paints + brands

[hawkwood]

hmm, where to begin? alright i keep hearing people saying good things about vallejo paints and im willing to belive them but can anyone tell me where i can get them in the U.K.?
how about i-kore paints any one use em? what are they like, especialy reds and yellows?
any one use any otther brand that they think is the be all and end all?

sory if this has come up before ad nauseum but i would like to know

oh yeh at the moment i mostly use humbrol acrylics with a large amount of inscribe currently infiltrateing into my palett im fairly happy with the inscribe but the bright red is naff along with some of the other bright im not going to cover in a month of sudays colours.
my painting technique is to work up from black so im after a brand that will work well with that style.

hawk

 

[Chrispy]

Never heard of the other brands, not even the I-kore but vallejo is great simply because of the selection and eye-dropper bottle. However, there are a few drawbacks.. the paint tends to seperate which leads to mass amounts of shaking to try and mix together. I\'m not sure about where to find them in the UK, but the main manufactuerer in Spain is definatly alot closer to you than it is to us Yanks in USA.. Plus, I know for a fact several French and German painters use it so there is a supplier in Europe. .. There was a place in Switzerland but I forgot the name just now.. they sold Confrontation minis, too...

 

[Badaab]

I\'ve seen some I-Kore stuff sitting around the Hobbytown on my occassional visits to the store near me, but never bothered to pick them up, because they were in a six-pack, and when trying out a new line of paints, I prefer to pick up a single color or two at a time, try them out, and go from there (mainly so I don\'t make a huge investment in a new line of paints and then hate them).

As for the Vallejo mixing problem, have you tried seperating the the dropper piece from the bottle and inserting a ball bearing into the bottle? It should help with some of the mixing... I use it in my GW metallics and it really helps to keep them well-mixed.

Joe

 

[Mr.S.Marbo]

Hawkwood: A company called Art Express sells the whole line of Vallejo paints in the UK. They are based in Leeds so if you are close you could visit their store in person. If not, they will do mail order. Basic Vallejo colours are £1.45 each. Not sure how good value that represents but it is the only Vallejo supplier I have found in the UK so far.

They are building a website at the moment at www.artexpress.co.uk. You can get paper colour charts of all the Vallejo paints from them completely free by calling the freephone number on the website address.... (well they gave them to me free when I called a while ago!).

Even if you don\'t think the price is worth it, you might as well get the free colour charts if they still do them free.....

By the way I\'ve got no connection with this company and I haven\'t ordered anything from them yet, but my first impressions of them were good.

 

[Dragonsreach]

Mr S.Marbo: Thanks for the info on Vallejo paints.

Hawkwood: You could also try looking at Foundry\'s paint line range they sell them in pallettes of 6 all close together for blending purposes. Seem to be very similar to the old GW paints with flip top bottles.

www.foundryarcana.com

Good luck & good painting

 

[Death Jester]

I got the full range of Vellejo acrylics (all 220!) from a store in the Republic of Ireland called \"Prince August\" for E350 (about £250) - a good discount, but you have to buy them all at once.

http://www.princeaugust.ie/avpaint/index.html

The only problem I had was that the store staff said the company that makes the paints is very slow to deliver, it took about 4 weeks for my order to arrive.

 

[Chrispy]

Badaab: How do you take off the top? Does the tip just pull out? I\'ve been using my paints like mad and never had a chance to try.. also wouldn\'t a BB clog it from time to time? Just wondering.

 

[Badaab]

I don\'t know exactly how the Vallejo bottles are assembled, so I\'m thinking they\'re built just like the really old GW inks in the dropper bottles... those have a seam just below the dropper piece of the bottle (above the threading for the cap), that removes so the manufacturer can fill the bottle with paint. They pop right off, but be warned, if done wrong you could get paint everywhere (so do it over a sink or outside).

As for the BB, try something larger, like maybe 1/4\" across, that way it won\'t be small enough to stick in the dropper part of the bottle.

Hope that gives you a direction to maybe take with it.

Joe

 

[Death Jester]

The top is a lid which screws off cleanly, revealing the eye-dropper beneath. None of mine have clogged yet, but if they do just stick a pin down the neck.

 

[vincegamer]

dropper tops

I haven\'t tried to take them off since I haven\'t yet learned where to buy steel ball bearings (don\'t use BBs they will rust and ruin the paint). However, I put some GW paints in old Visine dropper bottles and the best way I found to take off the spout was to hold the bottle in one hand and grip the tip in the other, then slowly and carefully rock the tip back and forth holding the bottle as still as possible. The tip starts to slide upwards and you see-saw it out.
It\'s possible to yank but you are asking for a mess and wasted paint. My way is high on caution and I haven\'t spilled anything yet.
If you find this too difficult, you can take a thin piece of metal and slip it between the pieces to give it a start. Looking carefully at the end of the slope of the tip you will see it\'s only about a milimeter down to the seam.
One way to make it clear is to take the bottle in one fist, tip up, then press your thumb against the tip gradually. Don\'t take it off this way as it will pop and you will paint your hand, but you can start this way.
Thourough enough?

 

[Chrispy]

Yes, I as out to two hardware stores today and both looked at me like I grew another head.. If it wasn\'t mentioned on this forum, then I would start to think that they do not exist. My dad had some weights for fishing he used to balance out his model airplanes. Since they were made to go in water, I\'m guessing their steel... Maybe I\'ll have to look in fishing department or sporting goods under BB gun ammo.

 

[hawkwood]

thanks for the info guys its been helpful.
by the by if any of you do use or are thinking of finding out about inscribe when i was in my local suply shop today the inscribe was on half price and when quized they told me that they were stopping the range due to suply problems caused alegedly by the company changeing hands repetedly in rapid succession. just passing on what i herd and definately not rumormongering although i cant sear to its accuracy

hawk