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Because i see in shops that sell paint and brushes etc have like bottles of acrylic paint that are like 6x the size of citadel and i don't remember but i think it was pretty cheap.


Thanks for the help,

Stormatious.


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Or is acrylic simply acrylic paint and its all the same

GW is only one of at least four good sources of miniatures-painting acrylic; Reaper, P3, and Vallejo all make cheaper paints of comparable quality and utility. I don't know which (if any) are easily available in New Zealand (P3 and Reaper are American, Vallejo is Spanish and hard to find in the US) and it's entirely possible you've got local brands I've never heard of. Anything that's advertised as for miniatures/model trains/etc should work fine.

I don't know that I'd recommend trying to use general-purpose paint-on-canvas acrylics rather than miniatures-painting acrylics (I have limited experience of them), however. Paint-on-canvas acrylic is thicker/heavier and I don't know if it'd take well to being thinned down far enough to be useful in a miniatures context.

oh ok thanks heaps.

Have a read through this thread. I think you'll find it interesting.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/768479.page

Oh thanks

If you was talking about standard artistic acrylic paints, then it's not the same as miniature paints. The main difference is the amount and size of pigments, artistic acrylics got bigger grain of pigments, also uses slightly different mediums. That's in short. You can use them for terrain, I don't recommend using them on miniatures. However there is some artistic paints that are useable for minis (e.g. golden paints) but they are expensive.
GW are not the best, and expensive paints. There are a lot of other producers, such as Vallejo, that are bigger and cheaper than them. Scale 75 are in almost same price, but the pigmentation is awesome.

Ok now ill google the word pigmentation


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Oh nvm i get it, cheers man thanks.

Try instar paints as a direct replacement for gw.
I actually use acryl tube paints for models but i have a special method to make them work. Then i use instar and others to blend and create effects and washes

I use only artist acrylic paint with no problem. There is nothing magic about miniature painting paint as far as my experience goes.
Though artist acrylics can vary in consistency, quality, glossiness, durability etc. But that can miniature paint too.
I seriously doubt GW or Vallejo etc have some secrets formula to make their paint so much better then any other.
And people use artist acrylic to paint just as small detail on the canvas as a miniature figure.

 DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
I use only artist acrylic paint with no problem. There is nothing magic about miniature painting paint as far as my experience goes.
Though artist acrylics can vary in consistency, quality, glossiness, durability etc. But that can miniature paint too.
I seriously doubt GW or Vallejo etc have some secrets formula to make their paint so much better then any other.
And people use artist acrylic to paint just as small detail on the canvas as a miniature figure.

It's not a matter of 'secret formulas' as simply that paints are formulated differently depending on their intended purpose. Model paint, craft paint, artist's paint and house paint can all be Acrylic, and as such would all technically be usable on the same things... but you'll get fairly different results from each.

Model paints have a finer pigment, different viscosity, often a shorter drying time, and tend to adhere better to miniatures than most other types of acrylic paint.

Not to mention that career artists don't use the cheapest acrylics anyway.

I'm in NZ myself, newly, and find that the best place for mini paints is MightyApe. As above, P3, Vallejo, Reaper or GW paints depending on colour. I've bought a couple of Army Painter sprays and found them hit and miss.

Well Insaniak, that's what I said. And I was only speaking about artist acrylic.

May I ask you though, what proof do you have for "model paints have a finer pigment"?

Why would a quality artistic paint settle for second best in that regard?

Because ive tried both and found no noticeable difference.

In fact even the cheapest non brand artist acrylic from your local store I found no noticeable difference to GW paint.

hmmm.... can you provide proof as well please slaansesh so i have a better idea on who is correct.


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Just some sort of infomation that shows you are probably right, not some video of you wearing a science lab coat giving detailed analysis or some thing lol.

