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As the title says, I have found that certain colors in certain ranges are better than others. In order to save money and provide service to community I would like to get favorite colors of ranges where able. This is mainly when comparing "like" or "color matches" colors across ranges. Note, I am looking for specific colors, not just X range is best. Please list out your favorite/best colors below.

For me there are a few paints that seem to be better than others.

Army Painter Strong Tone
Army Painter Dark Tone
Army Painter Soft Tone
VMC Reflective Green
VGC Escorpy Green
P3 Ioson Green
VGC Electric Blue
VGC Magic Blue
Vallejo Red Surface Primer
Scale 75 Elven Gold
Scale 75 Old Gold
Scale 75 Necro Gold
Citadel Reikland Fleshshade
Citadel Bloodletter
VMC Sunny Skin Tone
VMC Ivory
VMC Burnt Umber (A must for undercoat of red)
Tamiya XF-59 Desert Yellow (awesome for khaki colors, use in airbrush, it looks different than brush paint)

I've just bought some of the rereleased forge world colours.. Death korps drab, gal vorbak red, lupercal and sons of horus green etc. They're very nice rich colours. I'm enjoying using them at the minute.

For flesh I use a mix of citadel bugmans glow and vallejo elf fleshtone.

I like the citadel edge colours for highlights too. Gauss blaster green, baharroth blue as standouts that I've used quite a bit.

Used to do my base edges in Graveyard Earth. That was great.

of all of them..

VMC (metal color rather than model color) Aluminum. Use that as a base on your metals and wash heavy with Secret Weapon or now Citadel's Black Contrast..

*Macho Man Randy Savage*

OOOOOOOOOOHYEEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHH!

Other than that P3's paints were just about all excellent. Excepting a bad batch I got but they replaced it. I like how they cover, how they glaze, how they two-brush, and how thye all work so well on a wet pallet for those applications.

I use a lot of Citadel stuff for my meats and potatoes because its easy to get and worth supporting locally. Most of my favorite colors though come from the P3 line. Khador Base is my favorite red by a long shot. Heartfire is also a really useful paint to have, making fire a lot easier to paint as well as being good for red highlights and a base coat for strawberry blonde hair.

Less flashy, but I also find myself constantly finding uses for Trollblood Highlight which is more of an earthy grey than you'd expect. On that note, the entire line of Teals is really good (Arcane Blue, Troolblood Base and sweet sweet Coal Black). Recently started using Arcane Blue and the Contrast Aethermatic Blue to make some spell effects I'm really happy with.

I’m currently in love with the new contrast Flesh Tearer Red. Great coverage and a gorgeous dark red. Looks good over silver too.

I have flesh tearers red but I'm not sure how to use it. I've perfected my red scheme. black layered all the way up to highlighted red; over the past year so I'm not sure where to put it in. Maybe as a glaze to smooth the transitions...

I haven't really ventured outside of Citadel's paint range but I have played with some of Vallejo and Tamiya paints so while I don't have an extensive knowledge, here are my favourites:

Citadel Bases:
Gal Vorbak Red - Love the paint, it's slotted straight into my palette and it's the base for my Renegade Guardsmen for BSF.
Caliban Green - An improvement on Dark Angels Green and it's probably one of my most used colours in their entire range.
Zandri Dust - The base for my bone colours, good coverage and tone.
Wraithbone - A better ushabti bone in my opinion, great all round light paint.

Citadel layers:
Warpstone glow and caledor sky are great mid-tones and I really enjoy those.

Citadel shades:
I like most if not all of them

Citadel Contrast:
Few standouts for me are Nazdreg Yellow, Skeleton Horde and Aethermatic Blue.

Tamiya:
XF-60 Dark Yellow is just an awesome paint. More useful through an airbrush because it gets tacky when brush painting.

Vallejo:
Their German Grey and Gunmetal Grey paints are really nice and their Luftwaffe camo is a nice drab colour.

Screaming skull - Citadel. Since ist the color i have used the most, and always like using it to mix with other colors instead of white scar.

