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So, the last minis I remember building and painting were the LotR Attack on Weathertop metals and some Rangers of Middle-Earth and Uruk-Hai plastics. This was the mid-2000's. Before that it was 3rd Ed Space Marines and Chaos Marines in the late 90s.

Well, after years of wishlisting and daydreaming, I've just bitten the bullet and started up from literal scratch. I've gotta buy everything except a desk, which the Mrs has just got for her new study / work space. So far I've bought; two lamps (one overhead LED, one regular), side cutters, craft knife, cutting mat, needle files, pin vice, milliput, paper clips, cocktail sticks, cork bungs, blu tac, PVA glue, plastic cement glue, super glue, matte varnish and gloss varnish. I've also opted to dive into airbrushing, just for priming vs. rattlecan and maybe some basecoating and varnishing. So I've also bought a compressor, cheap airbrush, holder / cleaning pot, thinner, cleaner, and two surface primers from Vallejo (dark & light grey) for some zenithal priming. Finally, I've grabbed a box of skeleton warriors as I've always fancied a VC / Undead army and I figured some skellies would be nice and simple rank-and-file models to dip my toes and get back into the swing of painting again. Half of all that's come in the post already, the other half is expected to arrive over the next week or two.

Question 1) Paints. I've yet to buy any actual paints yet. If you guys had zero paints and had to start from scratch, what paints from which ranges would you get to start with? I'm thinking I'll need maybe two decent blacks (one matte and one gloss), the elusive decent white, who has the best reds? Yellows? Metallics? I hear good things about Vallejo Model Air metallics, but what about their Metal Color range? From what I've seen / researched over the years about paints, I'm thinking of trying a mix of Coat D'Arms (old, old school Citadel), Formula P3, Vallejo and Scale 75, but I'm open to hearing others suggestions and experiences. Also what about flow improver? I was thinking about picking up the Vallejo or Liquitex one. What's the general rule? 1:10 mix with water? I need to grap a cheap palette, too. I figure I can make a DIY wet-palette at home.

Question 2) Brushes. I'm thinking a couple of cheapest brushes I can find for things like mixing and transferring paint, gluing bases, etc. Some decent synthetic brushes for the majority of brushwork and washes, a good drybush, a good synthetic brush for metallics, and finally a couple of good natural hair brushes. I'm thinking maybe Rosemary & Co. series 33s as I hear they're similar quality to W&N series 7s but like a third the price, and someone at my painting level (zero), any difference in quality at that point will be lost on me. I'm also gonna pick up some Masters Brush Cleaner.

Question 3) Basing. I've yet to get any basing materials but I'm thinking a trip to the garden centre. My initial thoughts for the undead models is to have swamp / marsh bases, so rotten tree trunks, still water, reeds, moss, wet mud, etc. Any tips, tricks, suggestions?

Phew. I'm sure there's a bunch of other things I've forgotten to go over. Just lay it on me - any tips, tricks or advice on starting up fresh after so many years.

Welcome back to the hobby! It's a great time to be involved.

You really have dived in headfirst, ordering all that stuff!
To answer your questions...

1) Paints
-Citadel is always a good starting point for paints. They have an enormous range these days and the vast majority of their paints are fantastic. They are also readily accessible at most hobby stores and online, however you will pay a premium for them.
-Vallejo is also a top contender. Again, these paints are readily accessible through most hobby stores, come in a massive variety of colours and shades and are reasonably priced. Vallejo also do lots of airbrush paints, so they may well be useful to you.
-Army painter is another common one. I've seen them in just about all my local hobby stores. I've never used them though, so I can't comment on how good/bad they are or price wise.
So if you plan on just getting your hands on paints easily/quickly, then any of the above 3 brands will be your go to, initially. But you've mentioned, Coat D'Arms, P3 and Scale75 are all worthy brands to try.

If you want black, then Vallejo Game Colour black is very good. Smooths out quite nicely. If you want a matte black, then Scale75 BLACK is super matte.
Scale 75 can also provide you with the elusive white you seek. I don't think i'll ever use another white after this.
For reds, I highly recommend Citadels Mephiston Red. Really strong, heavy pigment mid-tone red. Thins down well, unlike other reds i've used and goes on nice and smooth.
Yellow, again, Citadel isn't bad. Averland Sunset is a nice base yellow. I normally put it over a coat or two of a dark brown.
For metallics, there is a veritable glue of choice. Citadels metallics are by and large very good and come in quite a few shades, Retributor Armour is a fantastic rich gold and Screaming Bell is a lovely warm copper. I personally don't like Leadbelcher or Ironbreaker much. I find them sub-par compared to the old Boltgun Metal and Chainmail silver (Coat D'Arms can probably help you there.) Same goes for Vallejos metallic range, although I tend to prefer Vallejos brass/copper shades over there metal/gold colours. But then people will gladly die defending the virtues of Vallejo Liquid Gold. So YMMV.
Scale75 I think are a real contender for best metallics though. I can't say enough good things about Scale75 paints. The gel-based medium they use does wondrous things for their metallics.

If though, as you say, you have zero painting ability, then Citadels contrast paints might be worth looking into. Their new "1-coat and done" paint range. You can get decent results from them straight out of the pot, although they have a bit of a learning curve with how to handle them properly, but they do work well when combined with traditional painting methods and techniques. Also work really well as glazes when heavily thinned down.
These paints are quite pricey though in comparison, so might not be ideal to go whole hog on these unless you can get them at a discount.


2) Brushes.
-For smudging glue and basing materials around, any cheap dollar store brushes will do the trick.
-I used to use W&N Galleria brushes quite a lot. They're W&Ns synthetic range, and I really really liked them. Held a point quite well and lasted quite a while even with rough handling. Plus not too expensive, which is nice.
-Rosemary & Co. are supposed to be quite good, as are Broken Toad brushes and Raphaels. I'd avoid Artis Opus brushes. They seem very hit and miss with quality, especially for the price you pay.


