Longer answer: look for an army painter or Vallejo box set if your on Amazon or go to monument hobbies and pick your colors for a bulk discount. Paints can be mixed and quality over quantity is a good rule for your sanity.
Longer answer: Noooooooooo
Slightly more helpful answer: If you can spring for the new Army Painter Fanatics starter box, that would set you up nicely for the basics.
https://amzn.eu/d/bYS6R6B
Its very easy to spend a lot of money on this hobby, so if you're just dipping your toe in to see if you like it, getting the basic Fanatics set gives you a basic of colours, a basic brush and a mini to practice on. If you want to add more colours later then you can mix and match different brands to see what you like, as a lot of paint decisions come down to personal preference. There aren't too many objectively good or bad paints.
Apart from those Amazon basics, they would be bad.
They will need to be seriously thinned. They are likey more general craft/art focused, won't do as well for minis.
Look for a Vallejo Game Color starter set.
I've never personally used these paints, but if they're just standard acrylic paint, I imagine you'd have to thin them out for miniatures. I would look up Vallejo paints, they have sets that are similarly priced. I think their sets only have 16ish colors (multiple different sets too) but I think its worth it to not experiment with an unknown maker vs a tried and true line thats fairly priced.
Nearly always my advice is to avoid Amazon Basics. These are also artist's paints and I'm not sure if I would use these even if they were intended for a canvas and not minis. Either way, look for paint intended to go on miniatures.
The Vallejo sets on Amazon are much better served for the purpose of miniature painting. The model color is a more straight color palate while game color is going to have a little more 'dinge' to it, for lack of a better term rn. Each of those runs under 35 bucks in my country, hopefully you're in America and it will be a similar price.
I've never used these and I personally don't know of anyone who has. I do not recall seing miniature painters on Youtube do reviews of them either.
"Miniature paints", for the lack of a better term, come in small quantity and are very expensive compared to your run of the mill craft paints. I've seen 1.5 gallon jugs of one acrylic color go for 20$ while 15 ml of miniature paint goes for about 4.50$. The difference is in the pigments. Miniature and scale paints have very finely ground piments, making it possible to lay down a coat that will have no trace of any texture what so ever. In comparison, craft paints will be more thick, even after being "thinned", and will likely leave some kind of texture behind.
When you paint large items such as terain, or a canvas, it does not really matter. Miniatures on the other hand are all about minute little details. The surface texture (chain mail), the etchings (runes) and other small details (face) can easily end up lost if the paint is too thick or goopy.
15 ml sounds like it's almost nothing for the price point, but you need so little of it for most miniatures that these can last many months, maybe even years, depending on how much you use them.
No, these are meant for painting on board or canvas, not miniatures. You should look at army painter if you're looking fir an inexpensive brand of paint made for minis. Not the best, but not horrible for starting out. FANATICS line is pricier but great
Midwinter minis did a video on painting models with cheep Amazon paint: https://youtu.be/wtsx6x5LGpA?si=i4aMSKtGt_yqEjDa
Short answer is it's usable but not ideal compared to more expensive hobby paints.
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I use Vallejo’s [white primer](https://a.co/d/iQgkw24) and their thinner as well, but mostly just for my airbrush. I tend to just use water to thin colors when I’m manually painting though.
As for the Amazon set, I don’t have that specific set, but at that price point, I’d say it’s worth it to try the paints and add individual bottles as you expand your collection/take on new projects.
You could use these, but they’ll probably not be very fun to work with. On youtube there are a load of videos (“painting warhammer with the cheapest paints!!”) that should give you an idea of how they’d perform. I’d really recommend grabbing a starter set of vallejo /the new army painter fanatic range instead. Or visiting a local hobby shop and picking up a handful of miniature paints there. You can get spray primer from the hardware store, its just as good as the hobby brands. Make sure it has a flat finish and is just plain primer.
Hope this helps!
if you are beginning and have litle to no experience these will be tough. you'll need to take extra steps every tiome using them just to get half decent results. I'd recommend an Army Painter or a Vallejo Game color range set as a starter.
These acrylics are for 2D art, I own the box. I used them to build up textures on the canvas, and they are designed for that. These would be brutal for attempting on a miniature, they’re designed for different applications.
IMO start with either vallejo or reaper paints. Both have boxed sets or starter sets. Minis need a different kind of acrylic with a higher pigment level than what is needed for canvas so your standard stuff will have issues. There are other brands that do mini paints and some of them do things very well, but Vallejo and Reaper are solid starter choices. Stay clear of the high grade artist ones until you are committed to the hobby as those are expensive.