I have only used citadel colors so far. My favorits so far are:
Seraphim Sepia (because it gives a really nice dusty/sandy tone in white base)
Terradon Turquoise on Retributor Armor
Mephiston Red/Evil Sunz Scarlet/Wild Rider Red, sometimes with some Spirit Stone Red

This is a great thread. This way we can find those special paints whitin various ranges.

I'm sort of a paint junky and I'm always seaching for that "perfect" (hue, coverage, tranparency, mattness etc.) paint.


VMC Ivory is the holy grail of paints. This one ends up almost every time on my wet pallete. It's a warm white that leaves smooth fihish with good coverage as well.
I use it for top skin highlights, yellow highlights, orange highlights, light brown highlight, bone highlights and so on...

Another best of paints is Scale 75 / warfront Flat Black. I love it because it leaves a dead flat finish. This will dull down any sheen on the paints and thus creating
flat shadows, you really want unreflective shadows. I mix it with metallic paint to create a dull metal base paint...


VALLEJO MODEL COLOR

VMC Ivory
VMC Sunny Skin Tone
VMC Clear Orange
VMC Flat Red
VMC Oxford Blue - very nice dark blue violet tone
VMC Deep Sky Blue - bright light blue
VMC Turquoise - amazing tone more on the greenish side.
VMC Park Green Flat
VMC Medium Olive - very nice olive tone
VMC Gunship green - nice military grey green
VMC Olive Grey
VMC Medium Grey
VMC Orange brown
VMC Mahogany Brown
VMC Hull Red - great color (dark reddish brown)...useful for red shadows, rust, leather...
VMC German C. Black Brown - another very useful color.
VMC German grey - great for painting black.

VALLEJO GAME COLOR

Extra opaque Heavy Ochre - my go to base paint for painting yellow
Extra opaque Heavy Sienna - very nice middle brown
Extra opaque Heavy Charcoal - great near black tone

VGC Sombre Grey - nice bluish grey

VALLEJO PANZER ACES

VPA Flesh Base
VPA Afrikakorps Tank Crew - a nice light olive green
VPA Splinter Camouflage Base - my base paint for painting white

METALLICS

VMC GunMetal Grey

VMA Silver

Vallejo Metal Color Steel, copper... (IMO best acrylic metallic paints on the market)

ARMY PAINTERS

AP ROUGH Iron - very nice dark brownish matellic hue.


SCALE 75

S75 Flat Black -
S75 African Shadows - for skin work
S75 Brown leather
S75 Red Leather
S75 Black Leather - amazing dark desaturated purple for shadowing reds, browns, purples ...
S75 Deep Blue

Scale Warfont

SW Flat Black
SW Ocean Blue
SW Panzer Grey
SW SS Camo Dark Brown - amazing black brown...usable for brown shadows.

AK INTERACTIVE

AK Figure Faded White
AK Figure Ivory - another great ivory color
AK Figure Red Brown - very nice red leathery color
AK Figure Brown leather - also very nice
AK Figure Dark Shadow Flesh
AK Figure Bronze Green
AK Figure Granite Grey - my go to for stone and rock painting
AK Figure Light Grey
AK Figure Stone Grey
AK Figure Dark Sea Blue
AK Figure Black Grey


I really like my paints to have a matt finish, that's one of the reasons I don't like Citadel paints (satin finish) also I find them extremely poor value for money.

I like ceramite white, tastes chalky mmmmmm chalky

Its interesting because alot of people actually do eat chalk, and clay and charcoal and slate stone, the people who do this have the medical term "pica" associated with them. Heaps of videos of them on youtube doing it.

I once ate a pool chalk after imbibing much alcohol... That wasn't very nice.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I haven't really ventured outside of Citadel's paint range but I have played with some of Vallejo and Tamiya paints so while I don't have an extensive knowledge, here are my favourites:



Tamiya:
XF-60 Dark Yellow is just an awesome paint. More useful through an airbrush because it gets tacky when brush painting.

Yeah. Agree. I have all the brown/tan range XF-58,XF59-,XF-60 and a few others.

XF - 59 Desert Yellow is a wonderful color for guardsmen pants. A nice kahki color.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Modock wrote:
This is a great thread. This way we can find those special paints whitin various ranges.