3) Basing.
-I'm terrible at basing so I can't help you here much!
-I once attempted to do exactly what you plan on doing. Swampy Vampire Counts. I used Vallejo Still Water dyed browny green for my swamp bases. It worked to an extent, but I was younger and far more impatient and the still water takes time to cure and needs lots of thin layers to look good. So I gave up on it fairly quickly. I'm sure someone else would be able to help you better here then I can.


Hope some of that helps.

The main thing to consider with paints is how reliably you can get replacement paints when you run out. The only thing I'd avoid would be P3 paints which I found really hard to thin down properly. The big names - Citadel, Vajello, Reaper, Army Painter are all pretty reliable. If you're using an airbrush, INSTAR's alpha range is pre-thinned and airbrushes really nicely.

From experience:

Black: Citadel Abaddon Black is pretty reliable. I sometimes use Vajello Surface Primer Black for large applications.
White: Vajello Ghost Grey as your 'base white' tone. Citadel's Apothecary White Contrast thinned down with Contrast Medium shades it beautifully, and Vajello's Dead White or Citadel's Air range of whites for highlights.
Reds: Citadel Mephiston Red or Khorne Red, both of the Air range variety. Good, reliable, opaque coverage and works great with an Airbrush.
Yellows: Reaper MSDHD Series Mustard Yellow serves as a base for any number of other yellows. But I don't paint a ton of yellow so take that with a grain of salt, a Imperial Fist player probably knows better (they'll tell you Lamenters Yellow glaze, but that's out of production and highly sought after).
Metallics: Vajello Metal Colors are solid. I haven't tried Scale 75 as no one near me carries it, but I've heard good things.
Flow Improver: Generally I'd say use the Flow Improver designed for the paint you're using. Generally, though, using Airbrush Thinner is generally more important. Buy some empty bottles to do your pre-mixing in, thinning paints will get a lot easier.
DIY Wet Palette: Parchment Paper over Paper Towel works fine. I use a margarine lid as the base and the bowl as the cover, though I usually don't cover up, I just use the wet palette to keep it thin while painting.
Brushes: You can go cheap on the bigger brushes, but anything Size 1 to 000 (or beyond) should be reasonably good quality. Brush cleaner is a good idea.
Basing: I've mostly stopped using sand, as painting it is one of the least fun things in the hobby. I mostly use Textured Paint - Citadel is reliable but expensive, and there are DIY options out there. Tuft flock is well worth buying (any number of suppliers).

Suggested purchases: Painting Handles - one of the best things GW has produced in years (available from other manufacturers as well). If you want to go cheap, wine corks and some Blu-Tac works pretty good as well, especially as armatures for parts being painted separately.
Masks/Filters for Airbrushing - airbrushing does produce a lot of dust you DON'T want to be inhaling. Dust mask at a minimum and either make (foamcore and hot glue) a airbrush booth to catch overspray or invest in an airbrush booth with filters and fans, especially if you can't just keep a window open with a fan exhausting the room.

I stopped using GW paints a long time ago simply based on rising cost and decreasing paint! My paint collection revolves around Scale 75, Army Painter and Vallejo.
Anyway, here's my thoughts;
Vallejo matt black (950) is excellent.
I'd suggest like others, that you use an off-white, then highlight with true white. Vallejo Sky Grey is good.

A few have suggested Mephiston Red, I've still got some from nearly ten years ago and use it now and again, if I can find it! Good stuff, but I tend to reach for Vallejo Heavy red most of the time. I'd also suggest sunset red as a base for red if you are painting over black primer.

For metallics. Army Painter is good for things like gun metal and chainmail. Their golds are okay if they are well mixed but can be a bit fiddly. A few people don't like their paints but as long as you drop a stainless steel ball bearing into the pots, they work just as well as any other.

For golds, I only use Scale 75, absolutely brilliant. Use a thinner because they dry rapidly.

For basing I'd suggest going to youtube and watch AK Interactive's channel. It's aimed at the military modeller, but all of it is easily adaptable to wargaming needs. They do a product called 'puddles', which I think will suit your swamp plans. Vallejo also do videos but not as many and not as involved.

P3 airbrushes really well. Thin with flow improver.

If airbrushing, get a respirator!! And consider a spray booth as well. "I'm just airbrushing acrylics, they're non-toxic!" You're still aerosolizing paint, that you probably don't want to breathe in, non-toxic or not.

For white(when airbrushing) get Liquitex Titanium White artist's ink. Vallejo Dead White is also a really great white. Avoid Citadel white at all costs.

For basing, a ton of companies make basing compound that you can apply, let dry, and paint. Vallejo does a ton of these. Liquitex and Golden also make artist mediums that work for basing. Avoid the Citadel texture stuff; for the same price as one pot of that you can get 30x as much from any other company.

Rosemary and Co brushes are great, but maybe also buy yourself a cheap pack of brushes from a hobby store. You can use these as roughly as you want while you're learning and if you ruin a brush you won't be out a lot of money.

If you are going to AB, get a spray booth. Paint dust WILL get everywhere even if you spray just a tiny amount.They are big and take up a fair amount of space, but worth it if you are going to spray indoors.

Thanks for the replies, peeps. Some fantastic info and suggestions. Keep 'em coming.

Another question I forgot to ask about! Anywhere to get good 28mm scale animals for undead? I'm thinking bats and rats for base decorations, and also an alternative to Dire Wolves, as I'm not too keen on the official sculpts. I was thinking either Fenrisian Wolves from 40K or Wild Wargs from LotR / Hobbit? Do they work scale-wise?

Thanks again for all your time / imput. I'll be sure to document my adventures once I've got everything together by taking pictures and posting them on here.

Greetings, fellow returning survivor of the early naughts' painting era!

I can offer you a few tips and insights having come from a similar place into the modern painting scene. For reference my first paints were Citadel screw top 'bolter shell' pots (MkIII), the ones that were quickly replaced with the black flip top lids (MkIV). Yes, the horrible ones everyone hates. The paint in them was really good, pity the storage containers weren't. Yes, I still have all of mine. Yes, they're all still viable (exception: Chaos Black, Shining Gold and Burnished Gold all went granular a few years back). No, I'm not a wizard - I just maintain all my paints with yearly top-ups of water and a good stir.

