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I have been thinking that I need to "up my painting game". I have been experimenting with different styles and techniques, and having a fair amount of success. However, I have been told on occaision that using crap paints severly limits the overall quality you can achieve, and I am starting to suspect I might be getting near that threshold. Plus it is easier to blame you paints for a poor paint job when the entire rack of bottles cost you less than 20$.

I am thinking at this point spending 150$ on a complete line of paints isn't such a bad thing, but I don't really know what to get, and everytime I start feeling uncertain as to what paint line will please me best, I start thinking that I know a few landraiders will please me just fine. So, brave fellows, help me remove this mental crutch by advising me on what is the best paint to get!

Please note, however, that I already use Citadel's Foundations, and am very happy with them. So just assume that, and roll from there on other brands. Also, notes on why a certain brand is good or bad would be great as well. I really do want to make a pretty informed decision here, so even things like "Well, the line is great, but the red is not very good" will help me a great deal.

Let the amassed wisdom roll in!

don't forget Privateer Press paints, they're very painty.

I consider vallejo to be on par with GW, I use their red paint since it goes on in fewer coats.

I've never tried Reaper Master, until then my vote goes to PP. You can see the paintiness when you open the bottle, nice and creamy.

I've always had good results with Vallejo Model Color, though recently i've used mostly Foundation paints and various mixes thereof.

Is there a "Yes" button? I use pretty much every acrylic paint brand available on the market from armory primer all the way to Tamiya gloss red for my blood. I've never found a paint line I don't like except for Andrea.

I agree with Tacobake - the Privateer Press range - although I've never used it personally - has got very good reviews from my customers (I own a game store), especially the reds and yellows which actually go on and stay on, but aren't cloggy or heavy.

Other than those, Vallejo Model Colour are what I use and apart from the yellows (which I find excessively thin, even compared to the GW range) they are very good.

Viperion

I've used GW and Vallejo MC and GC over the years. To me, it's more about whether you like the dropper bottle or not. They're both solid paints and each line has some that are better than the other ranges'.

GW makes a solid paint? maybe 15% of their paints are solid. The rest has too much medium in it and takes too many applications to color anything.

Vallejo all the way baby. Game colors mainly (as it's easier to color match), but I'll use their model paints too.

I use GW for basecoats though. I can accomplish in 1 coat what it would take 3-4 to do with Vallejo... but those extra coats are great for subtle shading and blending. That's kinda difficult to to with GW's. Oh, and I use GW's metallic colors.

I use GW paints. If taken care of and used correctly they are a really good set. THe foundations make them better...but that was excluded form this poll. why?

GW used to make good paint, about a decade ago. GW Primer Black used to be the best you could buy.

Of course, those days are long gone.

If I didn't have a huge stack of paint, and had to buy in from scratch, I'd buy Vallejo Model or Privateer.

AtraAngelis wrote:I use GW paints. If taken care of and used correctly they are a really good set. THe foundations make them better...but that was excluded form this poll. why?

Because I already use them, and am well enough convinced of their qualities that I intend to keep using them. It was right there in the first post...

With GW paints, what do you mean "taken care of and used correctly?" What sort of care is necessary and what is the correct method of using them? How are they different from other paints?

To the rest of you, I appreciate the info so far! It sounds like lots of things are good, and I didn't even know Privateer Press made paint, so learning a lot!

I'm glad to see the good feeling towards Vallejo, I think I'll go with Vallejo/ PP rather than try the Reaper paints.

Anyone know the best metallic paints? I'm painting my Inquisition with a great deal of matallic, I was going to use GW since I've heard good things. At present I only have boltgun and burnished gold.

I have fair luck with craft paint metalics, mostly because getting 3-5 shades of the same "color" is really easy, which simplifies highlighting.
Still, I am looking to change, so I hope to hear so good advice too!

No Such thing, I use a combo of Vallejo, Reaper master series, Reaper Pro Paints (the triads are really awesome), GW (especially inks), Liquitex, and Apple Barrel (mostly for scenery purposes). I prefer dropper bottles. I haven't had a chance to try P3s, and probably will for some project or another, or when my GW inks really start to die (especially the Flesh Wash, which is almost shot).

I use testors enamel paints almost exclusivly. I definatly recomend the metalics. They even have premixed metalics for airbrushing. I also have some flouquill laquer flat paint. I also have some pactra enamel paints that are @ least 10+ yrs old & work great, heck I have some testors that have to be close to 20. It still has the 0.35 price tag on the bottle. Man I feal old now, I'm going to eat my oat bran & go to bed zzzzzzzzzzz.

Hey Wehrkind I have seen your work, heck I have some & am jealous mine isn't that good. My opinion is if it ain't broke don't fix it, but hey trying something new can be a good thing. talk to you later.

I don't have a complete set of any of those paints but I voted on Reaper master series because those are the ones I have the most of and use more commonly. I like coat d'arms, foundry, liquitex and some off brand crafts paints too. To be fair to vallejo, I don't see any difference at all between them and reaper master. I just have more reaper than vallejo.

Tacobake wrote:Anyone know the best metallic paints? I'm painting my Inquisition with a great deal of matallic, I was going to use GW since I've heard good things. At present I only have boltgun and burnished gold.