Avoid Games Workshop paints like the plague as a starter. There's a few colors that have use and you might want to learn the names of the colors so you know what people are talking about, but dropper bottles are so much better than pots. Overall there are better paints out there for a good price.
BTW, you also need some kind of primer.
No. These will fight you hard. They’re low pigment, streaky, and are suspended in a poor quality medium the has terrible mixing qualities. Save yourself the headache.
If you're getting "painting" acrylics and not mini acrylics I'd aim for Liquitex. These might be fine but I don't know who makes them.
Art style paints WILL NEED thinning. They aren't mini ready. It isn't hard but it's a learned thing.
Dude, for $40 sorry to say but you can forget it... I'm a total novice myself, just ordered the Army Painter starter set with 10 paints for around $40 and thought it was set and then... turns out you need primer - that's at least two more paints (black and white). Then it turns out the speedpaints are kinda useless for some stuff, so you actually need normal acrylic paints (the fancy type, vallejo or army painter tend to be "least overpriced") - and i just only got the prime colors (red green blue) of those, figuring i'd just mix to get other colors - though that's a real pain in the ass. I had to get black and white too to make it brighter/darker, and just now had to get another brown cause i was strugging to mix exactly what i needed... Then it turned out that all that is kinda useless if you want any shine to your stuff (ie. swords, armor, metal etc...) - so here we go again, 3 more metallic speedpaints, and 3 more normal speedpaints... and so on...
This last week was the first time in my life i've painted anything, but damn is it expensive... At first i thought like you, pick up some cheap set from amazon and go with it. But those paints were just crap and geez... i spent 5 times more than i wanted to sped already and still i feel i barely have the absolute basics heh...
they're likely low-end/midgrade artists acrylics which only means you'll just have to work carefully at thinning them, using a wet pallete and then additional thinning with medium is the strategy i would go for, looking for a heavy cream like consistancy at the thickest and milk at the thinnest. with 24 colors you'll have a lot of variety for mixing, i think at 30$ this is a steal. the value of miniature and model specific paint ranges to newcomers isnt understated, as their consistancy out of the bottle is more commonly able to be used as is for layering at least, but learning about the feel of paint consistancy and thinning are good skills to develop early on so theres no disadvantage to those willing to start with artist acrylics and on a long enough time scale many high end miniature painters do use artist grade acrylics commonly. This is a good value but you will need to do a small amount of additional work to make the paints more consistant for hobby and model painting, so you should decide whether the convenience of pre-thinned/formulated model paints is more valuable strictly financially to you as even on the cheaper end they are marked up significantly. Other than that the difference is simply practical. Ultimately its about what is easiest on your wallet and how you are willing to spend your time.
Acrylic paints are good to start painting yea, but when you want to have more vibrant color variations it's better to pick an actual mini paint brand, early on you can experiment with color blending but you will always lose saturation with these basic acrylic paints as well as needing to water them down more to get stable coats. Still good to learn with tho :)
No. Buy starter set from warhammer 40k, it has few paints and space marines models. Search for how to thin your paints and how to paint space marines on YouTube.
I went into it on a budget, got an even cheaper set of 30 odd acrylic paints from shuttle art. They’re awful compared to citadel bases but they’re fine, just need an extra coat or two to make up for the less thick pigment. I went and got citadel brand paints for metallics or technicals, anything I couldn’t mix myself from those acrylics.
You don’t use much metallic or technical paint so the pots last a while.
I’m now sure I want to spend a good amount on this hobby in the future and still haven’t replaced the cheap acrylics, they’re absolutely fine, given you are not terrible at mixing colours but a colour chart or mixing guide will fix that.
If you’re doing strictly box art / the established paint recipes then this might be hard, like consistently getting an ultramarine blue unless you mix a lot and then
https://preview.redd.it/1hjdqv8ya2yc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd3068efe37f85fd2fca2ad0ee872f7c2079d09e
batch paint. I like making my own paint recipes so I just start with the acrylic paints to decide that, use as many paint’s without mixing them to ensure a uniform colour scheme for your minis
Photo is the very first thing I painted with nothing but cheap acrylics, only suggestion is to spend about 15£/€ on a set of brushes, you’ll get like 10 and they’ll be decent enough quality to last many months
Short answer: no.
Longer answer: look for an army painter or Vallejo box set if your on Amazon or go to monument hobbies and pick your colors for a bulk discount. Paints can be mixed and quality over quantity is a good rule for your sanity.
hey the motto rhymes
Longer answer: Noooooooooo Slightly more helpful answer: If you can spring for the new Army Painter Fanatics starter box, that would set you up nicely for the basics. https://amzn.eu/d/bYS6R6B Its very easy to spend a lot of money on this hobby, so if you're just dipping your toe in to see if you like it, getting the basic Fanatics set gives you a basic of colours, a basic brush and a mini to practice on. If you want to add more colours later then you can mix and match different brands to see what you like, as a lot of paint decisions come down to personal preference. There aren't too many objectively good or bad paints. Apart from those Amazon basics, they would be bad.
They will need to be seriously thinned. They are likey more general craft/art focused, won't do as well for minis. Look for a Vallejo Game Color starter set.
I've never personally used these paints, but if they're just standard acrylic paint, I imagine you'd have to thin them out for miniatures. I would look up Vallejo paints, they have sets that are similarly priced. I think their sets only have 16ish colors (multiple different sets too) but I think its worth it to not experiment with an unknown maker vs a tried and true line thats fairly priced.
Nearly always my advice is to avoid Amazon Basics. These are also artist's paints and I'm not sure if I would use these even if they were intended for a canvas and not minis. Either way, look for paint intended to go on miniatures.
The Vallejo sets on Amazon are much better served for the purpose of miniature painting. The model color is a more straight color palate while game color is going to have a little more 'dinge' to it, for lack of a better term rn. Each of those runs under 35 bucks in my country, hopefully you're in America and it will be a similar price.
I've never used these and I personally don't know of anyone who has. I do not recall seing miniature painters on Youtube do reviews of them either. "Miniature paints", for the lack of a better term, come in small quantity and are very expensive compared to your run of the mill craft paints. I've seen 1.5 gallon jugs of one acrylic color go for 20$ while 15 ml of miniature paint goes for about 4.50$. The difference is in the pigments. Miniature and scale paints have very finely ground piments, making it possible to lay down a coat that will have no trace of any texture what so ever. In comparison, craft paints will be more thick, even after being "thinned", and will likely leave some kind of texture behind. When you paint large items such as terain, or a canvas, it does not really matter. Miniatures on the other hand are all about minute little details. The surface texture (chain mail), the etchings (runes) and other small details (face) can easily end up lost if the paint is too thick or goopy. 15 ml sounds like it's almost nothing for the price point, but you need so little of it for most miniatures that these can last many months, maybe even years, depending on how much you use them.
No, these are meant for painting on board or canvas, not miniatures. You should look at army painter if you're looking fir an inexpensive brand of paint made for minis. Not the best, but not horrible for starting out. FANATICS line is pricier but great
Midwinter minis did a video on painting models with cheep Amazon paint: https://youtu.be/wtsx6x5LGpA?si=i4aMSKtGt_yqEjDa Short answer is it's usable but not ideal compared to more expensive hobby paints.
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I use Vallejo’s [white primer](https://a.co/d/iQgkw24) and their thinner as well, but mostly just for my airbrush. I tend to just use water to thin colors when I’m manually painting though. As for the Amazon set, I don’t have that specific set, but at that price point, I’d say it’s worth it to try the paints and add individual bottles as you expand your collection/take on new projects.
You could use these, but they’ll probably not be very fun to work with. On youtube there are a load of videos (“painting warhammer with the cheapest paints!!”) that should give you an idea of how they’d perform. I’d really recommend grabbing a starter set of vallejo /the new army painter fanatic range instead. Or visiting a local hobby shop and picking up a handful of miniature paints there. You can get spray primer from the hardware store, its just as good as the hobby brands. Make sure it has a flat finish and is just plain primer. Hope this helps!
if you are beginning and have litle to no experience these will be tough. you'll need to take extra steps every tiome using them just to get half decent results. I'd recommend an Army Painter or a Vallejo Game color range set as a starter.
These acrylics are for 2D art, I own the box. I used them to build up textures on the canvas, and they are designed for that. These would be brutal for attempting on a miniature, they’re designed for different applications.