I'm sort of a paint junky and I'm always seaching for that "perfect" (hue, coverage, tranparency, mattness etc.) paint.


VMC Ivory is the holy grail of paints. This one ends up almost every time on my wet pallete. It's a warm white that leaves smooth fihish with good coverage as well.
I use it for top skin highlights, yellow highlights, orange highlights, light brown highlight, bone highlights and so on...

Another best of paints is Scale 75 / warfront Flat Black. I love it because it leaves a dead flat finish. This will dull down any sheen on the paints and thus creating
flat shadows, you really want unreflective shadows. I mix it with metallic paint to create a dull metal base paint...


VALLEJO MODEL COLOR

VMC Ivory
VMC Sunny Skin Tone
VMC Clear Orange
VMC Flat Red
VMC Oxford Blue - very nice dark blue violet tone
VMC Deep Sky Blue - bright light blue
VMC Turquoise - amazing tone more on the greenish side.
VMC Park Green Flat
VMC Medium Olive - very nice olive tone
VMC Gunship green - nice military grey green
VMC Olive Grey
VMC Medium Grey
VMC Orange brown
VMC Mahogany Brown
VMC Hull Red - great color (dark reddish brown)...useful for red shadows, rust, leather...
VMC German C. Black Brown - another very useful color.
VMC German grey - great for painting black.

VALLEJO GAME COLOR

Extra opaque Heavy Ochre - my go to base paint for painting yellow
Extra opaque Heavy Sienna - very nice middle brown
Extra opaque Heavy Charcoal - great near black tone

VGC Sombre Grey - nice bluish grey

VALLEJO PANZER ACES

VPA Flesh Base
VPA Afrikakorps Tank Crew - a nice light olive green
VPA Splinter Camouflage Base - my base paint for painting white

METALLICS

VMC GunMetal Grey

VMA Silver

Vallejo Metal Color Steel, copper... (IMO best acrylic metallic paints on the market)

ARMY PAINTERS

AP ROUGH Iron - very nice dark brownish matellic hue.


SCALE 75

S75 Flat Black -
S75 African Shadows - for skin work
S75 Brown leather
S75 Red Leather
S75 Black Leather - amazing dark desaturated purple for shadowing reds, browns, purples ...
S75 Deep Blue

Scale Warfont

SW Flat Black
SW Ocean Blue
SW Panzer Grey
SW SS Camo Dark Brown - amazing black brown...usable for brown shadows.

AK INTERACTIVE

AK Figure Faded White
AK Figure Ivory - another great ivory color
AK Figure Red Brown - very nice red leathery color
AK Figure Brown leather - also very nice
AK Figure Dark Shadow Flesh
AK Figure Bronze Green
AK Figure Granite Grey - my go to for stone and rock painting
AK Figure Light Grey
AK Figure Stone Grey
AK Figure Dark Sea Blue
AK Figure Black Grey


I really like my paints to have a matt finish, that's one of the reasons I don't like Citadel paints (satin finish) also I find them extremely poor value for money.

Fantastic contribution. Exactly the thing I am looking for.

Agree with the VMC Ivory, i use it a lot as well. went back and added it.
Scale 75 African shadow (agree on skin tones)
VMC Sunny skin tone, actually really good for popping red. I will use this as my final highlight in airbrush then go back over with the something like blood red thinned way down to a glaze to make it pop.

I am going to have to try that scale 75 black. Ive been using VMC black but been looking for another.
Also Im going to try the Hull Red, ive been looking for a good dark brown. Splinter Base Camo as well, ive been using greys for white, or Pale sand, but thats more of an offwhite.

Great Stuff

 Dynas wrote:

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
I haven't really ventured outside of Citadel's paint range but I have played with some of Vallejo and Tamiya paints so while I don't have an extensive knowledge, here are my favourites:



Tamiya:
XF-60 Dark Yellow is just an awesome paint. More useful through an airbrush because it gets tacky when brush painting.

Yeah. Agree. I have all the brown/tan range XF-58,XF59-,XF-60 and a few others.

