My first paint set

[Piotr]

Hello all!

I chose a few paints for my first set and I was hoping to get any feedback on my choices. Are there any I am missing and should be getting? I will mostly be painting Warhammer Vampire Counts to start and then move on to other miniatures.

VAL890 Reflective Green
VAL968 Flat Green
VAL833 German Cam. Bright Green
VAL891 Intermediate Green
VAL902 Azure
VAL962 Flat Blue
VAL963 Medium Blue
VAL963 Medium Blue
VAL952 Lemon Yellow
VAL913 Yellow Ochre
VAL956 Clear Orange
VAL910 Orange Red
VAL957 Flat Red
VAL908 Carmine Red
PIP 93052 Murderous Magenta
PIP 93051 Beaten Purple
VAL959 Purple
PIP 93054 Carnal Pink
VAL955 Flat Flesh
VAL955 Flat Flesh
VAL927 Dark Flesh
PIP 93058 Midlund Flesh
PIP 93056 Beast Hide
PIP 93055 Idrian Flesh
PIP 93059 Ryn Flesh
VAL984 Flat Brown
VAL875 Beige Brown
VAL940 Saddle Brown
VAL976 Buff
VAL950 Matt Black
VAL950 Matt Black
VAL950 Matt Black
VAL951 White
VAL951 White
VAL951 White
VAL996 Metallic Gold
VAL997 Metallic Silver
VAL997 Metallic Silver
VAL864 Metallic Natural Steel

Washes:
VAL73200 Sepia
VAL73201 Black
VAL73202 Pale Wash
VAL73203 Umber
VAL73204 Fleshtone
VAL73205 Green
VAL73206 Red
VAL73207 Blue

 

[me_in_japan]

wowser! That's a few paints??

My only thought is that you wont need 3 of black and white, as by the time you get through the first 2 bottles the 3rd will be past its best and you'd be better off buying a new one. The quantities of paint in a bottle may be small compared to artists paints, but them minis are tiny, and it generally takes years to get through one bottle. (in my experience, anyway. I daresay it's different for a full time commission painter, but for regular joes one bottle at a time is fine.)

oh, and I'm not familiar with all the colours there, but you'll need a dark brown and a dark greenish blue for warm and dark shadows respectively. I use PP Umbral Umber and PP Coal Black. I dont use PP paints much, but those two I really like.

 

[Piotr]

Good idea about the shadows. I guess I could used the browns and blues with a little black but maybe a already mixed pigment would be better as you say. I will order the Umbral Umber and Coal Black. Thank you for the tip!

 

[MAXXxxx]

I can second that there is no real need for multiples of the same color unless you do commission works.
The most used paint byme is the black. I just swithed to the 3rd dropper now (bought first around 2005), but only because lately I use the VAC blacks, that are really thin. For other colors I used even less.
Most of the greens and blues are almost untouched.

They really are enough for a lot of figures. With a 4ml GW Ultramarine (that comes with figures in the painting set) + a 17ml VGC one I painted about 6000pt-s of ultramarines. And the only 'figures' that really ate up the paint were the vehicles.

 

[Master Splinter]

It depends on what you want to paint, you probably need many more. If you had the idea that you want to mix paints to obtain colours you have to remember these things by putting it on paper.

If you paint a solemn mini or warband or army there you need the colours you like on that mini or many more.

Some people also make all the same bases to go with their minis for coherency.

 

[Bailey03]

Yeah, be careful about just adding black to make all of your shadows and adding white to make all of our highlights. If you're shading red, for example, you could use a premixed dark red, or mix your medium red with a dark brown, or add a dark purple or blue into the shadows. Each combination will give you a slightly different look (and can be useful so all of your reds don't look exactly the same). Just adding black can give you some dirty colors (try taking a bright yellow and adding black... the result looks pretty awful in my opinion). Similarly adding white to colors can give you a chalky look. That's not to say black and white aren't useful (certainly in a vampire counts army with all the black clothing and white bone). But light and dark versions of the basic colors are also important. You do seem to have a good mix of those so I think you'll be fine.

 

[Einion]

I chose a few paints for my first set and I was hoping to get any feedback on my choices. Are there any I am missing and should be getting?

That's far more paints than many people use, although it is less than others. Personally this is way beyond what I'd call "a few paints", at most I'd have recommended half this many as a starting point. But it's all about you, the kind of painting you're doing and how much mixing you're comfortable with.

oh, and I'm not familiar with all the colours there, but you'll need a dark brown and a dark greenish blue for warm and dark shadows respectively...

Although I wouldn't approach painting shadows in this way, for what it's worth those two are easily mixed if necessary.

It depends on what you want to paint, you probably need many more.

!

