art, Americana, or Apple Barrel are much safer bets, although they still have a few duds. If you can find them, the cream of the craft paint crop (those without a big accompanying bump in price, at least) is Delta Ceramcoat.

I tend to look for some brand-name so you can get a consistent colour shade, some craft paints have some variation.
High pigment and fine aluminum flecks are needed for the metallics or it can look strange.
You are also looking for "light fastness" and possible archival where the colour will not fade over time.

I tried looking around some Australian offerings:
http://www.chromaonline.com/
I think with these guys this is what you are looking for:
http://www.chromaonline.com/products/au/atelier_free_flow
Okay, I do not see metallics but this looks like a descent range of colour AND they seem to follow proper artist naming convention:
It also is in a "flow" condition so may work a little better out of the pot without too much thinning.
http://www.chromaonline.com/products/au/atelier_free_flow
Ah! Think this is MORE the ticket:
http://www.chromaonline.com/products/au/chroma_s_jo_sonja_s/colour_range
Here is some paint I am familiar with:
http://www.australianartsupplies.com.au/paints-and-mediums/acrylic-paints-mediums/winsor-and-newton-acrylics
Basically you are looking for "medium body" paints or less, not heavy.
Atelier is looking more like your region's main acrylic paint, the "free flow" is sounding good.
http://www.theartshop.com.au/atelier-free-flow-new
Looking at about $10 for about 75mL
http://www.theartshop.com.au/matisse-derivan-artist-acrylic-flow-formula
This might be a winner where you can get 250mL for around $12.
http://www.artsuppliesaustralia.com.au/product/derivan/derivan_artist

Aha! good flow, and has metallics!
http://www.artsuppliesaustralia.com.au/products/matisse/flow-formula

For reference remember GW paint pots hold ~12mL and look to be about $6 in Austrailia... yeah, you do the math.

Eye-dropper paints are where you really want to go... I did take many of my old paints and put them into new (cheap!) eye droppers.
http://www.fishpond.com.au/Health/Vktech-50pcs-30ml-LDPE-Plastic-Squeezable-Eye-Liquid-Dropper-Bottles-with-Childproof-Cap/0700358181788

Anyway, you get the idea... hope this helps.

I have a handful of Americana colors that I used when I first started painting models. They were cheap and I was not looking for a high price of entry to get rolling. Got them all for 88 cents a piece.

When I was first using them, I didn't thin them at all. That was rough, and I didn't like the way they were going on because I think the paint was way too thick for straight application.

Thinned down to a consistency similar to ArmyPainter or Citadel levels, it works pretty well. I don't use them as often as I used to, but I have a light-grey that I enjoy using to help mix in to lighten other colors I have.

Only complaint I have with them, even thinned down, is that they always seem very chalky to me once the paint is dried. I didn't add a varnish or gloss to the model though, so it just ended up leaving a bit of a textural difference between Citadel and Americana for example.

So they get a bit of a appreciation from me. Get a bottle of it, thin it down when you use it, it has its uses

I use craft paint almost exclusively, though I've got alot of miniature-brand paints I've acquired over the years. I've tried just about every brand of craft paint and my favorite is "Delta Ceramcoat". Over here a 2 oz bottle is a buck fifty or so, compared to the one dollar or less (give or take) that other brands cost. The small upcharge is worth it and you're still paying a tiny fraction of the cost of miniature paints. Delta is not quite as nice in any respect as miniature-specific brands, but I've found it to have better flow, better pigmentation and better coverage than other craft paints. I use it strait from the bottle, usually with no thinning. I'm a solidly table-top quality painter who does base colors, sometimes a drybrush and a dip for most figs and Delta is better paint than I need.

If you're doing tabletop paintjobs (base colors, drybrushing, basic highlights, washes etc), I don't really see why you would need to pay for miniature quality paints. However, by the same token if you're a more advanced painter using and learning advanced techniques, I think that craft paints will likely not be good enough for you and might even hold you back. Such a painter looking to save some money would be much better served purchasing good quality artist's acrylics and mixing and thinning as necessary. You'll still save quite a bit over miniature paints, but the results will be far better than craft paints.

Lastly, if you go with craft paints and need to save space in your painting areas dropper bottles are a good idea and also quite cheap. You can see how I did this here:
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2012/09/do-it-yourself-paint-cases-and-dropper.html

 Boggy Man wrote:
I use Folkart and clear acrylic floor polish, pretty much exclusively.

Wait, tell me more about this floor polish mix?

I think the main problem with cheap paint is that they tend to have less colour pigment and more base white in them. This means they tend to go greyish when thinned down. Of course, if you use them relatively as-is, it's not a problem.

There's roughly three levels of acrylic paint: craft < artist value < artist professional. In my experience, more expensive the paint, more colour pigment it holds, which makes it better for thinning down. The professional versions thin easily down to glazes/washes without going grey. It depends on the colours, too - some pigments are cheaper than others, so some 'value' paints have more pigment and thin down better than others. If it says "hue" on the colour name, it means it's synthetic pigment and is usually a bit cheaper to make.

 ncshooter426 wrote:

 Boggy Man wrote:
I use Folkart and clear acrylic floor polish, pretty much exclusively.

Wait, tell me more about this floor polish mix?

Future Floor Polish ( I think it's now sold as "Pledge Floor finish with Future Shine" around here) is a product that gamers have been using for decades for a number of things. It has been used as a protective Varnish, Thinner, acrylic medium, and flow improver. One of the things it was originally used for by hobbyists is as the main ingredient in "Magic Wash" in which you add ink or paint to it to make a product that is said to give many of the same results of the dip with a faster drying time and easier cleanup. There are various recipes for this that google will bring you.

If GW paints are too expensive might want to look into other specialized paints. Here is a little something to put things in perspective:

Vallejo is $2.79/17 ml
GW is $4.45/12 ml
P3 is $2.79/15 ml
Minitaire is $3.33/30ml

I'll jump in and vouch for Delta Ceramcote as the cream of the crop for craft paints. Even then, I tend to stick to greys, browns, and greens. Brighter and lighter colors tend not to coat very well.

I was somewhat interested in giving Craft Paints a try, but if the good ones are around $3.00, and I can get my Citadel paints for $3.50 and support my LGS, I'll probably just keep doing that.

When I first started out, I used a mix of craft paints and model/art paints.

Specifically, I got one bottle of Vallejo Model Color for basecoating, because it goes on super smooth without fuss. (~$3 USD)
Then, I got fistfuls of cheaper FolkArt paints which I used for drybrushing, highlighting, and accent colors. For that purpose, I did not thin it. (~$10 USD for a veritable rainbow)
Then, I got one pot Citadel Nuln Oil for an ink/wash that works for lots of different paint schemes. (~$5 USD)
Oh yeah, I got a can Citadel spray primer, too. (~$8 USD? $12 USD?)

This start up cache got me through several units of a couple armies.

In my town, Vallejo Model Color is the paint of choice at 3 out of 4 of the FLGSs I frequent. It is cheaper (and some would argue better) than Citadel at $2-$3 USD per 17 ml. Once I built up my paint collection over several months (perhaps a year?), I unintentionally switched completely to Vallejo, as Folk Art was only marginally cheaper ($1-$2 USD per bottle, unless it goes on sale, which it frequently does). Also, Vallejo is sold by my FLGSs, while the craft paints are not.

 MadDokMathWych wrote:

as Folk Art was only marginally cheaper ($1-$2 USD per bottle, unless it goes on sale, which it frequently does).

I agree with your assessment of the paints, but just to clarify. $1-2 for 2 oz is alot more than "marginally" cheaper than 3 bucks for a half an oz. Specifically 6-12 TIMES cheaper.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darkzephyr wrote:
I was somewhat interested in giving Craft Paints a try, but if the good ones are around $3.00, and I can get my Citadel paints for $3.50 and support my LGS, I'll probably just keep doing that.

