Paints: A review

Well, seen as how I'm once again awake with insomnia, I thought i would take the time to do a review of the different brands of paint that I use. Kind of a compare and contrast between the differing brands. Mainly this is aimed at the people who use only GW's paints, which for the most part are not bad, but lack in a few key areas!

I've first of all reviewed each paint by brand, then a bit of a "summing up" at the end, to give you my feelings on them overall. Please note, that i haven't covered every brand that I use in total - some of the more esoteric ranges (Howard Hues, TensoCrom etc.) are very specific to certain jobs and hence would not really be of interest to most modellers. The ones i have covered are the main brands that should be available in most FLGS's.

Games Workshop

Well, these are the paints that I'm sure a lot of people started with! They come in flip top bottles, with each one containing 12ml of paint. They average £2.25 a pot (they can be found cheaper in bulk packages or from your FLGS). The range has been expanded in the last couple of years to include the "Foundation" ranges, which are highly pigmented colours designed for base coats, as well as the "Washes", which are highly thinned paints that replaced the old ink ranges; these are designed for washes over the miniature giving quick shading.

Mostly the standard range of colours are bright and highly pigmented; obviously designed for fantasy subjects!

I should probably get this out of the way the beginning, I hate flip top bottles - they are far too easy to knock over, they tend to dry out and worst of all, i get sloppy when using them and dip the brush straight in to the pot! (This is my number 1 tip for painting - always put your paint on a palette before using it).

With GW's colours (and other brands that use flip top bottles) I tend to decant the paint in to an empty Vallejo style bottle that I get from Sean over at SnM-Stuff. These is some wastage during the transfer process, but i find the dropper bottles much easier to control when painting, and they tend not to dry out anywhere near as quickly as flip top bottles.

In terms of quality, the GW paints are reasonable for the price. The coverage is generally good and they thin well with water. They are obviously readily available from GW stores, although they tend to be more expensive per ml than other brands. The foundation paints are nice to work with and I really recommend the washes to everyone, they made a big difference to the way that i paint.

Vallejo

Vallejo make 2 ranges of paints that I tend to think of (and use) interchangeably - they are the Game Colour (VGC) and the Model Colour (VMC) ranges. They also make the Model Air range designed for airbrushing. I will not be looking at this latter range, although i do have several in the range and they are very useful for airbrushing.

The VGC range is a more brightly coloured set of paints, mainly designed for painting fantasy models. It closely matches the GW series of paints (indeed many of the names are very similar). The VMC range is generally more designed for painting of scale military models (1/35 tanks etc) and hence has more muted colours; However, both ranges are sold in identical bottle sizes and they mix together with no problems at all. The bottles themselves are dropper types meaning you can control exactly the quantities that you want.

Both ranges are sold in 17ml bottles, with an average price of around £1.75 - as you can see, you not only get more, but it is cheaper than GW (5ml more for 50p less!!). They brush paint extremely well and mostly thin very well with water; The one exception is the black which splits horribly with water. For this I tend to dilute with the Vallejo thinner.

Tamiya

Tamiya paints are probably one of the most ubiquitous model paints outside of the fantasy miniature realm. Go to any model tank / plane / train shop and you will see racks of Tamiya paints next to the Humbrol enamels.

The Tamiya series of paints are of a different type of acrylic to both the Vallejo and GW. Whilst the VGC / VMC and GW series of paints can be happily mixed together with no side effects (in fact, the Vallejo and GW paints are almost identical in composition) the Tamiya paints will tend to curdle GW / Vallejo paints if mixed with them - however, they can be mixed with other Tamiya paints.

They need to be thinned with alcohol for painting and whilst they are indeed acrylics, they tend to be very poor for brush painting - they go "sticky" after only a moment or two! (As a side note, this can be used to create great blood effects; mix 1 part X-19 (Smoke) and 2 parts X-27 (Clear Red), leave for two minutes then brush paint for the best blood you will ever see!).

Tamiya paints come in 10ml screw top glass jars, for around £1.50. The jars are an absolute nightmare. Not only are they terrible to pour from due to the thick glass rim they also tend to get jammed immediately after the first use. Decanting immediately to vallejo style bottles is a must in this case!!

All the above makes it sound like i don't really like the Tamiya paints - but nothing could be further from the truth. Where they come in to their own is through an airbrush, where they become wonder paints. The finish is absolutely perfect flat finish, and the tones of the colours are very closely matched to the AFV I tend to use them for.

Privateer Press P3

Privateers P3 range is a fairly new range of paints. They are sold in packaged "faction" sets to match Privateers game ranges. Each pack contains six paints, sold in a pot very similar to the old style GW flip top paints.

