"Home Depo Paints?" Topic

Home Depot has a paint sample section. They will mix you a sample of any paint in the store. Or, you can bring in a color and they'll match it.

So instead of buying Tamiya for $3.50 USD for 3/4 of an ounce you can buy 8 ounces of Rocky Road or any other color you can dream up. Not only that, they will make it any sheen you want; flat, gloss, semi gloss.

Your paint comes in a plastic jar with a nice screw on cap. Should last a while.

They claim that 8 ounces covers 4'x8' ;-).

Seriously, this is something to check out! Just don't abuse it too much -- we don't want them to start charging for it!

mjc

Good idea. How thick is the paint?

Thanks,

John

based on my discussion with weveral paint manufacturers back in the 1990s, most if not all of the gaming industry paints use one of the 'house painting' brands as a base for their product. As John implied, the trick seems to be to be able to get the right dillution ratio to make it useable, not too thick and not too thin.

Aren't those latex based paints though?

they are latex based paints. The Home Depot where I used to work charges for the samples. If I remember correctly its $4 USD or $5 USD for a sample.

The sample I recently bought at a Home Depot is Behr Premium Plus Interior & Exterior Flat paint. According to the MSDS available from the Behr web site for the "Deep Base" (that had tinting added to make it match the Howard Hues Geo-Hex Green paint sample I took in), it is an acrylic based product and no latex is listed as being included.

The paint is perfect for bases and terrain. I personally think it'd be a bit thick for figure painting, but have not tried thinning it (not too many figures I'd wind up painting Geo-Hex Green – maybe my old Dragontooth Saurians).

I looked at the Wikipedia article on acrylic paint and found it pretty interesting and seemingly "real." Per that article and the article on "latex," a paint would have to contain latex as a binder or ingredient to be true latex paint. The Wikipedia acrylic paint article claims nearly all household latex paint is actually acrylic paint. I have a small container of white latex paint I bought several years ago to use on plastic figures as a base coat and found its consistency, flow, and overall texture to be different from the acrylic paints I normally use. So who knows? Maybe one of the chemists can chime in and educate us.

They make and sell interior acrylics you just have to ask for it. I have already used quarts of the stuff to paint my canvas. Dhoooh -- never thought to use it on figures. Actually where this would really be good would be for terrain and buildings, ect.

I don't think I would go with a latex -- that's not what we use. Not sure what kind of results you would get with that.

mjc

If your looking for paint for the bases or terrain, then just buy the cheap stuff from Michael's, like "Apple Barrel". I bought an 8oz bottle of Nutmeg Brown for $1.49. Works like a champ for bases and terrain.
I generally buy the good stuff for actual painting of figures.

For what its worth, Vallejo paint is also (as I understand, could be wrong) a latex-based acrylic.

I've used Home Depot paint on terrain, but not figures. My gut feeling is that it won't do super well on anything other than dry-brushing, the pigment density right out of the can isn't good enough to give good coverage without covering detail. But then, that was just the one color I was playing with, and before I learned to glaze/layer the paint, so who knows?

Test it first on something you don't like.

I've been saying for years that house paint is the best thing for terrain paint. Added to that I was using a primer like KILLZ tinted to match the terrain color. Brought in a sample of the flock and had them match the color. Now when I paint the foam it is the same color so if it rubs off it's not noticable. Being primer it holds glue better and buy a quart it lasts forever