Foundry colours

[Gluteus Maximus]

I'm no expert painter, but some triads have a good range of shades and some not so good. The one I use for buff coats is very good, with lots of contrast for some good shading effects. The Napoleonic Russian green is just three very dark greens - at last to my deteriorating eyesight - and isn't so good when used in combination.

I tend to shade mainly by slopping inks and washes on, so it's not too much of a problem for me. For the more talented blenders and shaders it may be. Generally I do quite like them and tend to pick up specific sets for my current needs when I get the chance.

[Argonor]

And they can be tricky to use, but that, I have found through experience, normally comes down to not watering the paints down sufficiently... especially for the lights and the shades.  The first thing I normally do when I open a new pot is fill it up with water. 

Overall though... if you want to paint lots of minis, I highly recommend them.

I second this.

However, I often find the contrast between two of the colours in a triad either too stron or too weak. In the former case, I simply make a 50/50 mix of the two in an empty pot (can be had from, for instance, Black Hat), so I get an extra step of colour. I the latter case, I usually make a darker or lighter version of the 'end-colour', again by using an empty pot and adding blue, brown, or black for darkening, yellow, bone or white for brightening - all depends of the nature of the triad.

I have over 100 pots with home-made mixs, either as extensions to triads, or built up or down from a colour that does not come in corresponding tones.

I recently bought some of Foundry's new 'ethnic' skin triads - and the Asiatic (Oriental?) Flesh works like a dream (I have to make a deep shade version by adding some Scorched Brown to the shade colour, though - I cannot paint human skin with less than 4 layers/tones). Did not try the other ones, yet.

[Argonor]

3. The Foundry paint system has a slightly satiny/reflective finish. This doesn't prove to be a problem if you use the Foundry paints exclusively, but it may look odd if you also use Vallejo or another paint line with a true matte finish.

5. The flip top lids on the paint bottles become brittle and break in short order. the little lip breaks off first, then the hinge snaps. I keep a bottle opener handy to pry off broken lids, and now even the lids themselves are crumbling away and I've been transferring the Foundry paints to dropper bottles as this happens.

Ad 3.:
I have not yet found Foundry to be more glossy/reflective than other brands - including the few Vallejo bottels I have. If that's a problem it should be easily remedied with some matte medium, I think.

Ad 5:
This I have also experienced - on GW bottles more than 15-12 years old. I simply pour the contains into a fresh new bottle when it happens.

I find it SO much easier to work from the pots than having to pour out paint on a palette (and I can never get enough water into a dripper so that I don't have to add water on the palette). Having triads, and other pre-mixed series of paints have fundamentally changed my approach to painting minis. And I don't say that you should use Foundry for this - you can mix your own or get triads from other sources - just that it works very well for me.

[Ray Rivers]

I find it SO much easier to work from the pots than having to pour out paint on a palette (and I can never get enough water into a dripper so that I don't have to add water on the palette). Having triads, and other pre-mixed series of paints have fundamentally changed my approach to painting minis. And I don't say that you should use Foundry for this - you can mix your own or get triads from other sources - just that it works very well for me.

Well said.

Sums it up nicely from my point of view as well.

[Muskie]

I bought a couple of Foundry triads and the Dallimore book.  I really liked the book especially if you come from the GW school of painting or the old GW school which I do.  I actually like a lot of old GW paints, the ones that haven't dried out at least.  I did an experiment with black and found the Foundry triad worked well for me for doing 'power armor'.  The other triad I bought originally was dusky flesh as I'm not a flesh painting expert, this didn't work for me, too brown.

I was going to do a big WW1 project and I did a lot of research and I'm building a trench table so it may still happen someday, anyway I bought a bunch of Foundry triads to try and get accurate uniforms and I got another one of their fleshes.  I like that flesh better it is triad 5.  Even better I like their English Uniform brown triad.  I also specialty ordered some Vallejo paints to do WW1 Canadian uniforms but I've yet to test them.

I think like any paint line, some colors are better than others.  I recently bought some Reaper Master Series dark reds as my old old GW Blood red dried out and I'm not a fan of their Foundation red.  I used some of the new GW washes on top of the Foundry Triads and occasionally an extra highlight too.

I'm generally regarded as a pretty good painter, but a bit old school.  People often comment that my stuff looks like it is from the 90s GW era...  I can paint more realistically but often that doesn't stand out on the table, so I go hyper-realistic.

Anyway I can find a link to a model I did with a lot of Foundation Triads, the Imperial Guardsmen who I used as a test Canadian WW1 guy is mostly Foundry Triads, all the uniform, the skin, the metallics and the glasses are GW colors.

http://blog.muschamp.ca/2010/04/08/finally-finished-two-miniatures/

I suggest you do what I did and order one or two triads, if one works well for you, use it, try a couple more, use the ones that work, leave the others in your paint rack.  I still use paints and inks that are over 15 years old almost every fig, though those pots are getting rarer and rarer.  I still swear by Rust Brown Ink.  Something like flat black you go through all the time, but even die hard GW fanboys like how I highlight black power armor they get upset when I tell them I did it with Foundry paint I specialty ordered from England or possibly the Warstore, they seem to be carrying it now...  Nope I think I ordered them all from England.

