As we were saying, there is no single best brand because the term best is entirely dependant on you and what you want to get out of your painting. The choice is simply overwhelming not only do you have to pick what brand to go for, youre also daunted with several different types of paints, for different needs often with five, ten, 15 different shades for each overall colour. Horus Heresy Open Day 2022 Visitor Recap. They are available from miniature hobby stockists such as Element Games. This is especially good for jewels. Explaining this brand would be rather pointless. this is the only brand where I get excited just because they release a few new colours. do you want dense pigment for coverage in fewer layers or weaker pigment for layering and glazing? They also have their Fantasy & Games range (48 paints) which are slightly more diluted, but brighter hues with a satin finish. Thanks to the community and everyone who advised on this. Another series of paints with incredible coverage. You can start with other brands, but, as a beginner, youll need to manage with knowing the paint name equivalents too. Available as individual pots or in faction-specific collections of 6 paints. If you are looking to airbrush entire armies to get them out of the door quickly. 7, Please Note: This site uses affiliate links. Mig are specialists in the weathering field so if you want to grime up your minis, especially vehicles. This set is gaining popularity fast as more people hear of them. This essentially means they showcase 3 paints which work together, such as a base colour, then a supporting shadow and highlight colour. The ranges with standout weathering and texture effects are worth a look if you want to go down those routes for battle damaged and weathered models. Spikey Bits is a site about the hobby of tabletop wargaming. Scale 75 is yet another company focused on miniatures & models. So, before we dive in, lets name our top picks: Many Warhammer fans will tell you that the Citadel spray cans are the way to go when undercoating your models before painting them. Additionally, they have their Quickshades. The order is purely based on popularity. Painting your miniatures base colours all comes down to which colour youre working with. FauxHammer.com is dedicated to finding the best tools for your hobby. They have a paint range of over just under 400 paints with 100 (what they call) real colours. AK is another brand who specialise in paints for historic scale models. Its only expected that their paints are the most commonly used brand. The acrylic colours range comes in the standard 17ml dropper bottles. erm smell (apparently) of the Original 1988 Citadel Colour range. Warcolours are another great range dedicated to miniature painting. See our in-depth Reaper Master Series Review. In some situations, Contrast paints are actually the best shade possible so experiment with combining layer paints with shades of Contrast, to find those stunning effects. Ardcoat, meanwhile, is a gloss varnish thats perfect for making gems look shiny. The real stand out products in the Citadel line is their shade (wash) paints. They also have a nostalgia 88 range. If so, what? Whilst we would mostly use acrylic paints on miniatures, some oil paints on miniatures are worth serious consideration. All products can be purchased from Green Stuff World directly and come in individual (various sized) dropper bottles, They also sell some theme sets. Some are strong, Some are weak. Want to keep updated with the blog? Scalecolor (63 paints) & Warfront (63 paints) are pigment dense and have a matte finish. Learn how your comment data is processed. The range gets some stick but its a decent range of paints that is readily available in most regions. The lowest in popularity on this list but arguably the absolute best paints I have ever used, especially for base coats. As advertised these paints have a slightly slower drying time than most, making them more workable on the model leaving fewer streaks. All prices are correct at time of publication. So it looks likeArmy Painter hasthe lowest price of paint per ML out of the other brands. He will also paint literally anything you put in front of him. We compare the major paints to see who should win your hobby dollars now. Here are some great paint choices. Not convinced. Recommended Products For The Miniatures Hobby! Looking for the best paints for your miniatures? there may be better ones for the job you are doing. Weve not used any other brand in our time painting miniatures, and everything they offer from the black shade of Nuln Oil and brownish Agrax Earthshade, to more obscure colours like yellows and greens give a famously magical, depth-creating finish thats earned them the nickname liquid talent. Whereas the real colour paints come in 10ml pots (similar to the Tamiyas Mini pots). They have over 240 standard hues, many of which are matched to real-world colours. Tools like Army painter Quickshades and their 100% Primer to paint match will get an army on the table very quickly. They currently consist of 24 colours & 5 metallics. However, they have partnered with some newer tabletop miniature games. So, the summary is no different than the opening really. They are more popular across Europe simply due to local availability. Campaign colours: These are the best D&D miniatures. Which matches the colour, bottles, feel consistency and. This is very similar to how the Citadel Paint System works (Games Workshop just dont call it a triad, they call it the Citadel Paint System, but its the same thing). The set consists of 124 paints in total, splitting down into 96 standard paints, 8 metallic paints, 11 washes & 9 effects paints. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. You can get all of these products individually or in various sets. The paints are almost directly comparable to the Citadel range in regard to coverage and consistency but many users say that Army Painter is the better of the two. they are one of the more inexpensive products on the market. The standard line, and Zombiecide paints are 18ml. Along with their out of this world effects paint, such as Spider Serum for creating realistic webbing. This range has over 180 paints in 15ml dropper bottles. I appreciate the kudos! Transparent is great for layered shading but terrible for piping (details, patches etc.). Featured, Tools, Top 10 Leadbelcher is a great, dark silver, while Stormhost Silver is phenomenal for highlighting both golds and silvers, and even other metal colours like brass. They offer ranges of Washes, Pigments, Effects and their excellent Airbrush Primers and Varnishes. But there are also a bunch of other incredible non-Games Workshop brands out there that you should also be aware of before you step up to the register. Whilst the Pro Acryl range is still relatively new on the scene, they are lauded for having really dense pigment, ensuring great colour coverage in just a few layers. They have a generally neutral approach, to all wargames brands. I want to provide more details about each brand, but there are many cases that its not just about the brand. Here is a full breakdown of some of the top miniature paint manufacturers out there updated for 2022, along with conversion charts and pricing comparisons. Start with our list of Essential Hobby Tools which will lead you to find the Top-10 tools for each category. Like their Stynylrez Airbrush primer paints (which I love). What did you think of this article? This is part of our series of top 10 tools for miniature painting. But they arent prohibitive costs (unless you want to buy individual bottles). Below I will summarise those strengths and weaknesses of each brand as considered by the miniature painting community. Please be considerate that the product in the Number 1 spot is not better than the product in the number 15 spot. Our favourites are Stirland Mud for a deep rich brown colour, Astrogranite for a classic Warhammer 40K urban look, and Valhallan Blizzard for some surprisingly lifelike, fluffy snow. It really goes to show you can use just about anything you can get your hands on. Secret Weapon is another company focussed on miniature painting products Mainly resin products for modding existing wargames such as Warhammer or Infinity. They provide a great paint set consisting of 208 different paints in the Reaper Master Series. Like the name says, this is a company dedicated to miniature painting with a huge range to back it up. They come in 12ml flip-cap pots (although you can easily transfer them to dropper bottles, as many people have). I had this echoed to me on a recent miniature painting course I was on. It took 3 evenings just to calculate the results. Then a few bottles of this would be perfect for your initial base coats and highlights. its not that hard and makes your models look great. Then dive in with one of the special wargames brands, or get your Vallejo collection started early. All paints are suitable for Brush or Airbrush. For miniature painting they are really smooth, pigment-dense paints that generally finish with a matte to satin texture. With oil paints, miniatures may take longer to dry and therefore extend the time it takes to paint a mini. If you like what Im doing here you could really help encourage more content with a share on any social media platform. To see all of our guides to the Best Tools for Miniatures, click on the image above. We mainly cover Warhammer 40k, Fantasy, Age of Sigmar, Warmachine, Hordes, X-Wing, Infinity, Horus Heresy, and Star Wars Armada. These are essentially large tins of their excellent wash colours with an included varnish. Yet you dont see as many people kicking off at them as do at GW for not having Dropper Bottles. Oh and just for funsies, we did the math on what a gallon of GW paint would cost you. They also have ranges of metallics & crystal paints too. After all, the real question you want answering here is what paint brands you should invest in and why? So that you can spend that hard-earned cash appropriately. Plus,they dont come in the dropper bottlesthat all the other brands use. Colours like Auric Armour Gold and Runefang Steel sometimes leave a little to be desired. Please try out at least 1 paint from the other dedicated brands to see which feels right to you. They come in 30ml dropper bottles with flip-cap & pour lids. Have you switched your Citadel paints to dropper bottles?Let us know in the comments of ourFacebook Hobby Group,and make sure youenter the latest monthly giveaway