The P3 range tend to have paired colours. Usually this will be a "base" colour and a "highlight" colour, so for example, you get Menoth White Base and Menoth White Highlight. In most cases the colours will tend to be very well matched together, although obviously using colour blends between the two will give you the best results. This is a very nice touch in the P3 range.

The colours are also amazingly well designed in terms of their balance. Every time i open a new bottle for the first time I tend to be surprised how well it works on the model - the pigmentation is thick but thins very well with water without separation. This is less surprising when you learn that the range was designed by Mike McVey (who is one of my painting heroes!).

Individual pots cost around £2.20 (for about 15ml) putting them up with GW in terms of cost per ml.

Overall

So, how do these paints compare to each other? Lets deal with Tamiya first - to be honest, unless you are airbrushing the only paints from Tamiya you need are the two for doing blood. In general they are not great for brush painting and they can be frustrating to work with.

With that out of the way, we are left with GW vs Vallejo vs P3 - all of whom sell a creamy workhorse acrylic paint that will mix well with any of the 3 brands.

Vallejo are my work-a-day paints. I have a near complete set and would not be without them. I find that they work out a lot cheaper than GW pot by pot and given how slowly i use most of them, doing internet ordering is not that much of a problem. The bottles are much better, being droppers from the start and the colours are rich and give reasonable coverage, even when thinned. In many ways other than the cost there is little to differentiate the GW and VGC ranges and hence GW loses out. Having said that, the GW washes are not to be missed - they are a very useful addition to any painters tool kit, and can general some very nice effects, especially Devlan Mud and the Black.

And so we come to the P3 paints. These are my current "Go-to" paints. I absolutely love them! In fact, i can see the day where i use them nearly exclusively. They feel like the gold-top of paint; the colour choices are excellent (and blend well together), the nice touch of base/highlight combos and the highly pigmented paint itself all contribute to making these (IMHO) the best miniature paints on the market today. If you haven't tried these yet, I highly recommend you grab a pack (my suggestion would be "Protectorate Colors" for the wonderful Menoth and Sanguine combos).

Hopefully this review will encourage people to step outside of the GW realm and try some other brands of paints - there are some wonderful products out there than can add a real splash of colour to your models!

Problem Child Alice

Sorry for the long time since my last blog post. Unfortunately I've been having problems with my blogging client / picasa, meaning that i couldn't upload any images (Sidenote, apparently Picasa cant handle colour profiles being embedded in PNG files, thanks to Ben for letting me know!)...Anyway, on to the mini!

Another classic Kev White sculpt. This one is from Hasslefree Miniatures, who always provide great quality and enjoyable models to paint. If you don't know their work, I highly advise that you check out their website.

Alice was painted using Vallejo acrylics plus some Tamiya colours for the blood effects. I was aiming for a saccharine sweet, almost "candy" look to her, which I think i've achieved (to a greater or lesser extent!)

On an aside, I would be interested to hear comments about the quality of the photography. I've been doing a lot of reading and learning about taking photos, and I think these are some of the best photos of my models that I've taken so far. At some point i plan to go back and reshoot all of my other models, to improve the quality, anyway I hope you enjoy the pictures...

For Sale (Pt 1)

Hi guys,

So, I've finally reached the point where some of my wargaming stuff has to go. We live in a very small flat, and filling it with lots of wargames terrain (especially when i only play 40K a couple of times a year) is more than my (long suffering) other half can stand any more!

So, Ive got quite a few bits and pieces for sale - Anything that doesnt sell through the blog will end up on eBay eventually, but probably at a slightly higher price. Anyway, prices are listed along with photos for each item. P+P will be at the cost - or if you are in London, UK and want to pick up any of the items, just let me know and I can arrange something. Once you have let me know that you want something I will check with Royal mail how much the exact postage is. I'm happy to ship to Europe or the USA, but postage will obviously be more expensive.

Payment via bank transfer or Paypal, which ever you prefer.

If you want to ask any questions, please leave me a comment or email me at paul [at ] expdigital [dot] co [dot] uk

More items to be listed in the next few days, once I've sorted through and determined what i actually have!

Foam board building 1, painted - £7.50 [UNDER OFFER]

Foam card building 2, painted - £7.50 [UNDER OFFER]

Cities of Death building 1, unpainted - £7.50 [SOLD]

Cities of Death building 2, unpainted - £7.50 [SOLD]

High density foam defense perimeter. Consists of 4 straights (1 smashed), 1 center point, 4 angled sections, painted, flocked - £30 (for the set)

Resin barricades / tank traps + 2x razor wire lengths, painted, flocked - £20 for set or £12.50 for half sets [UNDER OFFER]

High density foam rock outcrops + 3 craters, painted, flocked - £10 for the set [UNDER OFFER]

Citadel plastic hill, painted, flocked - £10 [UNDER OFFER]

Or you can have the whole lot (everything listed above) for the grand sum of £60 (a total saving of £40!)