If your early paint experiences were also with those or their predecessors - the soft topped hex pots Citadel Color made in the UK from the 90's - then you're probably going to the most comfortable with P3 and Coat D'arms. I've tried a fair number of the modern offerings and those two are the closest to vintage paint in consistency.

For all of you who love a certain paint brand below that I don't, that's okay! Just because it isn't what I'm used to doesn't make it bad. No hate here, only "Is this my comfortable pair of slippers or not?"

I expected to like Scale75, but they're nothing like early Citadel. Gel medium, ultra matte, gloopy and feel strange on the brush. They self-level decently once dry but not as a wet paint and that throws me off. All in all, do not like the standard Scalecolors. Very much a modern style paint. In their favour, high pigmentation and doesn't separate in the bottle. Between the weird paint feel, fairly pricey, low availability and the fact that they steal IP for their miniature sculpts (Look up Scale75 STEALS art and CENSORS from The King of Average on YouTube), I pass on 'em as a company. Definitely not a match to the old school look.

I have mixed feelings about Vallejo, but they're also a pass. My personal gripe is largely down to their separation issues and durability. Both in the bottle and on a wet palette, Vallejo Model Color paint doesn't hold together. That's not acceptable to me, and I hate having to shake the snot out of each and every bottle before I can use it. The paint itself is good, if you can get it to hold together long enough to work with - I can't. Sometimes less than 15min and I'm having to futz around with it on the palette. Even their inks separate! I've also found VMC to be very fragile to the touch even once dry, not what I want for a tabletop model. VGC (Vallejo Game Color) is a bit more durable but has the same serious separation issue, is thin with a vinyl acrylic base, it does not appreciate being worked over when partially dry. At all. Vallejo's Heavy Opaque line are the potential exception to the rule - I've been using Heavy Goldbrown and it has yet to separate, also a very thick paint compared to their standard. Pros are availability, colour selection and price. Every hobby shop under the sun carries Vallejo, and if it's a colour under the sun they make at least a dozen variations of it.

Army Painter. Washes = Fantastic. Paint = Fine. Not a bad paint, but not a vintage paint replacement. Similar issues to Vallejo Game Color. The range isn't as consistent in pigmentation and opacity, so a bit of a mixed bag there. Some colours are really nice, like Skeleton Bone feels like a better Bleached Bone in every way. Vinyl base, so again doesn't appreciate being worked over when partially dry, especially the thinner yellows/oranges. Some of the paints don't separate nearly as bad as Vallejo's. Their Quickshades in a dropper bottle are amazing. Best product I've added to my vintage and vintage-like collection. I wasn't buying paint at the end of the MkIV era were Citadel's Delvan Mud and Badab Black came out, but apparently AP's Dark and Strong Tones are dead ringers for 'em. Great washes, incredibly versatile. Big pluses are price, generally the least expensive out of all the hobby paints, and a huge variety of colours, though not as big as Vallejo's.

I don't have much in the way of modern Citadel, but from a small sample size they seem fine, fairly comparable to the old paint though the overall colour range has shifted to darker, more muted tones. Overpriced for the amount of paint and the containers still suck, but decent quality ingredients. Main plus is availability and that they're heavily used in tutorials. If you can't get anything else, they'll do.

INSTAR Vintage. Hands down worst paint I have ever had the misfortune to buy. Don't waste your money. They aren't perfect matches, some of my bottles arrived with less than half the amount of paint in them there should have been, and the acrylic medium base was awful to work with. Colours are dull and lifeless on top of not matching the paint they were supposed to. Avoid at all costs.

Reaper Master Series Paint / Bones. Good paint, not a good match to vintage. Very nice range of colours, but the paint consistency is extremely thin compared to what I'm used to. Very difficult to dry brush with, as you end up wasting a ton of paint. They come pre-mixed with flow improver. HD line apparently separates easily - I don't actually own any to check, so take that with a grain of salt. The Liners are ink, on par with vintage Citadel inks. I only have the Brown Liner (which is a warm black, not brown!) but based on its performance I'm ordering the other five when I get a chance.

Coat D'arms. As many people will tell you, these are the closest modern paint to the 90's Citadel range. I can say that they aren't perfect 100% matches in many cases to either MkII or MkIII/IV, possibly because some pigments have either fallen out of manufacture or been classified out of the 'non-toxic' category over the years.

That said, the feel and flow of Coat D'arms is spot on. The fantasy range is incredibly bright, with the downside of many colours being poor coverage due to not having black/white mixed in. If I had to pick one range that best represents the vintage paint era, this would be it. They go down best over white undercoats, just like the original Citadel paints. Stand outs include Dusky Yellow 146 (dead ringer for 90's MkII Bad Moon Yellow), Vampire Red 129 (MkIV Crimson Gore) and High Elf Blue 117 (very close to MkII Lightning Bolt Blue). My favourite Coat D'arms has to be Deadly Nightshade 161, a deep navy blue so dark it's near black at full opacity. Gorgeous shading colour with low coverage, best for glazing. Besides low opacity, some Coat D'arms colours will separate just as badly as Vallejo's - unlike Vallejo and Army Painter, they tend to shake back together with not too much work. I use glass mixing balls in all my paints, and a good ten seconds or so has them ready to work. Some colours also seem to have too much medium in their mixes, and it separates at the top as a milky white layer.

Availability for Coat D'arms is poor - ordering online is almost always the only option for non-UK folk. I did not like their Ink Washes. Supposedly these are the same as the MkII Washes and while they're the same in consistency, they just don't dry all that nicely, just sort of stain the whole surface overall. Pigmentation is low. Modern Washes are a vast improvement in my eyes, but if you're on a nostalgia kick or trying to match an old army job, might be worth a look. The one metallic I tried (Bright Gold 107) was a silvery-gold that is notably duller than most of the P3 metallics and vintage Citadel metallics.