for FREE today! Ive done this type of post a few times before. For beginners, its clearly better to stick with the brands that match your models as there will be simple guides to follow in order to quickly get some confidence with using brushes and how each paint behaves. These products can push things to a whole new level. And that the manufacturers of these paints were the guys who Supplied Games Workshop with that Citadel range. A stand out of the Mig range is their set of weathering effects, effects that every painter should have in their miniatures paint kit. Please be aware that all of the paints below are considered amongst the best acrylic paints for miniatures available. A while back, GW increased the prices on basically all of their products. No matter if you use a brush, an airbrush, paint plastic miniature or paint metal miniatures. Do you want to improve the weathering effects on your minis? From several comparisons online, these are comparable to the Classic Citadel Colours. When looking for the best paints for miniatures, Reddit was a good source but the opinions were quite uneven across the board. you can be rougher with your paints whilst in use and spend more time getting blends perfect. It makes it simple to get your armies looking how you want. For moreWarhammer, MTG, and DnD, follow us onSteam,Facebook, andTwitter. Almost directly comparable to ranges like Creature Casters Pro Acryl set. The main question I have is, due to my experience of my corax white being chunky AF, is that a common problem with Citadel or just white specifically as Reddit posts seem to suggest? These paints come in 17ml dropper bottles with a unique twist cap lid which prevents all clogging. Which are similar to Games Workshops Gem Paints. So watch this space and well have our impressions and comparison up as soon as we can. People are quickly falling in love with these paints as they are some really good paints for miniatures. I know some of their paints are thick and needed thinning. Choosing the best paints for miniatures is a difficult game. With these, you simply paint a miniatures base colours, dip it into the tin, then shake off the excess. So Ive been running polls in Facebook Groups. If you are reading this article, its highly likely that you already use Citadel Paints. In many cases, the choice will be dependant on your budget and local availability. Youll find lots of similarities between AK and Mig. The range is more limited than Citadel with less than 100 total paints, which includes metallics, washes and inks. Copyright 2009-2022. Freelance writer, Sam is GQs resident video game columnist. Both of these ranges have an Airbrush equivalent range (Model Air and Game Air respectively). Green Stuff World specialise in products that are somewhat outside of the usual hobby box. These are available directly from the Warcolours website, As Individual bottles or in sets. Their mech Acrylics range has 30 Colours and their Weathering Acrylics also have 30 paints. The most commonly known ranges are Model Color (known for their historic model colour matches) and the Game Color range (for wargames & fantasy models). This May Be The New Way To Play GW Games, Turn Your Tank Into A Masterpiece With Blood & Skulls Industry, GSW Has New Alternative Contrast Paint Dipping Inks, Games Workshop Launches a $1500 Painting Class, Final Days For $10 Miniatures for $15 In Julys Patreon, How to Paint Death Guard Armor: Sergio Calvo Tutorial, We Hacked the Games Workshop 3 Year Sales Plan. But you can brush them on if you wish. Its worth trying out both the standard and air range too, even if you paint with a brush, the consistency of the air range in many cases is suited to super smooth brush layering, glazing and blending. They even supply grass and leaves. If you want the best results, youre best off using Vallejo surface primers in black, white or grey. Then parted ways and started his own company. If youre ok with dealing with the guides using different colour names than you have (or you could just write the alternatives on the bottle). enter the latest monthly giveaway for FREE today! Mig has an almost overwhelming range of paints. They also have a series of Army Painter Dungeons & Dragons, these, however, are in 12ml bottles. So, If all you want to know is which of the below brands is the single best paints for miniatures figures. All rights reserved. these are definitely worth your consideration. A favourite amongst converters. Privateer Press Paints (P3) The Formula P3 range is to Warmachine & Hordes, what Citadel is to Warhammer. See below for the best of miniatures painting paints. Super opaque, they thin easily and dry nice and level. Everybody has their own preferences. This is available on their website. Better still, if youre not a member of the airbrush-owning elite, they can also be used with a brush just be careful to thin it down properly, and make sure you arent ruining any of those small nooks and crannies with too much thick paint. (Its the best bottle type in this whole list). With Shades being so runny in consistency, they often pool when used on big, open surfaces. The even come on the classic (80s Citadel era) flip-cap bottles. These are excellent for creating realistic looking base textures.