Space Hulk... cometh...

So, I caved and bought Space Hulk. Even after my complaints about it (in this post). What can I say - I'm weak, and after reading through the stuff GW was putting online each day I decided to take the plunge and place a pre order.

On arriving at work yesterday I found a large box sitting on my desk. Somehow i restrained myself through the day, and then spent a pleasurable evening popping card sections of board out of the packaging!

Some pictures of the "un-boxing" (have i spent too much time on Engadget??!)

So, now that I have Space Hulk, have i changed my opinion about the price and the idea of GW doing a limited edition. Well, yes - GW have done an excellent job with this reissue. The entire package oozes quality from the moment you pop the box lid.

For a start we have the quality of the actual box - its substantial thick card and very heavy. Unlike the older boxes (blood bowl, I'm thinking of you), I have some confidence that this box will withstand being taken to friends houses, on trains and chucked in to cupboards!

Next up we have the models. Im sure by now you have all seen the pictures on the web. Well the models are even nicer in real life. The sculptors really did an excellent job with these models.

Then there is the part that i was the most impressed with - the card components. My experience on GW card components in the past has never been good. I was expecting the card components to be like the old Warhammer card templates, thin card, no thicker than cereal card. But GW have actually done really well on this one using card that is very thick and lustrously glossy for the board pieces. I've included a picture below to show the thickness - That's a 1p piece its sat next to, and I'm sure you can see the thickness of the card!

All the extras are nicely presented and its nice that you get zip lock bags in the box for storing the counters!

The rules are (as far as I can see) the original rules with all of the expansions rolled in. This is good news as it means all the user generated missions available online (of which a lot are available) can still be used! They are presented in two lovely soft booklets (A4 size), one for the main rules and one for the mission book.

I'm not normally one to congratulate GW (indeed sometimes it seems like all I do is complain about GW!), but credit where credit is due, GW have produced an excellent product here, one which I feel is worth every penny of the £60 I spent on it. Every part of the packaging and game appears to have had much love lavished on it, and this comes across. I would even go so far as to say that this is the best "standalone" boxed game that GW has ever done (possible even best presented game all round). So well done to GW. Other manufacturers should take note!

The Raven Priest....

Hi guys,

New model to show you - The raven priest. This is the first of the new Studio Mcvey range of miniatures, and what a model it is! I haven't enjoyed painting a model this much in quite a while.

My model was number 40 of the limited run of 750, cast in a smooth grey resin. The casting was excellent with no defects and only minimal flash (Forge World could learn a few things here...). The only problem that i found was that the sword was so thin that every-time i used my hairdryer to speed up drying time it would bow slightly and would need reheating and pushing back to being straight! In short, this is the best resin casting I have come across, beating my previous favourite resin caster (SmartMax) by a good margin.

I decided to paint the model in very natural colours, and placed the model in a "woodland" scene. The tree was scratch built to go along with it, with the aim of making the tree look wizened (if its possible for a tree to have human qualities!) . I was aiming to give the character the impression of being some sort of native american shaman (well, a fantasy version of...). And yes, painting all the feather tips was an absolute nightmare!

In summary I would highly advise anyone who loves high quality models to pay a visit to Mike and Ali over at Studio McVey - hopefully there will be many more models of this quality. From what i can see on the site, they still have the Raven priest available, so grab it now before they are all gone.

PS - I have to apologise for the quality of the photo's for this model - I finally got a new camera (Nikon D60) and I'm having real problems getting images with natural colours on them - everything ends up bleached or over "coloured". I'm still learning about the photography side of the hobby, so please bear with me! Hopefully you can still see the model through the awful photos ;)

Space Hulk

So the mystery box was announced, and as everyone had been predicting, its Space hulk!
I'm in two minds about this release. The new models look nice, but the price is quite high (£60!). Can anyone confirm if the rules have changed or are they exactly the same old rules? Not sure i can be bothered to buy if its just the same old rules (£60 for some terminators and a couple of genestealers???!).
If they are new rules then its a totally different case and i need to get my order in!

Is anyone else getting excited about this? I've not seen a massive buzz about it amongst the bloggers, which is odd, especially given the "limited" nature of it. Also, is there only me that thinks its a little odd to do a release of a big box like this in limited numbers?

GW, a question of value...

So, I wanted to talk today about Games Workshop. Not focussing on a single product, but on the whole GW ecosystem.

