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So I am wondering how other people feel the the subject.

Personally I believe citadel colors can easily be remade and that making a color at a on need basis allows for minor color variation that can add a deeper sense of depth to certain aspects of the model such as skin tones or worn/faded effects. Paints mixed from matte colors can have varying degrees of gloss added to them based on what part is being painted. Cut it down with alcohol for a very thin wash. While all these effects could be repeated with citadel paint range why would you pay the extra for the same effect

I do think higher quality paints are worth it, but this is not necessarily citadel paints. I think they are rather expensive now and I only use old citadel paints that have not dried up. Most of my new paints are acrylic paints in tubes (possible Daler-Rowney? I don't have them with me right now).

Yesterday, I tried an experiment. I've yet to find a decent white paint - they're either to thick or too thin, or too grainy. Therefore I invested in some flow enhancer, and mixed a bit of white acrylic, with 'mixing white' acrylic and half a pot of Humbrol white, and added some flow enhancer. After some thorough stirring, the result is the smoothest and best covering white paint I've ever had. It's absolutely glorious! I now feel empowered enough to even attempt a White Scars army...

Model paints do have more pigment than cracker barrel paints.

You would have to paint 5-6 layers to get the same coverage as 1 layer of GW vallejo or whoever.

Not to say it cant be done.

Not sure if you're talking about the brands at Walmart like Apple Barrel or Folk Art but I will add my voice in that these paints are OK. I use Citadel and mostly Reaper paints now, but I started with eight or so Folk Art paints and one or two Apple Barrel paints. The Folk Art paints were twice as much but way better than the Apple Barrel paints. They needed to be thinned a lot but after that they did pretty well. They were great for my first buy because they were cheap and I got a ton of paint so wasting it wasn't a concern to me. Couple that with a grab bag of cheapo brushes and you can get started in the hobby for $10, excluding the models of course.

I "upgraded" to citadel paints because I wanted to improve and was told they are better. The washes are great and the metallics are top notch. I switched to Reaper because I like the company and the dropper bottles, and it's hard for me to find a good supplier of Vallejo paints. I heard only good things about them though and I'm tempted to try out some of their paints if I get an easy chance. But all that said, I still use a big squeeze bottle of black and a big bottle of Red Rust from some random company for doing bases. I think I'll never need to buy black paint again actually.

All in all, the cheapo paints have a place. They are always great for bases and terrain, and they work for miniatures on occasion. They are hit-or-miss on quality, especially white paints or lighter colors. The colors may be different for different bottles, but for the amount of paint you get, you'll paint quite a bit before you get to bottle number 2.

Vallejo is convenent from amazon

As well as prime and or free shipping on orders above like 20 which is like 6-7 paints. so long as you are purchasing in groups its not bad.

Last time I went to order Vallejo paints from Amazon Prime, the paints were 5.99 apiece. The same paints from the Warstore were 2.99 apiece plus shipping of 6.95. I ordered 10 bottles so, 29.90 plus 6.95 shipping. That same order would have been 59.90 without shipping from Amazon.

Its been hard for me to maintain the illusion that spending more on paint yields better value when my local stockists charge AU$1 more for Citadel pots than P3, yet the Citadel pots contain less paint and the quality of the P3 line has impressed me more than Citadel's so far.

There's little doubt in my mind that whether we're talking about paints, brushes, luxury watches, headphones or cars, some companies charge more because they can, knowing brand recognition will implant the perception of value in customers' minds regardless of the quality of the product.
Packaging, marketing and availability all influence purchase decisions. Quality & price are other considerations but not the only ones.

Sorry to drag things slightly off topic, I haven't used those brands of paints the OP refers to.

Use a paint appropriate to the task:

Miniatures / fine work - use a decent model paint.
Terrain - craft paint or emulsion (latex) paint for most basecoating and initial drybrushing.

If you paint any serious amount, the price of a pot is not relevant compared to its usefulness to you - every paint range has strengths and weaknesses. I like Vallejo for most things, some people hate their metals. I despise most of GW's current paint formulations (they're erratic, some base paints are great, some are terrible). Their old foundation paints (especially Tallarn flesh which I still seek a decent replacement for) were excellent. Vallejo's washes are pretty terrible, GW's are eh... not as good as they were ('washes' good, 'shades' not so good).

But your mileage on any of these may well vary. I'll usually go to vallejo as they're consistent, and not likely to change range leaving you with orphan colours (tallarn flesh, how I dread running out!).

 Desubot wrote:
Model paints do have more pigment than cracker barrel paints.

You would have to paint 5-6 layers to get the same coverage as 1 layer of GW vallejo or whoever.

This is a bit of hyperbole. Maybe 1 additional layer for most brands of craft paint. However, you also have brands like "Delta Ceramocat" at $1.50 or so (For 2 oz!) that are almost (though not quite) as heavily pigmented and smooth as GW.

Overall, the whole situation gets a big "it depends" from me.

1) It depends on what kind of cheap paint you're using? Craft paint varies from brand to brand. Good Quality Artists Acrylic paint can be just as good as mini-specific paint (though it often has to be thinned) and costs far less per oz. What exactly are you comparing.

