About Paints

Sometimes I think I spent more money on paints then on figures – okay, not true, but I experimented a lot. This here is a brief summary of my experience, and it refers to painting flats (I'm relatively new to painting 28 mm and 1/72 three dimensional figures).

1. Oil colours - the classic way. Oil colours dry slowly, and are therefore ideal for some blending and adjustment of paint on the figure. The tubes last a long time, and can be used even after a few years in the drawer. Opacity varies depending on the paint, which makes it difficult to paint over darker colours (let's say you want to put yellow laces on a brown jacket – your best bet is probably to paint the laces with titanium white first, and then paint them yellow). Also, painting with oil requires time and patience – if you want to add another coat to achieve a better coverage, you'll have to wait for about a day.
2. Acrylics in tubes – opacity is similar to oil colours. These paints are drying very fast, which makes blending on the figure difficult. If you use a brush with a fine point, the paint has a tendency to dry on the point.
3. Model colours (I do have some Vallejo, Andrea, and Foundry) – they cover well and dry fast. Again, blending on the figure is difficult and the paint tends to dry on fine points of the brushes (I never had much look with drying retarders). I like to use them with three-dimensional figures, where washing and highlighting is more effective than blending on the figure. The colour tends to separate if not in use for a long time, and mixing it again can be difficult. Foundry offers paints in different shades (they are sold in packs of three - basic, shade, and light), which works well for some colours, but not for others. A wet palette works well with Vallejo and Andrea paints. Foundry comes in small pots (the lids tend to break off and they are a bit difficult to open, but re-mixing the colour is relatively easy), while Vallejo and Andrea are sold in small plastic bottles.
4. Slow drying Acrylics (the brand I use is Golden Open), for me the ideal paint – like oil colours it allows shading on the figure, and it is in tubes and last long. On the other hand it dries fast enough to allow me to finish a coat, a trouser... during the 1 hour or so that I paint during the evening. For under painting or the first cover I often use Golden Fluid – dries very fast and is usually in the same shade as Golden Open, so I can add another layer of paint pretty much right away (often necessary when painting over darker colour).

My 'preferred' ranking is: oil colours (assuming I have the time, which I don't, at least not right now) – Golden Open (I mainly use this now, at least for flats) – Model colours – regular Acrylics. this list is just a personal preference, good results can be achieved with all these paints. I sometimes mix-and-match, using model colours (usually Vallejo and Foundry) and Golden Open on the same figure. However, I do not mix colours of different manufacturers, and make sure that the Golden Open paints has been drying for a day or so before painting over it with model colour. You can paint oil colours over acrylics, but don't paint acrylics over oil colour (at least that's what all the literature said – I never tried it out).

Oh, and I'm just remembering, Enamel paints – I used these long ago, and seem to last well. However, I did not do any 'serious' projects with them, so I don't know how well they are suited for shading... May be I should try them out one day.

For priming I currently use Vallejo primer, either white or light grey. It is very thin flowing and does not cover any of the details – in fact sometimes a second coat is required. I used a white Plaka (Plaka is a Kasein [milk] based craft paint very common in Germany) – water mix before, works as well, but I like the results with Vallejo primer better.