A New Line Of Miniature Paints Is Being Born

Terrafirma

New member
We bought the paints, and I found them to be very subpar for most of the techniques applied during painting.

Compared to other brands we found no advantage or need for this particular brand as compared to existing brands

Ultimately the reasons:

-Too thin out the bottle, or rather too fluid, very difficult to edge highlight or use for highlighting. More difficult to control since its already pre-thinned.
-Its very pasty which is very deceiving in how the application goes, I did not feel I could confidently determine how thick or thin or how even my stroke was.
-The colours are nice and bright, which is important, however average painters will always be concerned with application over black primer due to a lack of understanding of colour theory---> Desaturated colours are always best for that as they are closest to grey/black. Saturated colours are crucial for painting as they are used for creating volume and depth in a figure and allow a painter to reduce saturation, since its impossible to increase saturation!
-I did find these colours to be deceiving out of the bottle, whatever the case the bottle itself looks waaaaaay different than the colour inside atleast in wet mode.
-In addition the colours are so similiar to the point I couldnt even find uses for half of them.
-This product would only find use being applied over white primer.
-I should note, this brand seems to be exclusively for glazing, hence why its suited for white primer only.

GW, P3, Vallejo and the other smaller brands still seem far superior or more useful and universal.

Even at a highly reduced price, I couldnt recommend this paint line.



I don't think when Poison asked for feedback on his birgining paint company he was necessarily asking to be completely written off .
Being a business yourself I am sure you would not like someone on line saying that your company is no good and referring potential clients away because they themselves were not happy with a job you have done for them . Wouldn't you rather feed back and constructive criticism regarding your aspirations to further grow your business rather than being shot down by someone instead of offering some advice like EVERYONE else on here that is trialling a new and still advancing paint line .
I have seen your site and think you guys are very talented and some brilliant painting examples are shown there and as part of this industry and not just a soul painter like my self I think you could have had more courtesy and regard for someone who may just come up with a paint line that exceeds all others in time,who knows .....? It's with advice from great painters like your self and others on this great site that poison will succeed .
 

Minx Studio

New member
I don't think when Poison asked for feedback on his birgining paint company he was necessarily asking to be completely written off .
Being a business yourself I am sure you would not like someone on line saying that your company is no good and referring potential clients away because they themselves were not happy with a job you have done for them . Wouldn't you rather feed back and constructive criticism regarding your aspirations to further grow your business rather than being shot down by someone instead of offering some advice like EVERYONE else on here that is trialling a new and still advancing paint line .
I have seen your site and think you guys are very talented and some brilliant painting examples are shown there and as part of this industry and not just a soul painter like my self I think you could have had more courtesy and regard for someone who may just come up with a paint line that exceeds all others in time,who knows .....? It's with advice from great painters like your self and others on this great site that poison will succeed .

We gave our brief, most honest feedback. We see no need for this product as it offers no advantage or difference to any of the other brands out there.

What advice can I offer beyond the information in my reply? Im not a paint engineer. Im a painter.

I compared it to what we already have, in a variety of ways and that is the result. I listed the reasons the product failed to meet the requirements of many techniques and parameters met by existing paints.

The "constructive" feedback lies within what you consider to be negative.

Many of our comments are clearly visible in Fluster's post with the colour swatches.
 

Terrafirma

New member
"The constructive feedback lies within what you consider to be negative"
"even at a highly reduced price I couldn't recommend this paint line"


Great constructive criticism .
check out how ALL the other great painters like Fluisterwoud have offered great advice and out comes to help Poison to get this paint line worked out and when completed as I said before May exceed other brands.( It's not a ready for retail line yet)
 

poison_

New member
We gave our brief, most honest feedback. We see no need for this product as it offers no advantage or difference to any of the other brands out there.

What advice can I offer beyond the information in my reply? Im not a paint engineer. Im a painter.

I compared it to what we already have, in a variety of ways and that is the result. I listed the reasons the product failed to meet the requirements of many techniques and parameters met by existing paints.

The "constructive" feedback lies within what you consider to be negative.

Many of our comments are clearly visible in Fluster's post with the colour swatches.


Dear Minx Studio:
Firstly thank you for taking the time to write about your experience with our beta testing paints.

Let me clarify something about paints:
Paints have different coverage from each other. This is due to the different pigments used in the production. Paints that have white pigments inside for example, are completely opaque.

That said, I would just like to point out that it is a bit unfair to judge a prospective paint line with more than 70 different colours by just testing 10 of the least covering paints (containing pure pigments without white).

The main advantage of our brand is that we are real people that will listen to the end user. we will bend backwards to offer you what you want at a price that will make you smile. We love what we do and we will do it even if most of the feedback was negative (which is more than 93% positive at the moment). we are into this because it is what we like and we want to offer to people something that is not out there: affordable yet high quality products...