XF - 59 Desert Yellow is a wonderful color for guardsmen pants. A nice kahki color.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Modock wrote:
This is a great thread. This way we can find those special paints whitin various ranges.

I'm sort of a paint junky and I'm always seaching for that "perfect" (hue, coverage, tranparency, mattness etc.) paint.


VMC Ivory is the holy grail of paints. This one ends up almost every time on my wet pallete. It's a warm white that leaves smooth fihish with good coverage as well.
I use it for top skin highlights, yellow highlights, orange highlights, light brown highlight, bone highlights and so on...

Another best of paints is Scale 75 / warfront Flat Black. I love it because it leaves a dead flat finish. This will dull down any sheen on the paints and thus creating
flat shadows, you really want unreflective shadows. I mix it with metallic paint to create a dull metal base paint...


VALLEJO MODEL COLOR

VMC Ivory
VMC Sunny Skin Tone
VMC Clear Orange
VMC Flat Red
VMC Oxford Blue - very nice dark blue violet tone
VMC Deep Sky Blue - bright light blue
VMC Turquoise - amazing tone more on the greenish side.
VMC Park Green Flat
VMC Medium Olive - very nice olive tone
VMC Gunship green - nice military grey green
VMC Olive Grey
VMC Medium Grey
VMC Orange brown
VMC Mahogany Brown
VMC Hull Red - great color (dark reddish brown)...useful for red shadows, rust, leather...
VMC German C. Black Brown - another very useful color.
VMC German grey - great for painting black.

VALLEJO GAME COLOR

Extra opaque Heavy Ochre - my go to base paint for painting yellow
Extra opaque Heavy Sienna - very nice middle brown
Extra opaque Heavy Charcoal - great near black tone

VGC Sombre Grey - nice bluish grey

VALLEJO PANZER ACES

VPA Flesh Base
VPA Afrikakorps Tank Crew - a nice light olive green
VPA Splinter Camouflage Base - my base paint for painting white

METALLICS

VMC GunMetal Grey

VMA Silver

Vallejo Metal Color Steel, copper... (IMO best acrylic metallic paints on the market)

ARMY PAINTERS

AP ROUGH Iron - very nice dark brownish matellic hue.


SCALE 75

S75 Flat Black -
S75 African Shadows - for skin work
S75 Brown leather
S75 Red Leather
S75 Black Leather - amazing dark desaturated purple for shadowing reds, browns, purples ...
S75 Deep Blue

Scale Warfont

SW Flat Black
SW Ocean Blue
SW Panzer Grey
SW SS Camo Dark Brown - amazing black brown...usable for brown shadows.

AK INTERACTIVE

AK Figure Faded White
AK Figure Ivory - another great ivory color
AK Figure Red Brown - very nice red leathery color
AK Figure Brown leather - also very nice
AK Figure Dark Shadow Flesh
AK Figure Bronze Green
AK Figure Granite Grey - my go to for stone and rock painting
AK Figure Light Grey
AK Figure Stone Grey
AK Figure Dark Sea Blue
AK Figure Black Grey


I really like my paints to have a matt finish, that's one of the reasons I don't like Citadel paints (satin finish) also I find them extremely poor value for money.

Fantastic contribution. Exactly the thing I am looking for.

Agree with the VMC Ivory, i use it a lot as well. went back and added it.
Scale 75 African shadow (agree on skin tones)
VMC Sunny skin tone, actually really good for popping red. I will use this as my final highlight in airbrush then go back over with the something like blood red thinned way down to a glaze to make it pop.

I am going to have to try that scale 75 black. Ive been using VMC black but been looking for another.
Also Im going to try the Hull Red, ive been looking for a good dark brown. Splinter Base Camo as well, ive been using greys for white, or Pale sand, but thats more of an offwhite.

Great Stuff

If you can find it (hard) the P3 black is great. Other than the VMA-Black.. the P3 Black is very nice. I am super black picky.

Some great stuff in this thread!