Here in the USA, the good craft paint is "Delta Ceramcoat" which is are $1.50 for a 2oz bottle. That's 1/8th as much (or less) as most miniature brand paints which tend to cost 3 bucks or more for a half oz.

 Eilif wrote:

 ncshooter426 wrote:

 Boggy Man wrote:
I use Folkart and clear acrylic floor polish, pretty much exclusively.

Wait, tell me more about this floor polish mix?

Future Floor Polish ( I think it's now sold as "Pledge Floor finish with Future Shine" around here) is a product that gamers have been using for decades for a number of things. It has been used as a protective Varnish, Thinner, acrylic medium, and flow improver. One of the things it was originally used for by hobbyists is as the main ingredient in "Magic Wash" in which you add ink or paint to it to make a product that is said to give many of the same results of the dip with a faster drying time and easier cleanup. There are various recipes for this that google will bring you.

Yup, this. I have a big bottle of the Holloway House brand from Wallmart, works amazingly both as a thinning medium and mixed with Vallejo inks for wash.
Also I'd also vouch for Ceramcoat, amazing results, especially their reds and yellows.

My general painting lineup is:

Craft paints (Folkart, Apple Barrel, Americana, DecoArt) for just about everything.
Citadel for washes
Model Master and Reaper Pro-Paint for most metallics (I think I'm gonna cry when my Reaper Steel Plate pot finally runs out - been my go to metallic jar for about 10+ years)

About the only issue I have is, as much as I love the flatness of craft paints, dry brushing with them can give 'crusty' results.

I used some on my maggoth lord. Worked out pretty good, dollar store aswell.

So, gotta say, for one f my first posts on this forum, stoked to get so much response to what I had thought might be a stale topic. Thanks so much for everyone's input, and keep it coming - I'm learning a heap.

Seems to me that there's going to be some trial and error in finding if any of the available acrylic paints are worthwhile --- though Talizvar's mammoth researching session has me closer than I might have been. Thanks!

What I think might be an important thing to discover is the best type of "flow aid". I think I've heard that 'Liquitex' is the best, but finding it down here in Australia seems to be a bit of a trial. Is this brand the one I should go for, come hell or high water? Because, I think if I can work out the best thinning/flow/medium/etc to work with, then the paint choices will be obvious.

Thanks all! Now begins the hunt for Liquitex, methinks.
Cheers,
Joshua

Chroma is an Australian company, isn't it? They made a brief splash over here - or at least in that one shop in Belfast - with their rewettable 'Atelier Interactive' acrylics. Gotta admit I wasn't too wowed by that property in practise, but the wide range of mediums caught my eye. I haven't tried any specific Chroma flow aid (unlikely to at this point) but I still have some of a bottle of 'slow medium' that does it's own job pretty well.

JoshSHill wrote:

What I think might be an important thing to discover is the best type of "flow aid". I think I've heard that 'Liquitex' is the best, but finding it down here in Australia seems to be a bit of a trial. Is this brand the one I should go for, come hell or high water? Because, I think if I can work out the best thinning/flow/medium/etc to work with, then the paint choices will be obvious.

I think your best bet for finding flow-aids, varnishes, artist acrylics (if you go that way) and other similar products is to go to your local art supply store and ask about what is available at the various price and quality levels. A good Art store will be able to show you a number of locally available options without you having to order something overseas.

I don't use craft paint. Most of my paints these days are Vallejo, but I also use some GW, Coat D'Arms, P3, Reaper, Army Painter and others.

For thinning paints, I find that the GW Lahmian Medium is excellent, though expensive.

As a cheaper alternative (depending on what I'm doing) I also use a custom mix:

50% Dilluted Water (from the supermarket)
30% Liquitex Flow Aid
10% Drying Retarder (Matisse, I think. Got it at a local art store)
10% Liquitex Matte Medium