Where to buy paints?

I'm looking into buying a bunch of paints to begin retouching my old Skaven warband, and paint up my new Reiklander warband. I found some great deals on Coat d'Arms paints from Brookhurst Hobbies, but their stock is very limited. What brands/colors are your staple must haves? I haven't painted humans a great deal, so I'm particularly interested in getting good looking skin tones. Also, where do you buy from? I'm interested in online retailers and also local (Los Angeles). Not interested in dropping 4 or 5 bucks a pot at GW.

I use Americana, Folk Art, & more recently Ceramcoat. I've found them to be fine ranges of acrylic paints with a wide variety of colors. At $1.39 for 2 oz. they're roughly 1/12th the price of G.W's stuff. They're available from Michael's & Hobby Lobby.

I prime my minis with a heavy wash of black followed by a white dry brush. For human skin tones I use a base of Georgia Clay with a median shade of Pumpkin & a highlight of Peaches & Cream; all these colors are Americana. The only downside of "craft" paints is they do have a tendency to have Girly sounding names...has something to do with a heavy customer base of Girls.

I never skimp on getting high quality paints. We pay exorbitant prices for our miniatures already; In my opinion there's no reason not to invest in giving them the best paint job possible. I really think you can't miss with GW paints. They have good coverage, good consistency, mix well, and have a large range of colors. Valejo is a nice second pick, though they don't behave quite as well as the GW paints. I've heard P3 is nice as well, though I haven't tried it for myself. I supposed if you're a beginning painter and you don't have aspirations to glory you may not need high quality and could get paint for much cheaper from a number of lesser known brands. So it will really depend on what you want to do with it.

I second Deafnala's recomendation of craft paints. I buy mainly Apple Barrel and Americana. I do also use some GW and Valejo, but I will pretty much use anything that works and most paints do as long as they are acrylic. I have a wide selection of Liquitex Artist Color acrylics and lots of inks left over from the inking craze of the 90's.

Von Kurst wrote:

I second Deafnala's recomendation of craft paints. I buy mainly Apple Barrel and Americana. I do also use some GW and Valejo, but I will pretty much use anything that works and most paints do as long as they are acrylic. I have a wide selection of Liquitex Artist Color acrylics and lots of inks left over from the inking craze of the 90's.

Reaper Master Series or bust, in my opinion! GW are good for metallics, in my opinion.

I wonder what Tom uses...

The last I heard, Tom was a Vallejo Guy. From my limited experience with them & from what I've heard, they are an excellent line of paints.

GW's paints I've used almost my entire life until recently. I'm slowly going to vallejo paints since they're cheaper, don't dry as easy as GW paints and have more paint in comparison. GW's washes on the other hand are top notch. It's really hard to imagine going back to the days before them for me.



The best deal I've been able to find (where I live at least) is the army painter 10 paint set, which includes two brushes and a small spray as a bonus. The army painter paints are vallejo paints in disguise as far as I know. Same bottles and everything.

Mr.chair wrote:

I never skimp on getting high quality paints. We pay exorbitant prices for our miniatures already; In my opinion there's no reason not to invest in giving them the best paint job possible. I really think you can't miss with GW paints. They have good coverage, good consistency, mix well, and have a large range of colors.

I agree! Invest in GW colours... The pots might seems small, but there is really enough paint for a lot of miniatures!

I am a GW guy myself, too. They do have good coverage and the quality improved drastically since I started painting 8 years ago. They don't dry out that easily anymore, either.

And, of course, the GW washes are a must Foundation is pretty good, too, if you don't want to paint dozens of layers of some colours like yellow to cover the black primer.

Eliazar wrote:

And, of course, the GW washes are a must

GW wash is gods gift to mankind (or the nerds anyways ) Before I sucked at painting, but then add a little wash and voila! Prof looking mini

Eliazar wrote:

They don't dry out that easily anymore, either.

...I'm glad to hear that; having the paint pot dry out in record time was THE ONE outstanding characteristic I've come to associate with G.W. paints.

So I ordered a bunch of paints from Brookhurst. What they didn't have in Coat d'Arms, I made up in Vallejo and Reaper. I picked up some craft paints for my scenery, but felt that Coat d'Arms paints for $1.50 was too good to pass up, even if they didn't have all the shades I want. Next step, pick up the Empire Free Militia box to make my Reiklanders.

If you've got a Reiklander warband, I'd love to see some links!

I'm currently working on a reiklander warband and I will post pics in a few days!

DeafNala wrote:

Eliazar wrote:

They don't dry out that easily anymore, either.

...I'm glad to hear that; having the paint pot dry out in record time was THE ONE outstanding characteristic I've come to associate with G.W. paints.

Opening the paint pots with robo grips was a real treat too.

You can find my reiklanders here!

www.Maelstromgames.co.uk Thats the best site for buying any thing hobbyish!
They have vallejo P3 GW army painter etc...Also they are super cheat and there is no shipping!
Buy everything there youll save loads of money!
Ps. Never use the vallejo washes if youre converting to them! They dont shade and they just ruin you're expensive miniatures!