want to try new acrylic paints, advice?

[psyberwyche]

I've just this week bought Coat d'Arms for the first time, with a small discount from Wayland Games. They are exactly the same colour and formulation paints that I used to buy from GW way back in the mid-90s. Really good, and pretty cheap - certainly scratched that nostalgia itch too :-)

[Glitzer]

How easy are they to water down, because aren't they normally quite thick compared to models acrylics?

They behave exactly like my other acrylics, you can thin them with water or clear acrylic varnish, you can mix them with inks or other acrylics. But I usually do not thin them. I like my colours with a high opacity.

So far I've only used Goya by Kreul, I have no idea how other paints behave though.

[FramFramson]

I mourn IWM/RalPartha, though.

Oh man, I used to use the old Ral Partha paints and man were they ever great! They had a whole bunch f unique metallic colours I miss.

I've never found a replacement for their slightly green bronze colour either.

[zemjw]

Regarding "proper" artist's acrylics, this link may help, although I've never tried the technique myself.

Personally, it's 99% Vallejo these days, with the occasional gw, Andrea or foundry pot involved.

Foundry supply most of their paints with base, shade and highlight, so that can save a bit of time (although there are some of the sets where I can't tell the difference).

I use the Andrea flesh and black sets. You get base + two or 3 highlights/shades in each, so they're quite flexible.

I have used Tamiya for airbrushing and once (and only once) for brush brushing. They're great in the airbrush but incredibly thin when brushing. The lids are also a pain to remove if any paint hardens in the thread.

I use Humbrol spray black for undercoating and find it gives a smooth matt coat. Their bottle black, however, tends to be thin and satin/semi gloss.

I still prefer gw's old washes, although the Vallejo ones aren't too bad. I had a very bad experience with gw's nuln oil recently, which left a lot of white residue when it dried. I'm hoping that's just because I didn't shake it long enough, but it was very annoying

I prefer the dropper bottles to the open top ones, mainly because it's much easier to dispense paint onto the wet palette from the dropper bottle, as opposed to scooping paint out of the open top bottle 

Not sure how much/if any of that helps

[TheBlackCrane]

Echo the issue with Tamiya lids - a real pain when they get stuck. On the other hand, I find some of the paints quite useful - mostly the darker shades though, as it seems to be a bit hit & miss as to which are good and which are just plain odd.

I tend to use Tamiya's Hull Red as an undercoat when I'm painting red, and that works very nicely, also as a shading colour. Green is fine for the darker shades too, the lighter are just too bright and plastic looking though. Metal colours are much of a muchness with other ranges.

As for brushing, they can be a bit thin and smeary at times, needing a couple of coats to give proper coverage, so I wouldn't use them for the main job, and only tend to use the dark reds and greens as an undercolour, but for that they can be quite useful.

[obsidian3d]

Based on your criteria, I would recommend the P3 line from Privateer Press. They are flip-top pots, bigger than GW by several mL, but the same price or cheaper. Very nice flow and excellent coverage. The only issue I have with the range is that their colours are different from almost all the other lines. They mix great though, so if you don't mind mixing paints these are probably the right ones for you.

[King Tiger]

I think I'll go either tamiya or Coat d arms, P3 paints I know of no stockists near me and online they average £2.50, that's more expensive than the above two.

So since I know nothing of the coat d range what would people suggest as 10 colours I should get to start, and what do I get to highlight them?.

So for example I would need names for:
White (in this case I'd need the shade since white is the highlight)
The darkest grey they do (i don't like straight black)
Medium flesh tone
Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Medium silver/gunmetal
Medium bronze
Medium Brown

And then what colours would highlight them as I would shade with a wash

Tamiya colours I can access by hand, so I can do them myself if needed.

[Hammers]

What a bunch of delicate maidens, complaining about Tamaiya odours. It smells a little like window cleaner, so what? 

[leegwonfu]

I've been using Vallejo for a long time now, and find their coverage on most colors to be fairly good. P3 paints are pretty good, as well, but I  find that they don't cover as well as Vallejo.

I do like the Foundry paints - they (mostly) cover well, and they have a great array of triad colors to choose from. The funny thing with their triads are, though, that I find that the highlight color usually throws off the other two, and gives me a color that I don't like (hence I use a different color than the one recommended, usually).

I also base everything in black. I have found that if I want to paint a light color, I simply paint Vallejo's light grey, let it dry, and paint on the light color. It works every time.

[King Tiger]

I would love to use foundry, but I cannot afford them unfortunately,  £8 a triple pack is good, but if I want 10 new colours to start that's £80, and even if I use two colours and a wash that's still £70, I'm looking to only spend about £50

[Vern]

I don't have any brand loyalty and like to use of loads of different paints (Foundry, GW, Vallejo, Reaper etc) but, Vallejo Model Air Metallics are the best 'metals' I've used (you won't like the bottles though).

I think I've a few pots of unopened P3 (I'll have to check they're still liquid) if you want to do a deal 

[King Tiger]

I think I'll go either tamiya or Coat d arms, P3 paints I know of no stockists near me and online they average £2.50, that's more expensive than the above two.

So since I know nothing of the coat d range what would people suggest as 10 colours I should get to start, and what do I get to highlight them?.

So for example I would need names for:
White (in this case I'd need the shade since white is the highlight)
The darkest grey they do (i don't like straight black)
Medium flesh tone
Red
Yellow
Blue
Green
Medium silver/gunmetal
Medium bronze
Medium Brown

And then what colours would highlight them as I would shade with a wash

Tamiya colours I can access by hand, so I can do them myself if needed.

No suggestions at all?

[dijit]

No suggestions at all?

It depends on what you're painting really. If it's various historicals, then it's good to get colours that match the uniforms of what you're painting. It also depends on whether you're to strong colours or muted colours. Theoretically you can get away with:
Black
White
Red (Prime)
Yellow (Prime)
Blue (Prime)
Silver

But that makes for a lot of mixing.

[Mitch K]

It depends on what you're painting really. If it's various historicals, then it's good to get colours that match the uniforms of what you're painting. It also depends on whether you're to strong colours or muted colours. Theoretically you can get away with:
Black
White
Red (Prime)
Yellow (Prime)
Blue (Prime)
Silver

But that makes for a lot of mixing.

Remember you need purplish red and an orangey red, a greenish yellow and an orangey yellow, a purplish blue and a greenish blue. Oh, and burnt sienna and burnt umber. But it still takes a lot of mixing

[King Tiger]

I paint anything, so 10 mid colours and 10 highlights from my list are fine, I just don't know what the names compare to