Privateer Press P3. These have quickly become the workhorse paints in my collection. They were designed by Mike McVey, the same chap who did the MkIII/MkIV line for Citadel. Many of its colours are direct analogues to the old Citadel paint line, and they're made by the same company as Coat D'arms, HMG Paints in England. They marry up with Coat D'arms a real treat, and here's why. P3 are designed with an eye towards coverage. Almost every paint in the P3 line has better coverage than the most opaque offerings in Coat D'arms. To achieve this they've used white and/or black in many of the paint mixes, which both gives the P3 range an overall harmony, but somewhat dull look. P3 shine as base/foundation colours. There are bright, semi-transparent paints in the set - Murderous Magenta, Heartfire, and Necrotite Green come to mind - but the vast majority are tones (colour + grey) to some degree or another. Consistency wise, P3 can best be summed up by 'creamy'. Very, very creamy. Buttery smooth, they feel the way vintage paint should. If you like drybrushing, P3's got you covered. I simply don't even bother trying to drybrush with any other paint because P3 colours are ideal for the technique.

P3's Inks and Washes are two separate products. The Washes feel like a mid-point between vintage washes and modern Army Painter. Low-to-moderate pigmentation, they settle better than vintage washes but not quite as magically as AP's, nor are they as thick. All of them are earthtones. Armor Wash is black, Muddy Wash is a grey-brown like Agrax Earthshade or Strong Tone, Caspian is sepia-brown, Kossite is a medium brown. The Inks are about what you'd expect, ink. Red and Yellow are disappointingly weak. "Brown" ink is more of a brick red, Green and Turquoise ink are so close I'd only buy one of the two had I known in advance. Blazing Ink and Piggy Purple are the strongest of the lot, a brilliant orange that fades to strong yellow (buy this over the Yellow Ink any day) and Piggy Purple is a royal purple, incredibly strong. Blue, Brown, Turquoise and Green are solidly pigmented, not as strong as Reaper's Brown Liner.

P3 Metallics. Caveat here I haven't tried all the metallic paints on the market, so most of this will be from a vintage Citadel paint reference point. P3 had some serious issues with their metallic paints when they first launched (white label), but all the ones I have gotten in the black label have been excellent. Extremely shiny/glittery. Some of them are 'semi-metallic' and about as shiny as the Coat D'arms offerings (Ogorth Bronze, Boiler Black, etc.) The majority are downright glitzy, better than the MkIII/MkIV Citadel metallics. Rhulic Gold and Solid Gold are dead ringers for Shining Gold and Burnished Gold, respectively. I've used them to touch up old models and they blend right in. Interestingly the paints don't all use silver flake - some use gold or copper flakes, and the undertone of the paint can be surprising. Rhulic Gold's non-flake component is dusky rose, for example. Deathless Metal is a close-but-not-perfect successor to MkII Tin Bitz; it's a tiny bit coppery-er.

If you've managed to read all that, give yourself a pat on the back because you've earned it!

Welcome back! Great opinions already on here so I'll try to be brief and simple

1) don't buy black paint. Make it using primary colors. It gives you control over the shades of black making it more interesting to the eye. As far as brands, I love kimera kolors for high end painting. For general work I use liquitex inks, vallejo for airbrush work and priming, gw has some decent colors I like to play with and scale 75 for Metallics. Can't forget GSW and GW for "technical" paints.

2) I use citadel brushes for mixing and messing with paints and Windsor series 7 kolinsky for doing the majority of fine brushwork. I also hear artist opus is good but I have no experience with them.

3) maybe try goodwill or a thrift store before going to home depot. I found a kids science kit with rocks and sand and such that would have been a 1st grade level experiment kit for 2 dollars and I've been using it for years now to base minis. Also worth getting some magic sculpt for all your modeling needs which is pretty frequent in my experience. For water, GSW UV resin is primo.

4) additional considerations, oil paints. Use oil paints to cheat at painting! You can quickly fill recesses with "ink" made of black oil paint and white spirits if you get the right consistency. The crevices literally fill themselves with just a touch of the brush. Also consider pigments for basing and weathering effects. While we're talking oils... enamels are great for making grimy models if you wash a lot away with white spirits (which won't wipe away acrylic paint).

Hope that helps. Feel free to message me if you have questions! And have fun

 Freya wrote:
Welcome back! Great opinions already on here so I'll try to be brief and simple

1) don't buy black paint. Make it using primary colors. It gives you control over the shades of black making it more interesting to the eye. As far as brands, I love kimera kolors for high end painting. For general work I use liquitex inks, vallejo for airbrush work and priming, gw has some decent colors I like to play with and scale 75 for Metallics. Can't forget GSW and GW for "technical" paints.

You could do this for any paint color, really.

People buy specific colors to save themselves the work. It's not like black paint costs any more than the primary colors anyways, very few miniature paints offer discounts in bulk (INSTAR does, and they're coming out with a mix-your-own system anyways).

I wouldn't.

GW hasn't gotten any better on how it treats customers, it's getting worse, prices are even more obscene than when you left. I honestly wish i hadn;t gotten back in at 8e. I don;t recommend it to anyone.,

SInce you'll likely do it anyway, maybe go with kill team, basically squad level 40k.

 John Prins wrote:

 Freya wrote:
Welcome back! Great opinions already on here so I'll try to be brief and simple

1) don't buy black paint. Make it using primary colors. It gives you control over the shades of black making it more interesting to the eye. As far as brands, I love kimera kolors for high end painting. For general work I use liquitex inks, vallejo for airbrush work and priming, gw has some decent colors I like to play with and scale 75 for Metallics. Can't forget GSW and GW for "technical" paints.

You could do this for any paint color, really.

People buy specific colors to save themselves the work. It's not like black paint costs any more than the primary colors anyways, very few miniature paints offer discounts in bulk (INSTAR does, and they're coming out with a mix-your-own system anyways).

That *IS* True but black is a boring color and literally the only color that's worth mixing every time IMO for a better color. Obviously if you use Kimera Kolors you'll be mixing a lot which I guess is just a thing you learn to do in painting competitions. It's not necessary by any means, I just don't use black paint anymore because it's better for me at my interest level to make my own version is all.

