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Hey up,

Looking at getting some new paints and after trying some warcolours and not getting along with them, I want to get some Vallejo. I'm starting to run low on my GW colours in a few of them and figured I can save my self having to put them all in dropper bottles by getting some Vallejo.. but what to get? Mode or Colour or the Air range? I won't be using an airbrush for a good while get (until I can save up) but unsure of the difference in all 3 ranges.

What should I be getting?

Cheers,
Grady

I think I'm the minority here but I find the air paints over-rated and they separate too much, still good though. I use mostly model colour and game. You'll find Game the most like the GW colors but the Model are really nice, especially the metallic stuff.

I like vallejo model air silver and gold. They cover well over black and brown respectively.

Otherwise I like the GW options better.

If you are not using an airbrush, I really don't suggest the airbrush paints as they are very very thin, but not in an easy to use way.

The metallics are a slight exception.

I love the Vallejo air but only through an airbrush not a manual brush. I hear good things about Warcolors, I would try those out.

Vallejo are amazing paints, game has a bit more of a shine to it, finishes a bit like Citadel paints. Air is awesome for making glazes when not in the air brush. Painting with Vallejo vs Citadel is a whole different beast though.

Vallejo Model Color and Game Color have different formulations. You can read more about these differences in the Vallejo Model Paints FAQ.

 Gunzhard wrote:
I think I'm the minority here but I find the air paints over-rated and they separate too much, still good though. I use mostly model colour and game. You'll find Game the most like the GW colors but the Model are really nice, especially the metallic stuff.

Personally, my experience is that practically all Vallejo paints separate too much -- air or otherwise. If you don't use a GW paint for a few months, and it's been sealed properly, a few good shakes and I'm good to go. On many Vallejo non-air or model/game air metallic paints, I have to shake the bottles til the cows come home for them to be totally homogenized.

On the plus side, I find the non-metallic air colors require less shaking than the non-air counterparts, even though they seem to separate a lot, still.

On the minus side, most of my model/game air metallic paints from Vallejo clog up all my airbrushes something fierce, even when I use a giant 0.65 needle. When cleaning out the head afterwards, I must scour endless gobs of dried up paint. The new Vallejo metallic air color (the ones that are in the expensive fat pots) I find are much, much better. My biggest beef with these is that half the colors are indistinguishable. Like, practically all of the bright silvers are identical, and all the dark silvers are nearly the same, with very little in between. There's really like, light sliver, dark silver, 2 dirty silvers, and then gold/bronze. Also, the gold takes a bazillion coats to get gold.

 Talys wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:
I think I'm the minority here but I find the air paints over-rated and they separate too much, still good though. I use mostly model colour and game. You'll find Game the most like the GW colors but the Model are really nice, especially the metallic stuff.

Personally, my experience is that practically all Vallejo paints separate too much -- air or otherwise. If you don't use a GW paint for a few months, and it's been sealed properly, a few good shakes and I'm good to go. On many Vallejo non-air or model/game air metallic paints, I have to shake the bottles til the cows come home for them to be totally homogenized.

On the plus side, I find the non-metallic air colors require less shaking than the non-air counterparts, even though they seem to separate a lot, still.

On the minus side, most of my model/game air metallic paints from Vallejo clog up all my airbrushes something fierce, even when I use a giant 0.65 needle. When cleaning out the head afterwards, I must scour endless gobs of dried up paint. The new Vallejo metallic air color (the ones that are in the expensive fat pots) I find are much, much better. My biggest beef with these is that half the colors are indistinguishable. Like, practically all of the bright silvers are identical, and all the dark silvers are nearly the same, with very little in between. There's really like, light sliver, dark silver, 2 dirty silvers, and then gold/bronze. Also, the gold takes a bazillion coats to get gold.

This is due to the fact that Vallejo are TRUE acrylic paints. Citadel are Acrylic* in that yes they are made with acrylics but they actually have latex in them which is why if you ever let a thick layer of it dry, you can peel it up, cant do that with vallejo. With Vallejo paints if they sit, all the pigments settle at the bottom of the bottle. The thing about true acrylics is that they last longer, and you can do AMAZING blends with them thats very difficult to do with GW paints. One of the most notable things you can do is blend colors on the model.

If you are doing cloth for example, you can paint your receses in a dark color, then paint the highlights with the brighter color and because they are true acrylic they will blend and mix so much smoother.

As for the game and model color clogging up the air brush, are you thinning them out? If you are going right from bottle to air brush with the model/game range you are gonna get a clog, Their air range you can go right from bottle to pot because its pre thined and the pigments are ground much finer. If you use a mixture of rubbing alcohol and medium like 1:1 it will work fine through the air brush.

Snoopdeville3 wrote:I love the Vallejo air but only through an airbrush not a manual brush. I hear good things about Warcolors, I would try those out.

I've tried the metalic and flesh sets from warcolors, but they are totally different style of paint compared to GW ones and I, as pretty much a novice, found them very, very hard to use. The black metal was pretty good, as was was just the regular white and black paint but the others I didnt have much luck with. Could be just me though.

Siege40k wrote:I like vallejo model air silver and gold. They cover well over black and brown respectively.

Otherwise I like the GW options better.

If you are not using an airbrush, I really don't suggest the airbrush paints as they are very very thin, but not in an easy to use way.

The metallics are a slight exception.

So the air silver and gold are worth getting with brush work? Pretty much all of my GW metallic need replacing.