Terrafirma: thank you for your support
 
We bought the paints, and I found them to be very subpar for most of the techniques applied during painting.

Compared to other brands we found no advantage or need for this particular brand as compared to existing brands

Ultimately the reasons:

-Too thin out the bottle, or rather too fluid, very difficult to edge highlight or use for highlighting. More difficult to control since its already pre-thinned.
-Its very pasty which is very deceiving in how the application goes, I did not feel I could confidently determine how thick or thin or how even my stroke was.
-The colours are nice and bright, which is important, however average painters will always be concerned with application over black primer due to a lack of understanding of colour theory---> Desaturated colours are always best for that as they are closest to grey/black. Saturated colours are crucial for painting as they are used for creating volume and depth in a figure and allow a painter to reduce saturation, since its impossible to increase saturation!
-I did find these colours to be deceiving out of the bottle, whatever the case the bottle itself looks waaaaaay different than the colour inside atleast in wet mode.
-In addition the colours are so similiar to the point I couldnt even find uses for half of them.
-This product would only find use being applied over white primer.
-I should note, this brand seems to be exclusively for glazing, hence why its suited for white primer only.

GW, P3, Vallejo and the other smaller brands still seem far superior or more useful and universal.

Even at a highly reduced price, I couldnt recommend this paint line.

While I haven't received the ten paint bottle sample, I know someone who has and I got the chance to try them briefly the other day. Frankly, some of what you say makes no sense to me as a display painter. Many of the qualities you suggest make the paint "subpar" are actually qualities that I look for. As a display painter. Perhaps you are a tabletop quality painter and so these paints don't work well with your speed painting?

-too thin out of the bottle. This is what makes brands like Scale75, Vallejo Model Air and Vallejo Game Air so popular. They come closely matching the consistency that a display painter will ultimately wish to achieve. My limited use of two of these paints suggested a consistency similar to Scale75.

-pasty consistency. Again I am reminded of how Scale75 felt to me when I first used this line. It felt pasty to me in the beginning, and required me to work the paint quite a bit to keep it in suspension before applying. This results in the medium attaining a super matt finish.

-saturated colors over black primer. Your statement here is complete nonesense to me. Yes, it is very important to have saturated colors. No, it has nothing to do with what color you choose to prime with. Consequently, I haven't primed in black alone since I painted purely for gaming. I now prime zenithal or white, but black wouldn't influence the saturation of what I paint with.

-Deceiving. I didn't notice this but ok. Put the paint on the pallet before deciding to use.

-Too similar. I have about 300 paints. They are never too similar for me. Not having to mix paints keep their qualities consistent to me, as well as helps to keep them saturated.

White primer-Again this statement is so incorrect it pains me. When you said it confuses beginner painters, did you mean yourself?

Exclusively for glazing-If this is true, sign me up. Like I said, I love a line of paints that is pre-thinned. It has zero implications for the primer I choose

You mentioned that it was too thin for edge highlighting. If you mean the quick edge highlighting in one single layer that is populat for table toppers, then fine. But aren't you, in most cases, adding a white or lighter color to another color for your brightest highlights? So this is an easy fix, add a thick white to the paint, which you are probably going to do anyway, and now it's thick enough for edge highlighting.

If I come across a bit rude and argumentative, it's because I mean to be. Your assertions were baseless and insulting, clearly meant to belittle the small business owner who was nice enough to seek advise in a public forum. I'm sure you don't like being criticized in such a manner. It would be similar to someone contending that Minx Studio-a studio implying several professional artists operating as an enterprise, is subpar and even though they offer to paint miniatures at 1/3 of the price of other painters, their work is so bad that we wouldn't reccomend anyone paying for their services. Kind of stings, doesn't it? The difference being that someone attacking Minx Studio could actually do so objectively by stating that none of their painting in theCMoN gallery have received higher than an 8.0 rating, making them, at best, upper teir tabletop painters.
 

Scherdy

New member
I've started to use them and although they do feel very slightly different to me at first, it doesn't affect my actual painting. They mix well with my other paints and I don't really understand the negative comments about the coverage. If you compare colors as vivid/saturated as the line being tested to equivalent colors in other lines their colors cover very similarly. He's totally right that colors that lack white or black pigment (or are high in saturation) don't cover as well. It's the tradeoff you pay.

The black being tested covered just fine compared to my other blacks so far. I'll need to use it a little more and update this I think though. I'll be interested how other less saturated colors being produced covered compared to their equivalent colors in other lines.

Seems like a harsh way to word "criticism" without addressing that most of these qualities are what some other painters would look for. Seems like when you see a fellow community member trying to create something you'd choose words more.... carefully? Also, the answer of "Hey, I'm honest and if people can't handle it that's on them" or it's equivalent says more about the person saying it than anything else.

Either way, the crit about the colors being too similar seems unnecessary. For a first run grouping of test colors it was fine. I never remember it being said that these were the final results and we'd be only have some greens, yellow, pinks and orange to use.

I think it's great you're trying to create something new and the fact that it may have a few different characteristics, some of which will remain and be what makes the paint line different from those already on the market, and some of which the feedback from testing will help you decide what you will try and alter. Keep doing what you do! I'm looking forward to see where you go with this.
 

Canny

Active member
What are you thinking of naming them? Its may already must be coming along well? I would love a set of Blues like the greens we got. Similar consistency and pigment amount Would be grand.
 

poison_

New member
What are you thinking of naming them? Its may already must be coming along well? I would love a set of Blues like the greens we got. Similar consistency and pigment amount Would be grand.

we will be revealing the name with the launching. it is not highly innovative but at least we found the .com domain of it.
so the website for the 'nameofpaints' will be www.nameofpaints.com (no the paints are not called 'nameofpaints')

indeed is may.... hopefully by the end of the month we will be up and running.

blues: you asked for it.... we will be making those too...
 

Maenas

New member
I haven't tested the paints, but I would like to remark what the brand is attempting for, that differs from the other brands, and that is:


  • Excellent price
  • New naming system, seems easy for beginners and practical for those a little more advanced
  • New labelling system (if it works properly, I think it may even be copied by greater brands!)
  • Childproof bottles
  • A brand who cares what customers think about their products

My point of view tells me that the stated above, is enough of a justification for a new line of paints. Even, without taking into consideration the paint qualities!!
 

Minx Studio

New member
Dear Minx Studio:
Firstly thank you for taking the time to write about your experience with our beta testing paints.

Let me clarify something about paints:
Paints have different coverage from each other. This is due to the different pigments used in the production. Paints that have white pigments inside for example, are completely opaque.

That said, I would just like to point out that it is a bit unfair to judge a prospective paint line with more than 70 different colours by just testing 10 of the least covering paints (containing pure pigments without white).

The main advantage of our brand is that we are real people that will listen to the end user. we will bend backwards to offer you what you want at a price that will make you smile. We love what we do and we will do it even if most of the feedback was negative (which is more than 93% positive at the moment). we are into this because it is what we like and we want to offer to people something that is not out there: affordable yet high quality products...

Terrafirma: thank you for your support

I judged only the paints I purchased, as I have no basis for judging the entire line.

My comments are purely analysis of the paints I received in the order.

If you are satisfied, then that's what counts and I wish you luck.



-too thin out of the bottle. This is what makes brands like Scale75, Vallejo Model Air and Vallejo Game Air so popular. They come closely matching the consistency that a display painter will ultimately wish to achieve. My limited use of two of these paints suggested a consistency similar to Scale75.

-pasty consistency. Again I am reminded of how Scale75 felt to me when I first used this line. It felt pasty to me in the beginning, and required me to work the paint quite a bit to keep it in suspension before applying. This results in the medium attaining a super matt finish.

Vallejo Air brands are popular because they can go through an airbrush and are thick enough to paint with, I find this less so with game Air.

Poison is similiar to art acrylics with heavy body, or high medium. They do not go on evenly, they leave brush strokes. Its a bit less so when thinned and applied over white, but it remains so when applied over anything else. Whats deceiving is that it does not always dry uneven, but sometimes it does.

-saturated colors over black primer. Your statement here is complete nonesense to me. Yes, it is very important to have saturated colors. No, it has nothing to do with what color you choose to prime with. Consequently, I haven't primed in black alone since I painted purely for gaming. I now prime zenithal or white, but black wouldn't influence the saturation of what I paint with.

Perhaps you misunderstood my comments. I will elaborate.


  • Desaturated colours go on over dark colours and black more easily because they are closer to greyscale/black than saturated colours. Thus less difference between the two, means fewer layers for what appears to be an even coat
  • Saturated colours are never as intense or saturated over black primer as they are white, because no paint is completely opaque, so the black pigment(which is usually a dark blue) is reflecting blue light outwards and desaturating your colours on top.
  • Even if you choose to airbrush over black, you will still suffer the same problems, they will just be slightly less so because its easier to get the even finish without thick paint clogging details.
  • My comments about desaturated colours were in reference to those who paint for gaming, which clearly doesnt apply to you in your mind.
  • I agree saturation is important, but only for those who understand how to use it. Saturation is integral to shadows and creating volume and depth, as well as complex mixing. Outside of that, painters can get by with somewhat desaturated colours more easily.