I only used artist acrylics for terrain, mostly because they are much cheaper (sold in larger quantities, and there's always some browns and grey on sale at big suppliers). The ones I used had a much thicker consistency than standard mini paints. Thinning was actually a bit tedious, as I really had to mix a lot to incorporate the water into the paint goo. It's not too big of a deal when doing a large quantity (such as on terrain), but if I had to try and do that on a small amount on my pallet it would be quite annoying. I know some are marketed as being thick or thinner, so maybe I just didn't reach for the correct one.
Apart from that, it worked like a charm. I also used a brown to make a wash, which really came out great. You usually don't find as many bright saturaed color as you do in mini paint ranges, but for earthy colors it's great (and it actually tells you which pigments are used).

Oh ok, looks like ill stick to mini paints. thank you.


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Would be funny/intereting to see a model painted using only those really cheap paints you get from dollar shops that are like completely hard and you have to put water on them etc.

Wonder how good you could get it to look....

The point is that you want intensive colour and thin layer to paint minis. When you dilute art acrylic you will loose intense of colour, because there is less pigment, also the grain of it is bigger (this is problem for airbrush users). Normally you put two or three layers of paint, while using art acrylic you will have to put much more, or thicker layers. This is not much problem on flat surfaces, but highly detailed minis can loose their details.
Best to see this on watercolour paints, there is some standard paints, you need a lot of it to reach correct intense of colour. There is also very expensive Japanese watercolour paints, where you need just a little drop to reach colour. I know this is a little out of our context, but it shows how pigmentation is important. also it doesn't mean that you need expensive acrylics to paint minis, and those designed for miniatures are mostly balanced between price and quality.
You can consider using inks to paint, but it's a tricky technique.

I can not give any proof in the sense of a scientist or a paint manufacturer. But I talk from my own experience of trying out multiple paint lines.

And I can give you a example of miniatures painted with artist acrylic paint made for canvas painting.



Not my picture, I am not that good!

And i can give you examples of painters that use canvas paint.

So no, miniature paint is not superior in any way for miniature painting. Artist acrylic canvas paint works just as well.

So no, i would not be afraid to try them out. They will vary in quality, glossiness, durability etc. But that will miniature paint too.

I am not saying you should not buy GW or Vallejo paint. Just answering your question if the artist paint from the regular art shops can be used for miniatures. And yes, they can. Most are just as good. Some better, Some worse.

But you are showing bust that is quite large, much larger than standard 28mm miniature. That's a lot different.

Painter using canvas paint:




Yes, bigger then a 28mm, who cares. He put more detail on that figure. And i use the same paint. Works fine for me. I am not a world class painter so you would dismiss my pictures anyway. No point in posting my 28mm ones.



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Okey, here is a picture of my table top painted minis with canvas paint.

It's like everything, it's more down to the artist. You could probably use anything to do anything if you're good enough, certain things are just easier using certain things. Specialist miniature paints are easier to use when painting miniatures. Skilled painters could probably use artists acryllics, but I'd advise just getting a decent set of modelling paints. I can't speak for painting armies, but although they may run out quicker they will probably be better for painting lots of miniatures as opposed to painting to competition standard.

Like Queen_Anne says, tools are tools. Can artist acrylics achieve the same result as paints specifically designed for miniatures?

Probably.

How much effort and skill it takes will ultimately come down to the artist, and how much effort and time they're willing to put in balanced against the cost (of materials, time, and effort) to achieve the result they want.

Everything has a cost, and balancing it is up to you.

I've been transitioning from hobby grade paints to craft grade paints for a while now. The trick to using craft paints for miniatures is simple: More layers over an appropriate undercoat.

For cool colors (blues, greens, and purples) start from black; for warm colors (reds, oranges, and yellows) start from a medium-to-dark brown. Pick the color you want your top highlight to be, and thin it down. The first layer will let a lot of the undercoat show through, but that's just fine. This will be your shadow color. Then you just highlight up using the same color repeatedly, but covering less area as you go. By the time you get good clean coverage of the highlight color (four to six layers later) you've got a nice, subtle transition from that first layer up to your top highlight.