2) It depends on your level of technical skill? If you're doing highly (or intermediate level) techniques the convenience of paints formulated, pigmented and at a consistency from the bottle that is ideal for minis may be worth the extra bucks. I paint mostly block schemes and then brush dip, often with a bit of drybrushing. Delta is all I'll ever need. I also use Minwax Polyshades for dipping rather than Quickshade which costs about 4 times as much.

3) It depends on the project. As other have said, even if you're committed to mini-branded paints for your minis, using them on terrain is just silly.

4) It depends on the individual artist. Check this guys work out. http://mdarrow.blogspot.com Would you believe he does all his work with $1.29 (2 oz) Americana craft paint?!?!

Here's the equation I'm working with. Delta comes to 75 cents per oz and GW comes to over 10 dollars per oz. I don't think the difference is justified and it's just not worth it for me.
However, YMMV, after all, it depends….

Its a bit hyperbolic i agree. still it does depend

this liquitex basic black iv been using still needs 3 coats to do terrain with an airbrush to get a pure black. vs 1 from vallejo model black thinned.

Do you do strait acrylic paint as your base layer on terrain?

I usually use something that adhere's a bit better like a nice VOC-packed spray can of cheap oil based black.

If I'm basing with acrylic (on foam, etc) brush-on black gesso usually does the trick quickly in 1 coat, sometimes with a bit of touchup. Gesso having the shrink-ability that lets you glom it on thick.

Oh no was airbrushing onto foam. so wouldnt want to rattle can that
( i was seeing if it could be done, and didnt feel like whipping out the large brush to just hand brush the thing. then found it had coverage issues. the pink foam was visible for a while)
I hear good things of gesso.

In a matter of speaking, yes.
Store brand craft paint is awful for minis
Folkart is more expensive, but my brand of choice for most colors; the thick consistency and good pigmentation lends well to dry brushing and thinned coats.
Cermacoat and Target acrylics tend to be a few cents more, but are amazing with difficult colors like yellow and white, as well as specialist products like P3/Vallejo inks.

When you get to the level of Citadel you've long ago gone past the point of diminishing returns. You're paying by volume about 10 times more for a negligible increase in pigment and inferior bottles designed to gum up and waste your money.

TheBoy wrote:
So I am wondering how other people feel the the subject.

Personally I believe citadel colors can easily be remade and that making a color at a on need basis allows for minor color variation that can add a deeper sense of depth to certain aspects of the model such as skin tones or worn/faded effects. Paints mixed from matte colors can have varying degrees of gloss added to them based on what part is being painted. Cut it down with alcohol for a very thin wash. While all these effects could be repeated with citadel paint range why would you pay the extra for the same effect

Wait, what? Has this got something to do with the topic title and poll...?

 Desubot wrote:
Model paints do have more pigment than cracker barrel paints.

You would have to paint 5-6 layers to get the same coverage as 1 layer of GW vallejo or whoever.

Not to say it cant be done.

In my experience using both it's usually more like 3/2, or 2/1 at worst. As always, YMMV.

I buy the bottle that has the colors I want. If I need to dilute it into a wash/shade it's easy enough to do. The only reason I can think of to buy citadel is their metallic and REALLY bright colors like orange. Metallic paint has a notorious history of a bad pigment count and poor coverage and citadel seems to do a better job then most. But blues? Greys? Black? Screw that. The others work just as good for a portion of the cost with more actual paint.

A lot of it depends on what you want as output. Do you want something that looks like a competition entry, a model you'd be proud to put in a display, something that will get you kudos from fellow gamers, something that looks decent from three feet away, or just something that is acceptable to play with?

Do you want to spend 30 hours on a model, 13 hours, 3, hours, or 30 minutes? Do your models represent your best effort, and do you form an attachment with each one, or are they simply game pieces where basic painting is a requirement?

It just all depends on what you want out of it. At one end of the spectrum, $2+ paints like Vallejo, Citadel, P3, etc. are a waste of money, if you're only going to spend half an hour on each model. They're not gonna look anything super stellar, so save yourself some money. On the other hand, if each one is getting your loving care, you're not going to get a showcase quality output with craft paints.

Even artists acrylics like Golden (fluid acrylic) behave quite differently from miniature paint. You can't really just mix and match a whole lot of different types of paints, because their medium is different, resulting in different glossiness and strange-looking or strange-behaving blending. Now, if you disagree with that, then you should definitely get the cheaper paint, because it just doesn't matter that much to you.

However, I have tried almost every brand of acrylic paint that I can buy, and I'm 100% certain that I couldn't paint miniatures to the quality that I'm happy with using cheap paints. I'm not saying that it would be hard; I'm saying that, given my ability, it would be impossible. Anything beyond the very basics -- wet blending, feathering, glazing, for example -- plus high levels of detail or freehand would just be so frustrating that I'd throw the model away before I finished.

In my opinion, if you don't care that much about the final output of the model, just use Army Painter spray, pick out a some minimal details like a helmet and gun, give it a quick drybrush and do a shade with something like a medium brown (AP strong for instance, is very economical). It doesn't take much to get them to a "playable tabletop" quality, if that's your thing. I don't think the cheap or expensive paints make a lot of difference in this case, because mostly what you're doing is painting with a spray anyhow.