Cheers,

[Brandlin]

The other triad I bought originally was dusky flesh as I'm not a flesh painting expert, this didn't work for me, too brown.

Its supposed to be a dark african skin colour.  Its just called dusky so as not to get into any kind of racist connotations i think.

Yes, i know "dark african skin colour" is not precise either, and there are many shades of skin over an entire continent, just as in asian and elsewhere.

[Argonor]

Does someone happen to know what area is covered by

NEAR EASTERN FLESH PALETTE 123

In Danish, we have the Middle East (covering Palestine, Arabia, Iran/Iraq and the likes), and the Far East (the Orient).

[Cosmotiger]

If I'm not mistaken, I think Near East is kind of an old-fashioned term for the Middle East and Turkey.  That's certainly what the palette looks like to me, sort of a lighter brownish flesh tone.

[Darkoath]

I have also started using the Foundry Triads.  For the most part they work well for me.  They do need to be thinned and some of them can be shiney when dry.  I found that French Blue was very shiney.  However a coat of dull coat solves this problem.  I use about 10 different brands of paint.  However I am now using them all as triads.  I love Dallimore's book and highly recommend it.  Using triads has definately increased my production and use of time.  I needed to do this.  My over all quality has dropped some by not blending but I have thousands of miniatures to paint and really needed to speed up the time to paint a miniature.  I think I can get a high quality paint job finished more quickly using the triad system.  And over time I think my painting will keep improving using the triad system.

Also there was a thread here (in this board) some time ago listing triads people have found that work well.  It listed Foundry and other brands.  If I can find it I will post a link here.

Darkoath

[Ray Rivers]

Also there was a thread here (in this board) some time ago listing triads people have found that work well.  It listed Foundry and other brands.  If I can find it I will post a link here.

That was my thread, but it didn't seem to go over very well... 

User Triads

[Muskie]

Its supposed to be a dark african skin colour.  Its just called dusky so as not to get into any kind of racist connotations i think.

Yes, i know "dark african skin colour" is not precise either, and there are many shades of skin over an entire continent, just as in asian and elsewhere.

I fully understand, but I never got a good result yet with it.  Part of the problem is traditional flesh wash is for caucasian or Asian skin perhaps.  My army is dark enough without dark skin, but if others get a lot of use out of it.  I have the Kevin Dallimore book so I've seen his use of it.  Even he often mixes in a color from another triad...

Cheers,

[Captain Blood]

Can't be doing with shiny paints. Which is why I don't use Foundry or Coat D'Arms paints - nor the few Vallejo or GW colours that tend to shininess.
And yes, I suppose I could add matt medium (whatever the heck that is) but I'm afraid my feeling is: why the hell should I have to?! Call me intolerant, but surely manufacturers of a product labelled and sold as 'matt paint', should make sure their product is indeed matt paint. 

[Argonor]

And yes, I suppose I could add matt medium (whatever the heck that is) but I'm afraid my feeling is: why the hell should I have to?! Call me intolerant, but surely manufacturers of a product labelled and sold as 'matt paint', should make sure their product is indeed matt paint. 

I agree.

GW paints (and all kinds of craft acrylics) are the only ones available 'off the shelf' in the city I work in. I can get Vallejo if I go as far in the opposite direction from where I live, and off the web, Foundry and Black Hat (Coat d'Arms) are the easiest to get.... If I could find a paint system with real matt colours that I could easily restock 1 or 2 bottles at a time without having to pay excessive postage, I'd happily start using it.

For some reason only known to themselves, Danish hobby stores do not stock Humbrol acrylics, which are always totally flat matt (the matt ones, that is  ).

What brand(s) do you mainly use, Richard?

[Brandlin]

Well, I use nothing but foundry paints, and I can't understand this "issue" about them not being matt. They are. I've used them in the past with most of the major brands and they are as matt as anythign else.

Besides even if they aren't, every painter I know covers their work in tough shiny gloss varnish for protection and then has to put a matt varnish coat over the top to get rid of the gloss.  So the "matt-ness" of the underlying paint is kind of irrelevant.

I agree that only being able to get foundry mail order is a bit of a bind and a couple of colours in the range are poor - notably the scarlet and red.

[Captain Blood]

What brand(s) do you mainly use, Richard?

Niels, I use mainly Vallejo and Inscribe / Palmier 'craft' acrylic, plus a few favourite GW colours.

Besides even if they aren't, every painter I know covers their work in tough shiny gloss varnish for protection and then has to put a matt varnish coat over the top to get rid of the gloss.  So the "matt-ness" of the underlying paint is kind of irrelevant.

Not for me. I find it hard to see what I'm painting when the paint has a shine on it as it dries, and I also find the paint simply doesn't 'go on' as well when it's not properly matt. Particularly when it comes to highlighting. So for me, it's a very real and practical issue in the painting process - even if I am going to give the whole thing a coat of matt varnish at the end of the day.

To be honest, I don't see why we, as consumers, should be tolerant of poor quality manufacturing where the product simply does not do what it says on the tin. We wouldn't go into a DIY store to buy matt emulsion, come out and slap it on the wall and then say to ourselves, 'oh well, it's actually silk, but never mind - they tried to get it right...' 


Each to their own, as ever.