The guy with a Ton of Paints...

Yeah so I've got pretty much all of the major miniature paint brands represented in my collection, even the less popular Tamiya, Andrea, Foundry and Coat D'Arms brands.   Does this make me abnormal? -- wait till you see my 'reserves' in storage.   Anyway, my intent here is to show off my new painting space and also talk a little about the more popular brands of mini paint and give my own spin.

Let me start with my favorite, P3 (Privateer Press) paints.  Only in the last few years have I begun using these paints but I cannot live without them now.  Sanguine Base, Umbral Umber and Menoth White Highlight are used on nearly every model I paint.   All of their paints thin incredibly well, better than any other paint in my collection, and their color selection has some fantastic and rich colors.  The one exception to my heavily favored line would be the metallics, in which I think P3 is very lacking.

On the subject of metallics, I'll jump right into Vallejo.   If you've seen my article on GOLD, you know that I can't say enough good about Vallejo Model Color metallics, particularly the golds.   The Andrea Golds were equally as smooth, but I just love the metallic (gold) color choices from VMC.  In general the non-metallic line of VMC paints are also quite good.   The Vallejo Game Color paints are very nice as well, and they match closely the GW line of paints.   Finally there is the Vallejo AIR paints that have become quite popular as folks are doing more airbrushing in our hobby.   I like these paints, but I do feel they are somewhat over-rated.   The naming conventions for one are really obnoxious, and they do still require some thinning, but my major beef is with the golds.  I now have 4 of each gold-ish color AIR paint and they are all total crap ...each has separated to the point where no amount of shaking can recover.  I was fool enough to keep buying them thinking I had a bad batch.   That said, the Vallejo AIR silvers are actually very nice and easy to use.   The best thing about any of the Vallejo paints is of course the dropper bottle.

So yes the Reaper Masters Series paints also use dropper bottles.   For some reason though these get clogged up incredibly easy.   I don't know if its the agitator or the way these paints dry or what but I am consistently having to unclog the dropper with a needle.   The paints themselves are not bad, and I have a large collection of them, but I will no longer keep buying them as I find they often dry 'chalky' as compared to my other paints.  They do have a great selection of colors and the Triads make shading and highlighting very convenient.   I would say if you are just starting out with shadows and highlights these triads might be a very nice option.

Lastly I will cover GW / Citadel paints.  I do love this brand of paint, though I am increasingly more frustrated with every change to the paint-pot container.    GW makes very nice paints with very nice colors.   I know I am clearly obsessed with gold, but regarding this color GW paints are a real let down.   Some of their other paints are also somewhat lacking in pigment like Blood Red and the yellows etc.   I believe the GW Mithryl Silver is hands-down the best silver available in the miniature paint brands however.   I still have many of the old original Citadel paints that are good as new.  These old paints spent a decade in my parents' uninsulated attic with extreme temps and came out just fine.   With my Blood Angels I still use mostly GW paints because I like to keep things consistent, but when I begin new and different armies I will likely use P3 and Vallejo exclusively.  The paint-pots are just too obnoxious and the prices too high to keep using GW.

I hope someone found this little summary useful.  You might want to also check out the Paint Range Compatibility Chart on Dakka Dakka.