First let me give you a bit of background. I am a long time fan of GW; I've been playing their games since i was 6 years old (some 23 years ago now!). I've played all of their major games systems and owned most of them, as well as building large armies for both 40K and fantasy. I also kept up with all of the smaller systems that they produced (with the notable exception of Dark Future - if anyone has a copy they want to sell me for a reasonable price, please email me). I'm also an ex-staffer of GW, I worked for several years at the Manchester store, then the Warrington store and finally the London Ealing store. I had a lot of fun working at GW, and I've always felt (whether as a customer or an employee) that GW was basically a company that i respected.

Recently though, I've been feeling more and more that I'm no longer the target base for Games workshop, and that the money gouging has got to be too much. I can fully understand why GW has moved over to having plastic armies, in many ways its utterly sensible - no more replication of models, easier to assemble and with the improvements in the plastic moulding process the models have become a lot better than the ones I remember from my youth (anyone else remember the plastic gretchin from the 3rd edition of 40K?). However, in my mind I've always felt that the plastic kits should be a lot cheaper than they actually are. For example the new Cadian squad box has had its price reduced to £11.75, but the number of models in the box has also been reduced, by half - but the price has not been reduced by half (It used to be a box of 20 models). And worse still, to make a full squad with proper weaponry (i.e. without the rubbish grenade launchers!) you still have to go out and buy a special weapons pack at £7.85. So a total cost £19.60 for a single squad. And you need 3 to for a single troop choice.

I also have a bit of a problem with their armour models. For example the new Leman Russ is quite a nice model. But its £30! Now given the cost, I would actually expect that the moulding and construction would be a lot better than what i saw in the store the other day. For example the image to the left - notice that the glacis doesn't fit properly and the two halves of the gun barrel don't join properly. When you compare this to (for example) some of the recent Tamiya models that are roughly the same price, you start to wonder what exactly your £30 is going on. For example, the Tamiya kits generally include etched brass, some include turned brass barrels and many also feature bonus figures or accessories. I understand that there is an issue of scale here (as in I assume Tamiya sell a lot more kits that GW), but even so, I do feel that the value in the Tamiya kits is much higher per £1 spent.

Now don't get me wrong, GW still produce some products that i think are very well priced and worth their cost. Black Library produce some excellent fiction works and Forge World (whilst pricey) sells products that, for me, correspond in quality to the price charged (well, some of the models do. The Titans and a few other things are ridiculous prices!). Some of the paints (washes / foundation) are excellent as well and well worth the money, I just feel that the vast majority of GW's products have lost their value, or rather the price has increased to the point where the cost out weighs the quality.

As a more detailed example, I wanted to talk about the new brushes that GW have started producing. Its been a long time since I purchased GW brushes. I always found that they split, mainly due to the fact that they were synthetics. Over time i found other manufacturers that used Kolinsky sable (such as the Prince August brushes, Windsor and Newton and my favourites em4). However, when I was in the store the other day, the staff told me about their new "hand tied, Kolinksy brushes", which he promised me wouldn't split. I took a look and they looked like reasonable brushes, so I purchased a few to test with. Its a lot easier for me to nip in to GW when i need a new brush rather than the usual internet order, so I really wanted them to be good quality. Again, they are more expensive that the competitors. I got home and started to work on the new McVey miniature. Twenty minutes in, and what do you know, I've got a split brush! Now I'm a painter who takes very good care of my brushes. This brush had had very light usage and already its starting to fray. Given the cost, I would expect better.

Now I'm sure that a lot of people are going to be saying "Well if you don't like the cost, don't buy the products". And I would agree, that's a sensible position to take, and where possible, I try to buy from other companies. But I do fear for the future of GW when it scares away players with 20+ years of gaming experience. Surely we are the lifeblood of the gaming scene? Sure, the hobby needs the younger players coming in, but not at the expense of the old players. I also worry that GW has finally given up any pretence of actually caring about its games, and its all about "the bottom line" these days. It probably sounds very cynical, but I definitely noticed a change at GW when it was floated on the stock market; and that change seems to have continued the drive to the bottom of quality over the years.

Maybe I've just grown out of the GW spoon fed ecosystem and have realised that i can get better quality at a cheaper price elsewhere? Maybe GW has actually changed? I'm really not sure, but i do know that GW will now be getting less of my disposable income, which is a shame as they are a company that i have had a long association with.

As always comments are welcome! I'm really interested to see what other people think on this subject. Am I just becoming a grumpy old man?

PS - Just wanted to add this small point. I think a great example of the GW "rush to the bottom" is White Dwarf magazine. When I started buying White Dwarf (around issue 100) it had a lot of articles about gaming in general, there were small games published (Confrontation anyone?) and was generally an interesting read. Now WD seems to be nothing more than a catalogue that i pay £4 for. I can read it in a single tube journey back from work, and with the exception of Jervis' Standard Bearer article has little of interest. The main focus seems to be selling you more plastics now, and I for one, find this a real shame