-Deceiving. I didn't notice this but ok. Put the paint on the pallet before deciding to use.

Kinda hard to do that before buying it.

White primer-Again this statement is so incorrect it pains me. When you said it confuses beginner painters, did you mean yourself?

not sure what you are referring to, but your last comment is pretty funny.

Exclusively for glazing-If this is true, sign me up. Like I said, I love a line of paints that is pre-thinned. It has zero implications for the primer I choose

Congrats, however as i specified, gamers likely wont. Which means this brand will sell much less volume.. if you know, you approach it from a sales stand point.

You mentioned that it was too thin for edge highlighting. If you mean the quick edge highlighting in one single layer that is populat for table toppers, then fine. But aren't you, in most cases, adding a white or lighter color to another color for your brightest highlights? So this is an easy fix, add a thick white to the paint, which you are probably going to do anyway, and now it's thick enough for edge highlighting.

Edge Highlighting is just as crucial in display painting.

If Im going to buy another brand just to thicken this paint, why not just buy that other brand?

There's no advantage to using this brand when I can simply use the other brands for everything. Why buy this paint just because?


If I come across a bit rude and argumentative, it's because I mean to be. Your assertions were baseless and insulting, clearly meant to belittle the small business owner who was nice enough to seek advise in a public forum. I'm sure you don't like being criticized in such a manner. It would be similar to someone contending that Minx Studio-a studio implying several professional artists operating as an enterprise, is subpar and even though they offer to paint miniatures at 1/3 of the price of other painters, their work is so bad that we wouldn't reccomend anyone paying for their services. Kind of stings, doesn't it? The difference being that someone attacking Minx Studio could actually do so objectively by stating that none of their painting in theCMoN gallery have received higher than an 8.0 rating, making them, at best, upper teir tabletop painters.

They are hardly baseless and I maintained analysis strictly of the product in question.

The fact that I disliked the paint does not qualify me as an asshole. I provided explanations as to why I thought the paint was subpar compared to existing brands.

We are confident in our work, knowledge and abilities. Negative feedback is going to happen in life, and rather than cry about it, we investigate it, because guess what? Its an opportunity to learn something we may not of already known. We encourage feedback, positive or negative. In fact we enjoy negative feedback because its so rare.

Negative feedback offers you an opportunity to take a new perspective, which can be invaluable. Negative does not mean deconstructive which so many seem to assume.

As for paint quality, there's no money in "display" painting, so we do the quality of work that pays and keeps our clients happy. That being said we do have a Slayer Sword and 2 dozen gold and silver awards.
 
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poison_

New member
OK guys we are now entering the final stages of the launching. We have our guy working on the website, I am producing the colors like mad, and hopefully we will be able to launch on the 6/6 (6 of June).

almost all comments have been dealt with and all the positives have been enhanced (if this was possible).
there are also a few surprise innovations with the line.

more to come soon...

one big thank you to all of you guys who have supported us and helped us bringing this task to life.
 

Maenas

New member
Happy to see this becoming a finished product. Waiting now to see those innovations you comment and to have a look at the range of colours and its final name. Good luck ;)
 

Kalidane

New member
Geez I show up late to the party and the cheap booze is gone, then learn I have to wait countless hours for resupply!

Serious first world problems in this thread


What are the current plans in terms of selling triads and 'sets' etc? Most people won't buy a complete set without using the paints themselves, so sets of 10 (or whatever) are a nice first purchase. Then later, buying other sets without duplication. Okay, I could choose 10 paints but that's too damned hard. Lazy consumer checking in :p
 

poison_

New member
Happy to see this becoming a finished product. Waiting now to see those innovations you comment and to have a look at the range of colours and its final name. Good luck ;)

Thank you Maenas

Geez I show up late to the party and the cheap booze is gone, then learn I have to wait countless hours for resupply!

Serious first world problems in this thread


What are the current plans in terms of selling triads and 'sets' etc? Most people won't buy a complete set without using the paints themselves, so sets of 10 (or whatever) are a nice first purchase. Then later, buying other sets without duplication. Okay, I could choose 10 paints but that's too damned hard. Lazy consumer checking in :p

Dear Kalidane, the cheap booze is not gone. the same prices will apply for the actual paints!!!
We are gearing towards sets of 8 colours (for shipping cost purposes) and we will be offering a nice range of sets.

As time goes on since my review, I find myself using the paints more and more. On this guy, http://www.coolminiornot.com/379970, I used Pink 2, 3 and 4, Red 2, Yellow Green 3, Green 3 and Black 1.

It is an honour to have a figure with an average of 9.1 painted partially with our paints!!!

poison: Sounds good, I'm really looking forward to trying out the finished product when launched.

Thank you infelix! your review helped us a lot.
 
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