Id say you are ready to go.

You can get some cool wolves/beasts from Mierce as well. They haven't been around till the last few years so they are a relative new comer. But their sculpts are top notch - Wolves : https://mierce-miniatures.com/index.php?act=pro&pre=mrm_dkl_ang_mrc_bst_400_005

You can always paint them in undead colours with pale and ghostly pallete.

TBH I havent seen any undead wolves miniatures outside of the GW dire wolves. I had a quick glance at mantic kings of war range but I would say pick whatever works for you aesthetically be that GW lotr wargs, dire wolves or whatever takes your fancy if you are not fussed about it being the specific GW thing.

As long as the bases are correct size, all of these should be around 28mm scale so mechanicaly it shouldint be a problem whatever miniatures you pick.

Colour wise I would just decide on a unit/box and decide what colour scheme you will go for. As a starting point would probably be beneficial to watch some tutorials and find a scheme that you can learn to do by following that guide and just buy the paints they are using.
Id say dont think about buying all of the paints all at once because chances are you will end up not using them anyway so only buy the paints you need, you wont run out quickly.

The big plus for the GW range is their colour app and their layer system so its easy to find guides and what paints to use to get the colour you want but they are terrible for utility. Because they still use stupid lids..
Most miniature paint products now come in dropper bottles so that its easier to mix paints and you are not loosing a chunk of your pot on the back of the lid like with GW paints.. Paints like vallejo/army painter are just as good as GW stuff unless you need a specific shade to get the finish you want as seen in their official eavy metal pictures.

Anyway, heres my two cents.
Id just say do a hunt around on ebay/3rd party retailers and see if you can get a discount on whatever you wanna buy. Decide on a scheme and get the paints you need and get started.
If you decide you need more you can always get more.
If you have money to burn then there are some huge paint sets as well so do whatever suits your need and budget my friend. Its all cool trying to be ready for everything and investing in the hobby... But from personal experience paying through the nose on gizmos that you will end up not using kinda sucks in the long run..

Good luck and welcome back.

Thanks again everyone for all your tips and advice. I'm still playing the terrible waiting game of drip-fed purchases and things coming in the mail. For some reason key bits that I bought earliest like my craft knife and cheap airbrush are taking the longest to arrive! But I've finally bought some brushes from Rosemary & Co. and some paints - I went with scale 75 as I got a good discount making them just as cheap as Coat D'Arms etc. I wanted to go with vallejo metal color metallics but the ones I wanted seemed to be out of stock from the discount retailers, so for convenience sake I just grabbed some scale 75 ones as they seem pretty good, and at least should match up pretty well with the core colours. I also invested in some acrylic inks from Daler-Rowney so I can custom make washes / shades.

 Argive wrote:
You can get some cool wolves/beasts from Mierce as well. They haven't been around till the last few years so they are a relative new comer. But their sculpts are top notch - Wolves : https://mierce-miniatures.com/index.php?act=pro&pre=mrm_dkl_ang_mrc_bst_400_005

Yes, I saw those when I was shopping around and fell in love with them! Definitely the best-looking wolf sculpts I've come across... by phew-boy! That price! Can't afford that kind of money for just some wolves, unfortunately.

TBH I havent seen any undead wolves miniatures outside of the GW dire wolves. I had a quick glance at mantic kings of war range but I would say pick whatever works for you aesthetically be that GW lotr wargs, dire wolves or whatever takes your fancy if you are not fussed about it being the specific GW thing.

As long as the bases are correct size, all of these should be around 28mm scale so mechanicaly it shouldint be a problem whatever miniatures you pick.

Yeah I don't care about sticking to GW range - if it looks cool and lore-friendly, I'll happily use it. I think I'm leaning towards LotR/Hobbit Wargs beacuse they're slightly smaller scale than 40K Fenrisian Wolves so will match the VC range better size-wise. My plans for painting them are dark / cold colours and green glowy eyes to give them that deathly, unearthly vibe.

Colour wise I would just decide on a unit/box and decide what colour scheme you will go for. As a starting point would probably be beneficial to watch some tutorials and find a scheme that you can learn to do by following that guide and just buy the paints they are using.

Looking up past posts of mine on here, my plans for a VC army painted with a cold colour palatte / scheme go back to at least 2012, lol! But yeah, I want to challenge myself (y'know, beyond the challenge of being practically a complete beginner) by creating something different from the norm. That being - VC armies always have two things in common; 1) standard, warm bones for skellies (brown, beige, ivory) and 2) reds for fabrics, vampire armour, blood / flesh, banners, etc. There's a modeller and painter that I really admire called Julian Bayliss. He works with a very muted, very limited colour palette and has some absolutely, gorgeously grimdark VC and Chaos armies out there (I highly recommend a google search on them). And so; I have banned myself from using ANY warm colours for my VC army. It's cold, creeping death all the way. Cold bones; greys, blues and whites. Blacks, blues and greys for fabrics. Blacks, silvers and verdigris for weapons and armour. Any magic, flames or energy will be greens. I'm debating allowing myself any purple, I suppose it's still a cool colour as long as I build it up from blues and hardly any reds, but it might make for a good colour for HQ fabrics as a sign of aristocratic wealth and decadence, and also a black-purple for the inside of monster mouths (terrorgheist)? And also purple inks for shading skin / dead flesh?

Point being, my artistic limitation has a built-in limiter for paint buying, and a good thing, too. There are SO many reds and browns out there, oh my. I've got black, white, grey, blue, green and silvers (metallics) as a starting point. I've actually got black leather as well; a very, very dark brown because I might want wet mud for my swamp / marsh bases, as I've not yet decided if having a warm colour on the base breaks my rule or not? But I don't know how I'd do bases in pure cold colours - can you get away with mud / earth using black and grey? Would having a bit of warmth on the bases provide a nice contrast for the cold miniatures? Or ruin the look of my overall monochromatic, cold theme?

Maybe you could look into making a snowy/wintery/ half thawed theme for base for your undead?
White should be fairly neutral so it shoulditn clash with your darker shades of blue, grey black and green but still make the mini pop...
There are many great tutorials on how to do those sort of bases.

But if you want to keep it simple then yeah, black earth highlighted with grey will do the trick.
Will look kind of ashen which might be good.
Its generally what I go for on my dudes. Chaos black/primer black --> Mechanicum standard grey --> Generous Nuln oil wash --Generous Mechanicum dry brush --> agrax earthsahde ---> Mechanicum standard drybrush --> Dawnstone light drybrush on the most raised bits.

Hopefully not too late, but Boardlandia and various hobby companies have their Black Friday sales. Jackson Arts has a BF sale, but I'm not finding the high-end brushes most hobbyists recommend. JA and Rosemary and Co. are located in the UK, so postage might not be too bad. Pick up some cheap natural hair and possibly synthetics to use as workhorse brushes.

For brush paint, Boardlandia's BF sale includes paint. You might find some at MM. Coat D'Arms is not on sale at either. USA Airbrush Supply has a 25% off LETTERTOSANTA code, but I don't know shipping prices to UK. As an advanced tabletop painter, I use colored primers as brush-on primer, then Army Painter Quickshade Ink washes as primer, basecoat, and shading. At least for terrain and base rims, I also use craft paints: range of browns, ochre, range of grays, black, and white.

If you do assembly-line painting of many models, you'll want similar miniature holders. Back to craft paints, you can find sets on sale at Amazon. Buy craft paints in containers that can be used to hold miniature (miniature handles).
Walmart : https://www.walmart.com/ip/Daler-Rowney-Simply-Acrylic-Paint-Set-40-Piece-Assorted-Shades-Art-Brushes-Color-Mixing-Guide/54047583

If you do sf basing, Secret Weapon Miniatures has a sale, including sf base starter sets. Dunno if it's still on. If you play fantasy RPG's, their Tablescapes mine game tiles are 1/2 off, as good a price as their original KS. Highly recommended. Don't forget to pick up a few Stone washes if you have dungeon tiles to paint!

There has been a lot of superb advice in here (ignore that one negative guy who probably posted straight after losing a game.) Welcome back to the hobby! I like how you've jumped straight in and ordered one of every hobby device in the shop. That's the way to do it.

One thing I can answer from your original post that no-one has addressed (unless someone has and I've missed it) is Vallejo Model Air metallics and Vallejo Metal Colour. They are fantastic. Airbrush metallics are thinner and therefore easier to use without a huge amout of thinning, but have the same amount of pigment as brush paints. You can use airbrush paints with a brush, and in the case of metallics, you absolutely should! They're easier to use than any other brand of metallic I've tried, and you get a more solid, consistent and metallic look, without obscuring details. I find that most metallic paints don't thin well, go on patchy, and require too many coats, to the point where you can ruin the sharpness of the sculpt. I use Model Air Chrome in particular a lot and it's superb. It's very shiny though, so bear that in mind.

Also, Vallejo Metal Colour. Mind-blowing. For my money these are the best metallic paints you can get. Great coverage, easy to use, gorgeous to look at. One word of warning though - they are incredibly shiny. You can tone this down with wash of course, but highlights you put over the wash will then shine out again like crazy. I painted Guilliman a few months back (you can have a look in my gallery for him if you like) and using these paints made painting all those miles of gold trim almost bearable. One coat of Metal Colour gold, a purple wash, then select highlights of Chrome to make the metal shine in the right sort of places. The photos don't really show quite how shiny that trim is. I've got it here in my display cabinet, and even after ten months or so that trim shines like the One Ring.

Anyway, let us know how you get on, and don't forget to post some minis when you get going!

 feltmonkey wrote:
I like how you've jumped straight in and ordered one of every hobby device in the shop. That's the way to do it.

Hehe, thanks. That's literally the only way to do it when beginning from nothing / starting from scratch! I've been putting it off literally for years, but just waiting and wishing won't change anything, so at some point you just gotta bite the bolter shell and dive in. So I have!

One thing I can answer from your original post that no-one has addressed (unless someone has and I've missed it) is Vallejo Model Air metallics and Vallejo Metal Colour. They are fantastic. [...]

Also, Vallejo Metal Colour. Mind-blowing. For my money these are the best metallic paints you can get. Great coverage, easy to use, gorgeous to look at. [...]

Yeah, after years of YouTube watching and online researching, I really wanted to go for Vallejo Metal Color as my metallics, but when I was buying (finally) my paint, I was having trouble finding the basic colours I'd need from the discount retailers I was using. I wanted to start with Steel, Aluminium and Light Aluminium as a basic dark, mid and light silver tone. But there weren't in stock anywhere that was decently priced. So I let my impatience and convenience get the better of me and just got some Scale 75 Metal N' Alchemy paints to start off with. However, I've got an Iron Warrior's force in the pipeline (trying not to run before I can walk, though) at which point I will probably opt to grab some Metal Color to do those with - Iron within! Iron without!

Anyway, let us know how you get on, and don't forget to post some minis when you get going!

Will do. I'm planning on documenting a complete beginners journey into mini painting and posting pics as I go along. Which I'm guessing will go nicely in the P&M Blogs forum? Never done one before. My paints have arrived now and I've been poking holes in the tops with a paperclip, as is needed with Scale 75. Still managed to get paint on my fingers and not just the toilet paper. I also opened up my pot of Tamiya cement for a sniff, ahhhh all those late 90s and early 00s memories came flooding back. It begins...

With those Scale 75 paints, you have to shake them a lot. A REAL lot. Like, an unreasonable amount. They tend to have a well of the gel medium at the top of the bottle, so the first time you squeeze some out you'll get mainly gel. If you try to paint with this, it won't go well. I've found myself having to wipe that stuff off my palette and squeeze them out again to actually get the paint. I hesitate to recommend more purchases, but you might want to invest in a few paint agitators. These are little glass balls that you drop into the paint (the whole nozzle section pulls off and you can drop it into the neck) and help stir the paint up when you shake the bottle. Just search for paint agitators on ebay and you can get 50 of them for about £3.

