Spray paints at hardware/craft stores?

[nomadik]

I'm just curious if there are any spray paint cans at either a hardware store or Michaels that is acrylic and will work with miniatures? I'd love to get some base colors in a can to use for my miniatures, but GW has ridiculous prices on their cans of paint.

[Wirelizard]

Acrylic spraypaint mostly sucks, in my opinion. The stuff I've tried is thick and glops on.

Stick with enamel spraypaints.

For primer, almost any commercial primer should work. I just buy whatever's on sale and cheap when I need a new can, and haven't had issues yet.

For non-primer (actual paint), regular spraycans should work; just apply them in quick, thin coats. Multiple thin coats are always a better idea than one thick one, with paint or primer.

[Alfrik]

I've used Design Master spray Inks, very smelly, but give a wide assortment of colors tending towards dark shades of any given color. They are a bit shiny but let me work up and over with various dry brush or washes. Takes a bit of experimenting to find which colors might work best for what your doing or if there is even any color close to what you want for, say, basic uniform color. Rustolem has a line of Satin Finish, again a very slight sheen but allows fast work up, esp for terrain pieces. Check off store brands, I have occasionally stumbled across limited brands with Flat Finishes.  Not a scientific report but some of what I have tried out.

[former user]

Acrylic spraypaint mostly sucks, in my opinion. The stuff I've tried is thick and glops on.
Stick with enamel spraypaints.

I very much agree.
I work a lot with spray cans, and it is always enamel.
the trick with enamel spray is that the binder is mainly a carrier that evaporates, so the pigment has to be fine, whereas acrylic is meant to provide the coating, so carrier, acrylic binder and pigment are gloopy and build up a tension, that differs from subsequently brush applied acrylic coatings and cracks up their surface.
If You want to use this as an effect, it is just fine, but usually You don't 
I tried acrylic spray, but the only actual gain is that You can cover styrofoam with it, and then You have to wait a lot until the coating is actually dry.

You can get a lot of enamel sprays very cheaply with sales, but You have to look out. And even normally priced they are always cheaper than acrylic sprays.

[Dewbakuk]

I use Halfords primers, which are acrylic. They're designed for use on cars and are brilliant for coloured primer layers.

Halfords is a UK car/bike chain.