Annoying people with my endless paint questions

[Mr. Peabody]

Fram,

The Tamiya acrylics are alcohol based. They are one of the very best airbrush paints, especially when used with Tamiya's X-20A acrylic thinner. I love these paints. You can thin them out to extreme transparency and they still spray and store wonderfully. They are easy on the airbrush and easy to clean up.

However, Tamiya acrylics are crap for brush painting. The alcohol evaporates far too quickly to allow you to do any real brush-work and very quickly you end up with a nasty clod of stuff stuck on the bristles of your brush.

[FramFramson]

D'oh! I'm a goon. 

That's three times in a row I went to buy something to use for german feldgrau and managed to muck it up. I was using that as my test colour for buying new paints, and since I got the wrong thing each time, well, I kept - keep? - trying to get it.     

[Vermis]

I switched across to Vallejo Panzer Aces Flesh base when I ran out of my last pot of Tallern. I found it to be a reasonable match for the old GW foundation colour and actually prefer it now. I just lighten it for highlights etc.

Got it! (along with a couple of GW paints... Though deathclaw brown looks like a more reasonable skin tone than ratskin flesh) Now I just gotta find something to try it on. Where'd I put my lead pile?

Also, I still have a bit of the old GW elf flesh sitting around. I'll see about getting some CdA elf flesh to back it up and compare the two.

[FramFramson]

Thanks Vermis! Much obliged. 

[Vermis]

I decided to order some Coat D'arms dwarven flesh too, for checking beside that old GW colour, along with dark earth and black green to compare with charadon granite. The paints arrived today. A bit longer than expected, I imagine Royal Mail was double and triple checking the parcel for a fifth pot so they could indulge their pyromania. Anyway, now I can indulge my obsessive compulsions...

Long story short: No. No, CDA elven flesh is really not a good match for GW elf flesh.

Long story... long: I've painted up a wee swatch and scanned it in. The colours definitely didn't look the same on my screen as in real life, and despite tinkering with hue and saturation and stuff, it's still not quite exact, and I don't know what it'll look like on other screens. But I hope it shows the general differences in the paints.



Column 1: GW elf flesh and dwarf flesh, the standard.

Column 2: CDA elven flesh and dwarven flesh. Like I say, the first is not a match for the OOP GW colour. I'd say it's even a bit darker and pinker IRL than it seems on my screen; closer to GW dwarf flesh. A decent mid-layer between the two, maybe, but not a substitute.
CDA dwarven flesh is lighter and pinker than GW dwarf flesh. Not a match either. Although IMO elven and dwarven flesh would be pretty good highlights for GW's two flesh bases in column 3, ratskin flesh and bugmans glow, respectively. (or the deathclaw brown I mentioned last time, which is pretty much ratskin flesh with a very slightly browner, less saturated tint. But I digress)

There's another possibility though, if you don't mind buying a bunch of CDA paints and mixing them. I used that elven flesh, CDA flesh, and Ral Partha/Miniature Paints apricot (an almost exact match for CDA oriental flesh) to get what I think is a pretty good match for GW elf flesh. That's the small patch to the top left of the elf flesh column. Just a rough mix using approximately 3 parts flesh, 3 parts apricot, and 2 parts elven flesh. If you're mixing larger quantities in a spare pot, it could be tuned a little finer, probably with a bit more elven flesh.
The other small patch just below it is straight MP apricot - pretty close to elf flesh in value, but more yellow in hue.

Column 4: GW tallarn flesh and charadon granite, ready for comparison. The three colours beside tallarn flesh are, from top to bottom, Vallejo Panzer Aces flesh base (as per Smillie's recommendation), MP tanned flesh, and Anita's coffee. Flesh base is a fair substitute, IMO. I tried mixing a few colours out of my collection, but couldn't get much closer than that.
The four colours to the right of charadon granite are MP umber, CDA dark earth, CDA black green, and VMC chocolate brown.
Black green and chocolate brown? No. Not even close. And umber's a bit too dark and warm.
Dark earth has a good, yellow/greenish 'raw umber' look but it's much too saturated. I thought it needed a warm grey-brown to tone it down a bit: Panzer Aces track primer was almost perfect for that. I mixed it 1:1 with dark earth, and with a touch of something to darken it a bit more (VMC german grey) I think I got a pretty good charadon substitute. That's the little patch to the left of the charadon column, opposite dark earth.

[FramFramson]

Wow! Amazing work there! Especially that Elf Flesh replacement recipe.

On my end, I can report that I found a partial substitute for Dwarf Flesh, in Model Master's Skin Tone Warm. It's not quite there, as it's more a straight pink and is missing the warmer yellow hues of Dwarf flesh, but has the same overall tone. With a decent yellow tone to add, it might substitute.

HOWEVER, it's a glycol-based paint and will mostly only be usable for airbrushing, I think. Like the Tamiya paints, it dries too quickly to use in brush work.

The Coat D'Arms dwarf flesh doesn't look as far off the GW version as all that. Adding just a touch of something darker and redder might produce a replacement.

[Vermis]

True. Though as a closer match I'd suggest Miniature Paints tanned flesh - the second comparison with tallarn flesh there. I've compared tanned flesh and dwarf flesh before, and tanned is a bit duller and browner, but I was surprised how similar they look surrounded by all those other colours.

Now the pounding headache's gone and I care a bit more again, I think I'll take another stab at a tallarn flesh mix. I tried humbrol matt rust (Do they still make it? They do!) with a bunch of off-whites and pale beiges I have here, but while they were close they were too red or orange. I think break out the track primer again to calm it down.

[FramFramson]

Question: I have an offer of some old GW neutral colours which are cheap, but still more expensive than buying new paints. I was thinking I'd just tough it out and muddle a replacement when these ran out, but the seller is offering me these cheap enough that I want to see how hard replacing them would be.

Has anyone had any experience finding close replacements for any of these (the colours I'm thinking of grabbing):

- Vomit Brown
- Dark Flesh
- Scorched Flesh (I have used this as a black substitute for a long time in many cases when I want the black to retain some colour and be more natural - I use it sparingly, but it's pretty key).

I'm thinking Vomit Brown might the toughest to replace exactly or close to exactly (luckily it's the cheapest one the seller had, only a dollar more than a new bottle of Vallejo/P3/New GW from the local shop).

I'm most interested in a Scorched Flesh replacement, since that was the priciest and also it's really just a dark umber/red ochre when you get down to it. But it's a nice rich tone that blends well, so I'd like something close.

[Major_Gilbear]

How cheap is "cheap"? Are we looking at a difference of few cents for a pot of each here, or is this actually a proper deal for something like ten pots of each colour?

And are you using all these paints to continue/finish existing projects?

I'm only asking as it seems you are looking at replacing a fair few (fleshes, neutrals, graveyard earth...), and I'd be of the opinion that it might be worth just switching to a new (more stable) paint range and be done with it.

Anyway, I've found that a lot of these "classic" GW colours are quite well represented by P3, so I'll see what else will match the three you're after and try and get back to you tonight.

[FramFramson]

The difference is maybe two or three dollars a pot.

Mostly I'll be gradually switching off GW as you recommend, but for a few key colours (mostly a handful of complex neutrals and blends), I want to keep a small reserve of the old colour (just a pot each) in case I do need to match something exactly.

The inks on the other hand I've hoarded like a fiend.