Once you get to the paint, Scalecolor are very good. They dry very matte and more transparent than some paints, so the way they're designed to be used is with layering. You can paint a highlight over your basecoat and as it dries the basecoat becomes more visible underneath the highlight. It's hard to describe, I think there might be some videos out there made by scalecolor themselves explaining it.

I would say don’t let people put you off citadel. Price wise, sure they are expensive compared to other brands, but if you want your minis to look like the GW pictures they are your best bet, it’s more to do with technique. You will see plenty of painters on YouTube doing great work with citadel paints.

You need to try a few brands I would say to get a good idea. However I will say I really like green stuff world paints, not just their special effects but their standard colours aswell and the sets are really good.

also I have never used a good citadel white. But painting wi the white paints is really hard

Just seen this thread and thought I should weigh in on the comments made by one of the posters.

Our Vintage and Paint line were part of our original line up which we're currently having a clearance sale one (Which the poster bought) so some of these paints may have been on the shelf for a while which may have contributed to the poor performance, especially with the smaller size (5ml) bottles, the paint and vintage line certainly are not ones to turn a nose up at as we have had many painters create some very nice works with them



As for the colour matching, that's always going to be a question of personal opinion, without knowing the exact pigments used and concentrations they are used in as well as the paint mediums recipe itself, it's always going to be a "Close as we can get" affair and will never be 100% which is why we never say on the website that the colour matches are 100% accurate, but they are as close as we can get.



However, that was our original line and we subsquently improved that in 2019 with the launch of our Flagship line Alpha, thinner than any other paint on the market, higher pigmentation, designed to be painted like a thinned paint (i.e layering) to provide super smooth layers with no brushmarks at all, airbrushable straight from the bottle, can be easily turned into contrast, washes and glazes using our Water+ thinner (Which can be used with other paints) and in 2021, will be part of the biggest change to miniature painting in years with the previously mentioned "Mix it yourself kit"



As we make all the paint ourselves on site rather than a third party company making it means we're able to better understand how our paint works which has lead to the new mixing kits, but by providing recipes on our site as well as upcoming swatch cards and a simple calculator, it's possible to create any colour you like, in any style in any finish be that a highly matte paint, a shiny paint, metallic, contrast, wash etc it'll be the ulitimate chance to make your own custom paint set that best suits the way you paint and best of all, you don't need a prior knowledge of paint mixing, the recipes are so simple to follow as it just involves counting drops of paint that even my six year old daughter can mix her own rainbow of colours easily.

The possibilities are quite literally endless and as the recipes are simple to follow, they are also simple to share..made your own unique colour? Just share the recipe and anyone, anywhere in the world who has the colours from the Alpha Pure line can recreate it.

Not to mention that our prices are very competitive compared to other brands on the market for much better quality

Welcome back to the hobby!

For a more "mature" view on dealing with GW minis, you'd do well to check out 28-mag.com

I was away from the hobby for a long time as well and wish I'd known about the stuff in 28 when I returned. Much more "grown up" than what GW is doing with the hobby.

Regarding stuff to buy - just have patience and research your purchases thorroughly! If you dive headlong into buying tons of stuff, you might regret it later. Better to just get the barebones basics and then gradually adding from there based on your "real" needs which arise during modelling/painting. FWIW my current faves in paints and tools are Tamiya tools/plastic cement & AK interactive paints and weathering products, but YMMV and all that.

Airbrush was already a tool which will up your painting level considerably. I cant imagine ever going back to priming/basecoating without one. Solid coverage even with "difficult" colours, and coats so thin the details are never obscured! Cleaning the airbrush is a PITA though, no way around it, so learn cleaning it well.

Good luck with the skeletons! They are always a blast to pose during modelling.

 Supershandy wrote:
Just seen this thread and thought I should weigh in on the comments made by one of the posters.

Our Vintage and Paint line were part of our original line up which we're currently having a clearance sale one (Which the poster bought) so some of these paints may have been on the shelf for a while which may have contributed to the poor performance, especially with the smaller size (5ml) bottles, the paint and vintage line certainly are not ones to turn a nose up at as we have had many painters create some very nice works with them

How nice to know that your paint has such an awful shelf life, it degrades into 'poor performance' (your own words!) in the time it takes to get sold, let alone how long it might be in a customer's working collection. I have vintage paints from the 90's, 00's, and '10's that are perfectly fine, but I guess that's the difference between commercially formulated paint and INSTAR?

I had multiple bottles of INSTAR Vintage that were under-filled, only discovered long after my first complaint via e-mail where one bottle was obviously almost empty on arrival. Most of what was in the bottle was agitator, not paint. The medium was like slime. And I can see the colour mismatch in several of those pictures without even looking at the full size versions - my own attempts turned out even worse. How I wish those had been featured on the website instead, because I wouldn't have wasted my money.

The whole selling point for the Vintage line was a supposed 99% colour match, which they fail at because the only colour which is considered is the masstone, leading to dead, flat looking colours that don't mix properly nor have that characteristic vintage vibrancy.

I wanted to love these paints. I was incredibly excited by the hope of having replacements for my old Citadels, only to have those feelings slowly spiral into dismay and disappointment the more I tried to use them. The customer response that basically dismissed all of my concerns except the nearly empty bottle was the bitter icing on top of a rotten cake.

Fire_Forever wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
Just seen this thread and thought I should weigh in on the comments made by one of the posters.

Our Vintage and Paint line were part of our original line up which we're currently having a clearance sale one (Which the poster bought) so some of these paints may have been on the shelf for a while which may have contributed to the poor performance, especially with the smaller size (5ml) bottles, the paint and vintage line certainly are not ones to turn a nose up at as we have had many painters create some very nice works with them

How nice to know that your paint has such an awful shelf life, it degrades into 'poor performance' (your own words!) in the time it takes to get sold, let alone how long it might be in a customer's working collection. I have vintage paints from the 90's, 00's, and '10's that are perfectly fine, but I guess that's the difference between commercially formulated paint and INSTAR?

