Thanks a lot for all these interesting answers.

I will follow the advice of not buying a full set and will try out of your answers to find out a good set to start with among the different range you are naming.

I’m not a gamer and i’m painting for collection purpose. I’ll keep you posted on my choices.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Patrice

“I’ve also found the paints to have a fairly low resistance to rubbing, but to be honest I can’t compare it to any other paints out there as I’ve almost systematically added a strong acrylic medium to all my paints since.”

Sounds great mathieu. The VMC mediums help alot, but in my experience gamers wanting durability need something tougher. What exactly are you using anyway? :) I want to go out to my corner art supply store and snag some!

Apologies if I’m wrong, but it sounds like an official statement from Vallejo, right? I’m actually curious to know if anyone actually experienced the improved adherence mentioned. As far as I could tell when I tried it, the VGC wasn’t noticeably stronger than the VMC, which was a little bit of a disappointment to me… Then again that was years ago when they just released the VGC, there might have been some flaws, or I might have ended up with defective pots.

The Fantasy range are the same colours that GW used to sell in hexagonal pots, and all our range are based on the old GW formula.

We are just a lot cheaper!

see

http://www.blackhat.co.uk/catalog

for details.

NB Black Hat Miniatures is the distributor for Coat D’arms paints (to declare an interest!)

GAME COLOR
This compact range has been especially developed to contain all the frequently used colors in fantasy figures. The formula was particularly designed for adherence on plastic and metal, using a new resin of unequalled durability and resistance to scrapes and abrasions.

Colors brush on easily and smoothly, and dry to an opaque, matte finish. Their finely ground texture makes them perfect for the most miniature details as well as for large surfaces. They are highly pigmented, light fast and waterproof once dry.

Game color is manufactured in accordance with ECC normatives, and is not flammable nor toxic in normal use.

You also need to learn a few tricks to keep some coloursfrom separating on the palette, such as giving them a swish with a toothpick before loading the brush (yes, each time) and how to mix them quickly (slap the bottom sharply and rapidly against the palm of you off hand for 5 - 10 seconds), and how to avoid paint explosions (clean the tip of the blocked bottle with a cocktail toothpick instead of squeezing it hard enough for the paint to explode out of the tip).

But… if you’re a gamer you want a hard durable finish… unless you like doing touch ups… and should look elsewhere first.

A few thoughts on paint ranges in general:

I have a couple of hundred paint pots at my paint station at any given time and more in the drawers below. I have a wide range of Reaper, Games Workshop, Valejo of various flavors, and P3. I use them all interchangeably depending on what color I’m trying to acheive. I have a few standards that I have matched and mixed up in quarts of high quality house paint. If you’re looking for some seriously good paint, Behr Premium and Sherwin Williams Super Paint are the bomb. Nice and thick but thin well.

All ranges have their ups and downs, good colors, bad colors, too-thin paints, too thick paints, too grainy paints, etc. As many obviously experienced painters in this thread have said, there is no silver bullet.

Hope this helps.

Jim

VMC I have had mixed results with. The coverage is great and the choice of colour is immense too and I definitely have a number of favourites from the VMC range, but they really require a lot of shaking and they often separate on the palette (especially when thinned down). I almost paint in glazes (or juices as referred to by some) and this can be a problem. I wouldn’t recommend VMC for gamers either, they rub off pretty easily. However, hobbyist that paint miniatures for display and to higher standards often swear by VMC (TH, Cheeba, etc)

GW, for me, are the best all-round paints. Their metallics are excellent and their finish is always smooth. The new foundation paints are good for just that; laying a foundation or base layer. The red is really handy, as are the browns for laying an under layer for lighter colours such a bleached bone etc.

I think all-in-all, it’s best to have a selection from each. I have a number of go to colours from each range. It generally comes with experience.

One final note, use cheap craft paints for terrain and game board building… I use Delta.

I actually only think that the Vallejo Game Colour range is thin. I think the VMC range is quite nice and I have tons of them around.

Part of it might be how one paints. I always thin out my paints and use multiple layers so anything meant ot be used without thinning is going to come across as too thin.

The GW foundation paints are nice but they are specifically meant to be used as dark base coats so they aren’t really good all around paints.

Vallejo also do make a heck of a great range of washes as well

And lets not forget the Coat D’Arms paints that Black Hat Miniatures also sell. The “original” GW paint and washes IIRC.