A question about Vallejo Game Colors.

[JojoTheFlamingMonkey]

Hello all,

This is my first forum post here, so please be gentle.

I\'ve had a ~5 year hiatus from painting and have decided to come back with full force, but in the course of the last few weeks I\'ve noticed my pallete is severely limited by the paltry number of paints I own and have decided to buy a large selection of Vallejo paints. What I\'m having trouble deciding on is the range I should invest in. I have tried VMC and *love* them, but am leery of VGC as I\'ve never tried them.

I understand that VGC is similar to GW in terms of color saturation, and while I normally paint in subdued, natural tones, that alone is not a deal breaker. Of primary concern is that I\'ve heard reports from others that VGC is thinner and thus of lower pigment concentration than VMC. This is precisely the reason why I dislike Reaper\'s Master Series paints (sorry Anne!) as I prefer to control how thick or thin the paint is. Eh, I\'m fussy.

So, my question is this: for someone who has primarily used Vallejo Model Color in the past, is there anything so drastically different about the Vallejo Game Color line that should give me pause for concern before making such a massive purchase, especially considering what I\'ve written above?

If anyone has tried both VMC and VGC, or even just VGC, I\'d love to hear your thoughts and opinions.

Thanks!

 

[Dragonsreach]

Try Here
Here
or here

Or just search the forums for Vallejo Game Colours, Lots of opinions.

 

[Ritual]

If you like VMC for their strong pigments and prefer to fix the right consistency of the paint yourself, there\'s a significant risk you\'ll be disappointed with the VGC range. Personally, I dislike the range in general, although there are a couple of individual colours that I do like. The range is rather inconsistent and several of the paints are very thin with rather poor coverage. Some paints behave rather badly when you thin them down.

 

[DarkStar]

What Ritual said are my sentiments exactly. Not sure if you\'ve made your choice yet Jojo theFlamingMonkey but those are words of wisdom to heed right there.

I\'ve got the full set of VGC as well as...not the full set of VMC but a very large collection and I\'ll tell \'ya, I would trade back that collection of VGC bottles in exchange for more VMC in a heartbeat if could.

There are a couple of paints I like from that range and use, Sombre grey and Khaki come to mind as well as Dwarf Flesh but I\'ve ran into some big problems with so many of the other paints that I generally just feel that I wasted my money overall. Problems ranging from paint too thin, too thick, gloopy, plasticy, watery, chalky, too transparent, and overall just inconsistent throughout the range as a whole.

End result is have the entire case just sitting here collecting dust for the most part while my VMC\'s are used daily. Hell I find myself reaching for craft paints before the VGC as I literally find them to be more consistent and better handling.

Oddly enough I take comfort knowing that I at least have those colors just in case I one day find a use for them and occasionally reach for them when painting just to see if they\'ve somehow magically improved over time. Usually I end up going \"ah, that\'s why I hate them\" and putting them back. That being said, the metallics are not at all bad and rather nice although I seldom paint with metallics and there are better choices available when I do.

Hope that helps, personally I\'d spend my $$ on going with a sure thing and just get more VMC hell they\'re the same price and you can get the same colors just by different name.

 

[bullfrog]

I also find that they come off the brush differently than the Model Colour due to the difference in pigment vehicle and this is the main reason I dislike them in comparison. They appear more translucent and \'plasticier\' for want of a better word and I agree with the comments made so far about the concentration. It may provide better protection once painted but does not brush on as smoothly with the way that I paint.

VMC wins hands down and although it is personal opinion only, I would invest the money in that line.

If you are looking to broaden your out of the pot colour choices the P3 line is nice to work with. Took me a short while to use them to their full potential but that was because I was so used to the properties of VMC and GW.

 

[JojoTheFlamingMonkey]

I just want to thank everyone for giving me such thorough and helpful responses. The general impression I\'m getting is that, as a miniature paint VGC are passable but that VMC are far superior in comparison.

Hell I find myself reaching for craft paints before the VGC as I literally find them to be more consistent and better handling.

That pretty much seals it for me!

Bullfrog, I\'ll definitely take your suggestion about trying some of the P3 paints. Are there a few colors you would recommend trying?

Thanks again everyone!

 

[donga666]

After using GW (present & Coat D\'arms), Tamiya, Miniature paints, VMC, VGC and P3. VMC are the best and behave best of the lot under thinning. P3 have a habit of going grainy, but then some of the others do too!

Having said that they are all used regularly with my secret mix (well not that secret 1/3 Water, 1/3 Flow improver, 1/3 Acrylic Matt medium + squirt of drying retarder in a dropper bottle). Makes crap paint good I\'ve started using paints I used to hate!

So just buy the colours you like + get matt medium & flow improver. Magic!

:bouncy: