"What Paint Company do you Mostly Use?" Topic

Not necessarily the best, just what you use.

Ceramcoat, it's not expensive and a wide range of color variations.

Coat d'Arms

Coat d'Arms also.

Used to be Humbrol, but since the model shop closed….

Vallejo

Vallejo

Coat d'Arms, Foundry, Citadel, Howard Hues, Tamiya, Army Painter.

Ceramcoat and Americana with some Vallejo thrown in.

Creamcoat.

Humbrol enamels with Model Master as a back up.

Liquitex artist colours, Vallejo

A real mix, mainly Miniature Paints, Coat d'Arms, Reaper, Vallejo and Foundry, although I have a lot of other manufacturers too.

Vallejo
Foundry
Citadel
Liquitex
Tamiya
Howards Hues
Craft paints

In the order of most often to less often utilized

Vallejo and LifeColor.

Folk Art

Folk Art

Vallejo, Folk art, apple barrel.

Reaper, primarily
AK Interactive
Vallejo (metallics only)
Andrea

Ceramcoat, Americana, a bit of Vallejo. Some tube acrylics.

Vallejo
AK Interactive
Mig
Foundry
Cartoon Colors Cel-Vinyl
Humbrol Enamel
Rose's metalics
P3
Howard Hues
Liquitex
Model Masters
Testors

Ceramcoat

Generally Ceramcoat but Vallejo for metals.

Reaper--I'm color deficient, and their triads do a better job of providing shades and highlights than I could do on my own.
Vallejo--definitely comes in second to Reaper, but I have a lot of them.

Grelber

Vallejo and Folkart

Vallejo, but it's probably less than half. The rest is a mix of probably 10 or so other brands. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

Lately, I've mostly used Citadel (Contrasts, to be specific), but over my painting career I've used more Vallejo than anything else.

Humbrol. I guess I am just an old school guy.

Army Painter

Humbrol enamels for me too, with GW for washes.

Liquitex for figures. Ceramcoat for terrain

Vallejo and Ceramcoat except for horses. For those I use Howard Hues.

Vallejo

Delta Ceramcoat, Decoart Americana, and Apple Barrel, all craft paints.

Jim

GW & Army painter

Vallejo, though at the moment they are a little challenging to replenish.

citadel, Vallejo, and some army painter

You can't buy Ceramcoat in my city anymore so I use other craft paint, almost all I have being Americana.

Creamcoat.

Ceeramcoat.

Proacryl, Vallejo, and Citadel. Using up and not replacing Army Painter. AP is fine, just sticking with the first three.

Revell Aqua Colour I love them. The square pots with colour on the lid are great for storage and it's easier to get the amount of paint you want unlike dropper bottles. The paint gives really good coverage the yellow is the best I've ever used.

Obviously they are aimed at model kit builders but the colour range is good (especially if you are painting 20th century subjects). On top of that they are a decent price.

I also have a lot of Army Painter but I'm not buying new ones as they run out as there are better paints out there.

Vallejo, reluctantly. I'd rather just stick to Humbrol acrylics, but the range is so limited these days.

FOUNDRY

Craft paints without any specific brand loyalty. Variety of colors is astounding and so cheap that a little waste is not a tragedy. Though I have come to use a technique to minimize letting any paint go down the drain during cleanup – of water cups, plastic mixing palettes, and even fingers.

I stumbled on something silly simple for cleaning craft paint off fingers, a wet paper towel is about twenty times faster than soap and water. Soak pallets and wipe off almost all paint with paper towels. Drain off water from water cups and then again use paper cloth to wipe the inside of the bowls for maximum removal of paint residue before cleaning and refilling.

I would guess so many of us using craft paints is a bit disheartening to the 'hobby' paint sellers. Yeah, I get they have 'specialized' formulas. But the cost benefit ratio is way, way out of whack.

Sho Boki, that is an impressive collection of paint. I have about double that, maybe more, in craft paint (some very old left over hobby paint in the mix). My collection of craft paint (over 98% by now) probably cost about what one of Sho Boki's boxes of Foundry paint cost. Maybe less.

Looks like Foundry comes in 20ml pots or about 2/3 of an ounce for $2.90 USD (using the 360 paint set to get that number), versus craft paint in 2 oz containers for a maximum of 2.49 but mostly around 1.49 but sometimes less than 1.00 per bottle on sale (pretty often even). And that 360 bottles of paint is actually only 120 colors with a darker and lighter shade of each.

Not picking on Sho Boki, just looking at the cost differential.

One thing for us craft paint users – try and record the number of the paints you like best because the craft paint changes names from time to time but still using the same formula. Does seem a while since I saw the name changes, though.

Loath dropper bottles. That was what set me off on the odyssey to using craft paints versus hobby paints in the first place. I'd bet 25% of the paint in those bottles never gets used unless you cut the tops of to get at the balance.

Vallejo for the brush

Whatever the hardware store has for spray paint. Even the no-name 99-cents-a-can type works well.

Citadel

Vallejo, Reaper, and GW…

Even split between Tamiya and GW

Split between craft paints of various kinds and Vallejo. The odd tin of Foundry and Reaper, too.

Various craft paints. I also paint on Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain -- Royal Walnut (aka, The Dip Technique). Quality of craft paints varies, but I just apply more, if necessary, for coverage. I block paint fast, and with The Dip Technique, I don't need precision. At arm's length, they look great, regardless of the brand of paint I use.

I believe that no matter the paint brand, proper mixing is critical. I use masking tape to secure paint bottles and Minwax cans, to the metal blade of a Jig Saw, to mix all of my paints. The difference that makes when compared to hand shaking, is impressive. Cheers!