I really like the GW metalics. They tend to be thiker and dry out much quicker than other brands but they coat quite well.

Dont forget enamels.

If quality really means that much to you get a small selection of enamels to go with your paint set.

Enamels have huge disadvantages, you cant easily dilute them, and you need paint thinners or turpentine to clean your brushes, but it has some advantages too.

First cannot beat an enamel paint for metals, you only 'need' two pots and use them for drybrushing. I wont bother but some do.

Secondly, and here is where I agree on a practical level. namles are the only way to shade beyond black and highlight beyond white.

This is because enamels come in three shades for every colour, gloss, satin and matt. You can mimic this with your varnish afterwards, but enamels are a solid layer that you can highlight after varnishing. This wont help with a matter black, but it does halp when you highlight white.

My personal recommendation is to buy one pot of gloss enamel white paint and one pot of enamel thinner. Then if you want white armoured soldiers, White Scars come to mind, you can have gloss highlights on white armour. You cannot really do this effectively any other way.

Other than that I wont touch enamels, though back in the 80's thats all there were, and so I used that for my minis.

Hmmm enamels... I used those once upon a time for metalics, back on some Heroquest Chaos Warriors (which I found in my parent's basement the other weekend, and will post some of those ..things sooner or later.) They really did make for a great, smooth metalic sheen. I will have to remember that...

For getting "sheen" on white, have you tried using gloss sealer in a bottle? I have a bottle I use for little bits here and there (though I usually make my white more grey, and highlight to stark white from there). It is pretty nice to work with, and does'nt require thinner.

Shrew, I do like the way your enamel tau look very clean and smooth. Very anime scifi. I am thinking I might try a similar method for fancy vehicles in the future, since they theoretically should be smoother and more well maintained than general combat vehicles.

I gave up enamels due to all the shortcomings (that is, my shortcomings as a painter), but I did use the Testor's Model Master series when I first started. The best paint, in my opinion, was the chrome. You could make things SHINY. ~blink blink~

hmm I might try enamels on my grey knights.

I like the highlighting idea.

Well, since my hobby knife gave up the ghost and my favorite paint brush is not far off, I put in an order with the War Store for new ones, as well as two bottles of Vallejo, dark red and royal purple. I will give it a shot and see how that pans out, and let you guys know!

For overall quality (life of paint in a sealed pot, opaqueness, etc), I prefer anything Vallejo. I have some paints that haven't been used in 5+ years... clean the clogs out of the tips & we're good to go. Vallejo, however, does NOT get along well with ink washes.

For overall lifespan, I prefer Ceramcoat brand craft paint. Say what you want but, if you mix it with a little water, you get a GREAT coat of paint, and I have had paints last more than a dozen years! All craft paint is similar, but I prefer Ceramcoat. I prefer their metallics, too.

GW paints come in second for metallics and dead last for paint-lifespan in the pot. They are the only inks I use, however.

For painting with Ink washes, I vote for craft paints (Ceramcoat) and GW paints (in that order) WAY over Vallejo.

Eric

I've always been fond of Poly S paints. Their old style screw-on jars were not so great, but the pain in them was. Even if it dried out a bit, it was easy to bring back to life with a bit of water and you never had issues getting the color to show. I used to use their yellow exclusively since they were the only ones I could find that made a yellow that would paint over other colors. Not sure if they are still out there making paint or not, but its worth looking into if you are in a model shop anytime soon.

I've only ever used GW paints. Not that I wouldn't like to use other companies paints, but I hate painting. I hate painting with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

Vallejo is better than all the other options. The only Games Workshop products I use are inks, and I'm probably going to abandon them for some new tricks on my new Orks.

Reaper has some very good metallics, unusual colors that you can't get in the Vallejo or Games Workshop lines (Blue Steel is my favorite, plus it allows for Zoolander-esque posing when I break it out).

The best thing about Vallejo is that it has a high pigment content, and can easily be thinned to the desired consistency. Games workshop starts out thinned, which means I'm paying more money for medium than I would with Vallejo.

The second best thing about Vallejo is their paint droppers. Most of my unused GW paints are dried out, but Vallejo are still fine (clean out the gunk in the tip, the rest is perfect).

P3 paints have become my favorite. I've used (and still use) all the different brands of paint on your list, but I have been more impressed by P3 than any other brand

It goes on smooth, it dries a little slower. By the way the P3 white can coat over black, you'd think it was Boltgun Metal.

JohnHwangDD wrote:GW used to make good paint, about a decade ago. GW Primer Black used to be the best you could buy.

Of course, those days are long gone.

If I didn't have a huge stack of paint, and had to buy in from scratch, I'd buy Vallejo Model or Privateer.

the old paints are called coat de arms now. hard to find but well worth it

Onnotangu wrote:the old paints are called coat de arms now. hard to find but well worth it

They're not that hard to find! But I agree, they're worth it.

You can get them from Black Hat Miniatures in the UK or Scale Creep Miniatures in the US.

I mostly use Coat D'Arms and P3 with Golden Artists Acrylics for my bases.