Your multi coloured paint box.

[Sean Clark]

I have hundreds of pots of paint from GW, Army Painter Vallejo and Coat d'Arms. All have their advantages and disadvantages. But I often feel I over complicate things.

What colours do you think would be essential in the paint box of a brand new wargamer. This new gamer doesnt yet know what he wants to paint, so cant choose 'Goblin Running Nose' green because its a perfect colour for a Hypaspists underpants. He needs a box of colours that will take on all comers because he doesnt want to spend a lot of money buying every paint i nthe Vallejo range. He's thinking maybe 10 or 12 colours.

So what should our budding new Da Vinci buy?

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Artist's acrylics over modellers' shades any day of the week. They are far more versatile
Ivory Black, Cobalt Blue, Vermilion, Titanium White, Lemon Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Brass, and Silver does me...
Plus an ink wash like W&N Peat Brown.

Neil

[Colonel Kilgore]

Vallejo colours for: Flesh, Ivory (not white), Black-Grey (not black), Iraqui Sand, a medium Brown, Russian Uniform Green, Gunmetal, medium yellow, medium blue, medium red

Army Painter Soft Tone wash

Winsor & Newton flow enhancer

I think that's 12?

Simon

[simmo]

Artist's acrylics over modellers' shades any day of the week. They are far more versatile
Ivory Black, Cobalt Blue, Vermilion, Titanium White, Lemon Yellow, Burnt Sienna, Brass, and Silver does me...
Plus an ink wash like W&N Peat Brown.

Neil

This is a good list. I'd probably add Burnt Umber and Yellow Ochre to the list for the misery of painting horses. I'm always bemused by some of the over complex painting tutorials using triads which I think makes the whole process off putting. After all we were all taught by our art teachers how to mix colours.

Last time I was in Cass arts I noticed and bought some small bottles of liquitex soft body acrylic which I hadn't seen before. Nice paint but expensive.

Martyn

[martin goddard]

Good topic Sean.
Ten paints would cost about £15 which seems  nice and cheap.
Personally my first trip is to the Vallejo rack. They are great paints. They do dry too quickly for me sometimes though.

1. Flesh Makes a good undercoat to red.
2. Red. Difficult to get a red that covers well but this one does.
3. Yellow. Same as above. Really like this pot of paint.
4. Grass green. I like a colour that i can use for bases that is non changing over the years.
5. Dark brown. I really like dark brown as an undercoat.
6. Black. I like a strong black that can block in areas over the top of other colours.
7. White.   As above, a strong one needed.
8. Silver. The Vallejo one is great.
9. Bronze. The Vallejo one is great.
10. Tan. Good for natural cloths and leather base.

Forty years ago i would have nominated Humbrol enamel silver, Brown Bess and British scarlet. My last 5 enamels were only discarded a couple of weeks ago.

The Vallejo uniform specific colours are good too. I use them as a base colour and then hi-light.

Black India ink is very useful but does clog brushes too soon.
Ronseal Matt varnish is  an excellent product.

martin

[Panzer21]

In theory:

Red
Yellow
Blue
Black
White

Every other colour is obtainable from those through mixing apart from metallics so add:

Silver
Gold

It's amazing what you can achieve and learn with very basic resources.
As a youth I was forced to improvise with Humbrol gloss enamels as that was all I could get locally.

Neil