Einion

 

[RuneBrush]

Although I have more paints than your list in my cupboard, I would say that your list is quite long and diverse. I'm not vastly familiar with Vallejo (I actually prefer Citadel and P3) but I'd say look at what you're painting and pick appropriate colours rather than trying to cover all bases in one hit else you may end up with a number of paints that you'll never use.

You're highly unlikely to require doubles of any paint, as has been mentioned above the coverage of paint is really good and unless you're a painting machine and aiming for a 7000+ point army every couple of months, a single pot of each colour will be plenty.

How much painting experience do you currently have (i.e. just starting, getting back into it, etc)? Reason I ask is because if you're just starting out, you might be better picking up a selection of different manufacturers paints/washes and see what you get on with. I'm not a bit fan of the VMC and VGC but didn't find that out until I'd bought a box of them (quite an expensive way to find that out). Vallejo aren't that popular for their metallics but their VMA range (model air) is quite good by comparison as are the Citadel metallics.

 

[Chrispy]

In general, whenever I buy different paints for art I look and see if the manufacturer has process colors. Not PRIMARY colors, PROCESS this means it is a true primary that cannot be made from other colors. I only need about 7 colors- Process Yellow, Cyan, Magenta, White, Black, Burnt Sienna, and Payne's Grey. After I get these, I get the secondary colors like Purple, Green, Red orange and Yellow Orange. But in the mini world, it's a lot easier to get premade colors. If you're going to be doing vampire counts, may I suggest Luftwaffe Camo Green or Middlestone for bones- I did something similar on one of my skellies to good results: http://www.coolminiornot.com/25354 And if you're going to be doing black, I highly suggest Payne's Grey. I have yet to find it it any miniature paint line, but you can find it in any acrylic artist colors. It's a very dark blue-grey that imparts a better richness than the color-sucking powers of straight black.

 

[Piotr]

Although I have more paints than your list in my cupboard, I would say that your list is quite long and diverse. I'm not vastly familiar with Vallejo (I actually prefer Citadel and P3) but I'd say look at what you're painting and pick appropriate colours rather than trying to cover all bases in one hit else you may end up with a number of paints that you'll never use.

You're highly unlikely to require doubles of any paint, as has been mentioned above the coverage of paint is really good and unless you're a painting machine and aiming for a 7000+ point army every couple of months, a single pot of each colour will be plenty.

How much painting experience do you currently have (i.e. just starting, getting back into it, etc)? Reason I ask is because if you're just starting out, you might be better picking up a selection of different manufacturers paints/washes and see what you get on with. I'm not a bit fan of the VMC and VGC but didn't find that out until I'd bought a box of them (quite an expensive way to find that out). Vallejo aren't that popular for their metallics but their VMA range (model air) is quite good by comparison as are the Citadel metallics.

I'm getting back into it from a 6 year hiatus. I painted Lord of the Rings minis back then but I was in no way as prepared as I am now. I had the standard paint sets and brushes that came with the miniature sets. I hope to expand to buying single minis to display after "practicing" on my GW Vampire Counts.

Cheers for the metallics tip. I will check it out as well.

 

[Piotr]

In general, whenever I buy different paints for art I look and see if the manufacturer has process colors. Not PRIMARY colors, PROCESS this means it is a true primary that cannot be made from other colors. I only need about 7 colors- Process Yellow, Cyan, Magenta, White, Black, Burnt Sienna, and Payne's Grey. After I get these, I get the secondary colors like Purple, Green, Red orange and Yellow Orange. But in the mini world, it's a lot easier to get premade colors. If you're going to be doing vampire counts, may I suggest Luftwaffe Camo Green or Middlestone for bones- I did something similar on one of my skellies to good results: http://www.coolminiornot.com/25354 And if you're going to be doing black, I highly suggest Payne's Grey. I have yet to find it it any miniature paint line, but you can find it in any acrylic artist colors. It's a very dark blue-grey that imparts a better richness than the color-sucking powers of straight black.

I was also looking for the pirmary process colours but not many miniature painting brand paint lines carry those. Most are already premixed.

That skeleton looks fantastic!

 

[ced1106]

Are you new to painting?

Pick up a Reaper Learn to Paint Kit, and you'll have a good generic starter set of paints.

Or, since you already have vampires in mind, do some browsing and see if someone's blogged how they painted their vampires. Either they'll mention which paints they used, or you can contact them what colors they used.

I do see undead paint sets, although the Mantic one's for skellies.

 

[Jbickley00]

Seems to me if you ar going the true primary route, you may as well buy artists paints rather than fight the pre mixed brands. There are lot of very good brands of artist grade acrylics out there in various viscosities ( though if you are thinning your paints anyway, it's not that big of a deal anyway. If you are at the level of primary process, then you don't need he pre mixed paints really.