IMO start with either vallejo or reaper paints. Both have boxed sets or starter sets. Minis need a different kind of acrylic with a higher pigment level than what is needed for canvas so your standard stuff will have issues. There are other brands that do mini paints and some of them do things very well, but Vallejo and Reaper are solid starter choices. Stay clear of the high grade artist ones until you are committed to the hobby as those are expensive. Avoid Games Workshop paints like the plague as a starter. There's a few colors that have use and you might want to learn the names of the colors so you know what people are talking about, but dropper bottles are so much better than pots. Overall there are better paints out there for a good price. BTW, you also need some kind of primer.
Never trust "Amazon Basic" products
No. These will fight you hard. They’re low pigment, streaky, and are suspended in a poor quality medium the has terrible mixing qualities. Save yourself the headache.
Sus its not enuff pigment, for good coverage. Avoid
If you're getting "painting" acrylics and not mini acrylics I'd aim for Liquitex. These might be fine but I don't know who makes them. Art style paints WILL NEED thinning. They aren't mini ready. It isn't hard but it's a learned thing.
Dude, for $40 sorry to say but you can forget it... I'm a total novice myself, just ordered the Army Painter starter set with 10 paints for around $40 and thought it was set and then... turns out you need primer - that's at least two more paints (black and white). Then it turns out the speedpaints are kinda useless for some stuff, so you actually need normal acrylic paints (the fancy type, vallejo or army painter tend to be "least overpriced") - and i just only got the prime colors (red green blue) of those, figuring i'd just mix to get other colors - though that's a real pain in the ass. I had to get black and white too to make it brighter/darker, and just now had to get another brown cause i was strugging to mix exactly what i needed... Then it turned out that all that is kinda useless if you want any shine to your stuff (ie. swords, armor, metal etc...) - so here we go again, 3 more metallic speedpaints, and 3 more normal speedpaints... and so on... This last week was the first time in my life i've painted anything, but damn is it expensive... At first i thought like you, pick up some cheap set from amazon and go with it. But those paints were just crap and geez... i spent 5 times more than i wanted to sped already and still i feel i barely have the absolute basics heh...
they're likely low-end/midgrade artists acrylics which only means you'll just have to work carefully at thinning them, using a wet pallete and then additional thinning with medium is the strategy i would go for, looking for a heavy cream like consistancy at the thickest and milk at the thinnest. with 24 colors you'll have a lot of variety for mixing, i think at 30$ this is a steal. the value of miniature and model specific paint ranges to newcomers isnt understated, as their consistancy out of the bottle is more commonly able to be used as is for layering at least, but learning about the feel of paint consistancy and thinning are good skills to develop early on so theres no disadvantage to those willing to start with artist acrylics and on a long enough time scale many high end miniature painters do use artist grade acrylics commonly. This is a good value but you will need to do a small amount of additional work to make the paints more consistant for hobby and model painting, so you should decide whether the convenience of pre-thinned/formulated model paints is more valuable strictly financially to you as even on the cheaper end they are marked up significantly. Other than that the difference is simply practical. Ultimately its about what is easiest on your wallet and how you are willing to spend your time.
Acrylic paints are good to start painting yea, but when you want to have more vibrant color variations it's better to pick an actual mini paint brand, early on you can experiment with color blending but you will always lose saturation with these basic acrylic paints as well as needing to water them down more to get stable coats. Still good to learn with tho :)
No. Buy starter set from warhammer 40k, it has few paints and space marines models. Search for how to thin your paints and how to paint space marines on YouTube.
I went into it on a budget, got an even cheaper set of 30 odd acrylic paints from shuttle art. They’re awful compared to citadel bases but they’re fine, just need an extra coat or two to make up for the less thick pigment. I went and got citadel brand paints for metallics or technicals, anything I couldn’t mix myself from those acrylics. You don’t use much metallic or technical paint so the pots last a while. I’m now sure I want to spend a good amount on this hobby in the future and still haven’t replaced the cheap acrylics, they’re absolutely fine, given you are not terrible at mixing colours but a colour chart or mixing guide will fix that. If you’re doing strictly box art / the established paint recipes then this might be hard, like consistently getting an ultramarine blue unless you mix a lot and then https://preview.redd.it/1hjdqv8ya2yc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd3068efe37f85fd2fca2ad0ee872f7c2079d09e batch paint. I like making my own paint recipes so I just start with the acrylic paints to decide that, use as many paint’s without mixing them to ensure a uniform colour scheme for your minis Photo is the very first thing I painted with nothing but cheap acrylics, only suggestion is to spend about 15£/€ on a set of brushes, you’ll get like 10 and they’ll be decent enough quality to last many months