You missed the point about the smaller size bottle, those in the 10ml size and larger are still fairing very well and entirely usable, in the case of your order that was an unfortunate mistake which we could only apologise for and we were glad you brought the issue to our attention as we went back through the stock to find that some of the other 5ml bottles were acting the same and were promptly removed from stock.

There's not really much difference between commercially made paints and what we do, we are still a commercial company and use materials that are not easily obtainable by the general public also the fact you would need to know what you're asking for, there's DIY with Matte Medium and Ink and then doing it properly with Raw Binders, Raw Additives and Raw Colourants, the lessons we learned from our first outing is what helped us develop the Alpha line to create something that was much more superior.

Honestly, we're really hurt by the fact you had a bad experience and we wished that hadn't been the case as we want people to have the best experiences with our products.

 Anfauglir wrote:
I went with scale 75 as I got a good discount making them just as cheap as Coat D'Arms etc.

How are you liking the Scale 75? I'm particularly interested in your opinion since you're coming form a similar hobby era as I have. Did you find it hard to adapt to 75's differences?

 Anfauglir wrote:
I'm debating allowing myself any purple, I suppose it's still a cool colour as long as I build it up from blues and hardly any reds, but it might make for a good colour for HQ fabrics as a sign of aristocratic wealth and decadence, and also a black-purple for the inside of monster mouths (terrorgheist)? And also purple inks for shading skin / dead flesh

I'd go for some purples - there are plenty of rich, cold purples out there that'd suit. Heck even a few pinks, like Tentacle Pink (re-creatable with P3 Carnal Pink + P3 Beaten Purple, or nabbing a purple-y pink from whatever range suits your fancy) look cold. P3 Bad Bruise might also be worth a look. It's a very purple leaning deep, rich blue, similar to hex pot Nauseating Blue from the 90's range, but darker.

Fire_Forever wrote:
How are you liking the Scale 75? I'm particularly interested in your opinion since you're coming form a similar hobby era as I have. Did you find it hard to adapt to 75's differences?

I don't know yet, I've finally started the prep and assembly stage this weekend though as pretty much everything is bought and has arrived now. All I'm waiting on now is an airbrush hose and the Master's Brush Cleaner. And once I'm ready to start painting I need to either buy or make a wet palette, too. Other than that I'm all set.

As far as how the scale 75 compare to the old school ranges? Quite a bit from what I've researched. Basically I think they're quite thick, creamy and toothpaste-like out the pots with very fine pigment that can be watered down and extended all the way down to glaze consistency, and that instead of getting quick and easy opaque coverage in one or two coats like Citadel or P3, they're transparent and are more suited to layering, blending and glazing. And they dry super matte which can really show up every brushstroke or mistake, and their thick gel medium takes a whole, whole lot of agitation and mixing to avoid poor results. To that end I've bought some stainless steel balls and tested them with a magnet and have one currently sitting in some salt water before dropping them in my pots. So there seems to be a learning curve and supposedly aren't beginner-friendly, but I'm up for a challenge!

I'd go for some purples - there are plenty of rich, cold purples out there that'd suit. Heck even a few pinks, like Tentacle Pink (re-creatable with P3 Carnal Pink + P3 Beaten Purple, or nabbing a purple-y pink from whatever range suits your fancy) look cold. P3 Bad Bruise might also be worth a look. It's a very purple leaning deep, rich blue, similar to hex pot Nauseating Blue from the 90's range, but darker.

Yeah I've bought a couple of scalecolor purples, and might include them as an extra colour for HQ units and monsters to help them stand out from the more dour, monochromatic rank-and-file. I'm still a long way off that point, though, so I'll see how I get on.

> You missed the point about the smaller size bottle, those in the 10ml size and larger are still fairing very well and entirely usable,

Yeah, I even have some discontinued paints in 10ml bottles that work just fine. I still use their green / gold Kickflip paint for my bubbling cauldrons!

That matches up pretty well with my research into what Scale75 is like, and it was analagous with my trial bottle of Violet Scalecolor. Personally I was not a fan at all of the ultra-matte (it looks weird on most surfaces besides fabric, esp. skin, scales, horses, weapons, etc.) and the working properties did not endear me to the line, but please do update once you've gotten your brush wet and had a good shakedown with 'em. I would recommend getting some Vallejo Extra Opaque, P3's or Citadel Bases (Foundations? Whatever they call their opaque line these days) for your base colours, otherwise it takes a ridiculous number of coats to get the basics established.

Definitely treat yourself to a wet palette, especially if you're in a drier part of the world/season. It makes a huge difference. I waste so much less paint since making the switch to a DIY wet palette. Metallics aren't the happiest campers with 'em but most of the other paints survive quite well. Some will overhydrate (washes, glazes, thin paints) and others slowly dry out anyways (heavily white favouring paints are common culprits) but that usually takes many hours if not days.

 ced1106 wrote:
Yeah, I even have some discontinued paints in 10ml bottles that work just fine. I still use their green / gold Kickflip paint for my bubbling cauldrons!

My only experiences and complaints are with the INSTAR Vintage line. Maybe they use a different acrylic binder than the Kickflips? Rules out the bottles being the a potential culprit, but I didn't suspect the container of being the issue to begin with. Still good to know.

Okay so I've started my P&M Blog;

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/794652.page

 feltmonkey wrote:
With those Scale 75 paints, you have to shake them a lot. A REAL lot. Like, an unreasonable amount. They tend to have a well of the gel medium at the top of the bottle, so the first time you squeeze some out you'll get mainly gel. If you try to paint with this, it won't go well. I've found myself having to wipe that stuff off my palette and squeeze them out again to actually get the paint. I hesitate to recommend more purchases, but you might want to invest in a few paint agitators. These are little glass balls that you drop into the paint (the whole nozzle section pulls off and you can drop it into the neck) and help stir the paint up when you shake the bottle. Just search for paint agitators on ebay and you can get 50 of them for about £3.

One idea could be paint shaker. Can get one for about 30 dollars. Saves effort from shaking by hand and ensures they will be shaken properly