Thanks for the messages chaps, I think I will try out a few colours and see how I like them. Don't mind having to shake the paint to death before I use it and the fact that they are 25 pence cheaper per bottle helps.

 Talys wrote:

 Gunzhard wrote:
I think I'm the minority here but I find the air paints over-rated and they separate too much, still good though. I use mostly model colour and game. You'll find Game the most like the GW colors but the Model are really nice, especially the metallic stuff.

Personally, my experience is that practically all Vallejo paints separate too much -- air or otherwise. If you don't use a GW paint for a few months, and it's been sealed properly, a few good shakes and I'm good to go. On many Vallejo non-air or model/game air metallic paints, I have to shake the bottles til the cows come home for them to be totally homogenized.

On the plus side, I find the non-metallic air colors require less shaking than the non-air counterparts, even though they seem to separate a lot, still.

On the minus side, most of my model/game air metallic paints from Vallejo clog up all my airbrushes something fierce, even when I use a giant 0.65 needle. When cleaning out the head afterwards, I must scour endless gobs of dried up paint. The new Vallejo metallic air color (the ones that are in the expensive fat pots) I find are much, much better. My biggest beef with these is that half the colors are indistinguishable. Like, practically all of the bright silvers are identical, and all the dark silvers are nearly the same, with very little in between. There's really like, light sliver, dark silver, 2 dirty silvers, and then gold/bronze. Also, the gold takes a bazillion coats to get gold.

Yah know it's funny -- the Air metallics do clog up mine too, but the regular Vallejo Model Colour metallics (though I also add Liquitex Airbrush Medium) are my GOTO on the airbrush. That is literally how I do my metallics regularly and that's with my 0.35 needle ab.

I agree that all the Vallejo paints separate but usually I can shake them back to normalcy rather easy, but not in the case of the Air metallics - despite a frantic arm-breaking shake session my Air "gold" is still just silver with color at the bottom that won't mix and that's been the case with every pot I have of a "colored" Air metallic like gold, copper or bronze.

I dunno, I wouldn't advocate limiting yourself to 1 brand of paint, there are too many good colors and pros/cons spread throughout the different ranges.

Part of the reason you have to shake Vallejo paints a lot is the dropper bottles. The pigment and matting agent sinks to the bottom leaving the top filled with the more resin type substance at the top, you can give it a quick couple of shakes and the main body will have mixed, but the stuff in the cap will take a lot more effort to mix in.

Once it's actually on my palette or in my airbrush, I've never noticed Vallejo paints to separate faster than GW paints. But maybe I'm just not paying enough attention

These days I mostly just buy whichever brand or range has the colour I want. The only exception to that is I've started painting a lot of scale aircraft, and for airbrushing aircraft I much prefer Tamiya acrylics, Gunze acrylics and lacquers and Testors Model Master enamels.

For table top miniatures I'm not as fussy, whatever gives me the colour I want is fine.

@Gunzhard - Yeah, if it gets bad, I'll add some flow improver or medium, and you're right, that largely fixes it. My problem is always that I'm not sure if one of my Vallejo metallic paints is going to be a problem or not, or how much medium I have to add to make it flow while keeping it nice and opaque.

For my metallic vallejo, I actually take the cap off, stir it with a metal stirring rod, and then put the cap back on. Now, I prefer the GW Leadbelcher / Balthazar gold over Gunmetal Grey / Copper from the old model air line. I find GW paints more coarse than the new Vallejo metal paints (the metal flakes on the silvers look bigger), have better flow, and don't separate as much or as badly.

From the new metallic airbrush paints, I really like the Magnesium as the dark silver, I use Silver (though that's just a random pick -- Chrome or one of the Aluminums would do the same thing), and I like the two "dirty" silvers, Jet Exhaust and Exhaust Manifold. Copper is fine, though no better than Balthazar IMO, and I dislike the new gold.

@Skink - Yeah, there is no separation on the palette, or at least, not any worse than any other paint. The metallics separate on a wet palette in a short amount of time, but everyone's does.

I transfer all my GW paints into dropper bottles for airbrush, and find that they still separate way, way less than Vallejo ones. I think it has to do with the medium they use, because GW regular paints + Vallejo medium in a dropper separates like crazy... to the point where the pigment is a crusty at the bottom in a few months.

Hmm, maybe, I guess I've never really noticed it as a general trend, some specific colours do separate (English Uniform has some sort of green in it and the green separates out and is almost impossible to get it to mix back in). But not really as a general trend. Most my Vallejos are either Model Colour or Model Air.

Funnily enough I have 2 Vallejo Air blacks, one separates and the other doesn't. They're both 71.057, but bought at different times, maybe a year or so apart. So maybe Vallejo have changed up their mix from time to time, or maybe it's just a bad bottle, seems to paint fine though.

I think Game colour is most similar to GW but quite a bit thinner, the metallics are kinda crappy and at the least VERY variable in coverage pot to pot. With that said the level of finish is slightly better (the metallics can look lovely ) and the colours they chose are a bit more ubiquitous, more like an artist's set of acrylics.

However when i shelled out for Vallejo i also got a set of their 'Extra opaque' paints, they are more 'pastel' in shade so don't expect to paint whole projects with them but if you are someone who likes to mix colours ad-hoc like me they can be great thickening up the 'game' shades.

It's a very boring answer and you run into a bit of snobbery but sometimes GW is the best in terms of balancing ease of use and finish. I still use a lot of mine but as someone who mixes their colours i do recommend vallejo.