I've used a ton of different paints from different ranges, but here are a few that really stand out for me:

Reaper Master Series

Skin Triads, especially Tanned Flesh and Dark Flesh - simple three stage for a variety of skin tones.
Gory Red Triad: just a great, rich red. I use it for the jackets on praetorian infantry as well as retro ultra marines bolter cases

Vallejo Game Color
Electric and Arcane Blue: just the perfect blues (with an ink and a white highly) for tech or Magic coils/arcs.

Delta Ceramcote
Charcoal: still the best super dark grey I've found.

Vallejo Model Color
Bronze/Brass: just great warm dark metallic

I'll second the Vallejo Metal Color range, and my fave is Magnesium. It's a darker, complex color that I use as a base over Vallejo gloss black primer and then brighten up with zenithal highlights of brighter colors in the range (such as the various aluminums).

I'll also second VGC Heavy Charcoal/VMC Dark Grey and the Army Painter Soft/Strong/Dark washes. The latter perform closer to the old GW washes than anything I've found.

I really like the Citadel gloss washes in the right applications...mainly pin washing. I often use a mix of Nuln and Agrax for a great oily color with metals and machinery.

Oh, and the Scale 75 metals are excellent too. I'll vouch for Old Copper and all the golds (Necro, Dwarven, Elven, etc).

I love Citadel Wild Rider Red as a final highlight on reds after I've built them up. I don't know if I'd use it for more than that, but for that one thing...

I've used a ton of VMC Dark Prussian Blue. It's surprisingly transparent though, so the final result has a lot to do with your undercoat.

Tamiya Clear Red is my go-to for most blood effects and red candycoating.

 Polonius wrote:
Some great stuff in this thread!

I've used a ton of different paints from different ranges, but here are a few that really stand out for me:

Reaper Master Series

Skin Triads, especially Tanned Flesh and Dark Flesh - simple three stage for a variety of skin tones.
Gory Red Triad: just a great, rich red. I use it for the jackets on praetorian infantry as well as retro ultra marines bolter cases

Vallejo Game Color
Electric and Arcane Blue: just the perfect blues (with an ink and a white highly) for tech or Magic coils/arcs.

Delta Ceramcote
Charcoal: still the best super dark grey I've found.

Vallejo Model Color
Bronze/Brass: just great warm dark metallic

Agree on the blues.
I have to disagree on the VMC Bronze/brass. They aren't bad, but they have poor coverage in my experience. Thats why i switched to the Scale 75 Gold Triad. Give it a shot if you can.

I tend to favour paints that go on smooth with good coverage. So most of the Citadel base paints are good, I particularly like Mechanicus grey and Caliban green.

Metallic violet from warcolours is a dream to use. Amazing coverage, easy to apply and dries with a lovely uniform metallic sheen.

My favourite paint at the moment is actually one I mixed myself. About 50/50 Green 3 and yellow-green both from Warcolours. The result is very similar to moot green but a little bit more vibrant and more opaque

 gorgon wrote:
I'll second the Vallejo Metal Color range, and my fave is Magnesium. It's a darker, complex color that I use as a base over Vallejo gloss black primer and then brighten up with zenithal highlights of brighter colors in the range (such as the various aluminums).

I'll also second VGC Heavy Charcoal/VMC Dark Grey and the Army Painter Soft/Strong/Dark washes. The latter perform closer to the old GW washes than anything I've found.

I really like the Citadel gloss washes in the right applications...mainly pin washing. I often use a mix of Nuln and Agrax for a great oily color with metals and machinery.

Oh, and the Scale 75 metals are excellent too. I'll vouch for Old Copper and all the golds (Necro, Dwarven, Elven, etc).

I love Citadel Wild Rider Red as a final highlight on reds after I've built them up. I don't know if I'd use it for more than that, but for that one thing...

I've used a ton of VMC Dark Prussian Blue. It's surprisingly transparent though, so the final result has a lot to do with your undercoat.

Tamiya Clear Red is my go-to for most blood effects and red candycoating.

Yup agree with all this. Espeically the scale 75 gold triads. Taimya clear red = blood for me lol. I picked up a pot of the wild rider red to try some edge highlights with it, glad you seem to approve on that one.