Pro Acrylic paints vs GW

[KnightofSigismund]

Has anyone tried the pro acrylic reds or metallics instead of games workshops line of paints? I used my buddies pro acrylic ivory paint on bladegaurd tabards for my fists and am thinking of how easy it could make shoulder pads for Templars, then got to thinking about the red robes of Grimaldus etc, if anyone has I’d love to hear how it went.

[Khornestar]

Might have luck asking in the General PCA questions subforum:

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/forum/5-general-pca-questions/

[Marshal Mattias]

Might have luck asking in the General PCA questions subforum

 

Juggernut is quite right, this is a good spot to look for that kind of specific paint knowledge :)

[jaxom]

I've a few of them, but have only tried the white and gold so far. Very nice, smoother consistency, and less issues with becoming a solid block of pigment. By that same factor, they take a bit more loading onto the brush and that can lead to less precise painting.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I've never used them (I have enough Vallejo, Coat D'Arms, Dark Star, and P3...), but Vince Venturella seems to like them: 

 

I know it's not what you asked, but if you want a "silver", Vallejo Metal Colour are great (just don't try to drybrush them). Dark Star have some nice metallics, too.

[pawl]

but Vince Venturella seems to like them:

(video)

 

I know it's not what you asked, but if you want a "silver", Vallejo Metal Colour are great

To quote Mr Venturella: "Vallejo Metal Colour are the only metallics we trust"

I have a bottle of S75 trash metal to play with for silver mixes, but I don't bother looking elsewhere for metallics anymore since discovering VMetalC

[Imren]

Some notes on Vallejo metal color:

 

I agree that vallejo metal color are the best acrylic metallics out there, but for silver colours, they have like 10-15 shades of silver ranging from dark ones such as gun metal to very bright and light ones such as chrome, and then som in between but also some that have a brownish tint (exhaust manifold and jet exhaust).

 

But when it comes to golds and copper, vallejo only have one for each in the vallejo metal color range, and the gold they have is quite cold with a eery green tint. If you're looking for good golds I suggest scale75 metal and alchemy range. The pigment size is smaller than many other ranges (dark star, P3, citadel etc) and therefore airbrushes quite well (although not as smooth as vallejo metal colour).

Edited December 9, 2021 by Imren

[pawl]

This is another take on gold, for those willing to mix

[Kobrakei]

I'm currently using Burnt Red, Transparent Red, Bronze and Light Bronze on my Sisters, and have used Copper on my Death Guard. They're great paints, and well worth adding to your collection, especially if you do have an airbrush.

[Firedrake Cordova]

I agree that vallejo metal color are the best acrylic metallics out there, but for silver colours, they have like 10-15 shades of silver ... But when it comes to golds and copper, vallejo only have one for each in the vallejo metal color range ... If you're looking for good golds I suggest scale75 metal and alchemy range.

Indeed - they're very limited outside of the "real world" colour range, as they're designed for [historical/contemporary] aircraft modellers, and they also don't drybrush well. I quite like the DarkStar and P3 ranges for colours not in the Vallejo Metal Colour range (they both have a lot of nice "yellow metals"), or when drybrushing. I've never used Scale75's range, although I hear they're good.

[Imren]

This is another take on gold, for those willing to mix

 

https://youtu.be/26_1W7zR-cA

Wow! That is amazing! :)

[Imren]

 

I agree that vallejo metal color are the best acrylic metallics out there, but for silver colours, they have like 10-15 shades of silver ... But when it comes to golds and copper, vallejo only have one for each in the vallejo metal color range ... If you're looking for good golds I suggest scale75 metal and alchemy range.

Indeed - they're very limited outside of the "real world" colour range, as they're designed for [historical/contemporary] aircraft modellers, and they also don't drybrush well. I quite like the DarkStar and P3 ranges for colours not in the Vallejo Metal Colour range (they both have a lot of nice "yellow metals"), or when drybrushing. I've never used Scale75's range, although I hear they're good.

 

 

After seeing the youtube video pawl linked above I feel sold on that recipy. Now onwards to GSW homepage and order their gold pigment.

Edited December 10, 2021 by Imren

[jaxom]

 

 

I agree that vallejo metal color are the best acrylic metallics out there, but for silver colours, they have like 10-15 shades of silver ... But when it comes to golds and copper, vallejo only have one for each in the vallejo metal color range ... If you're looking for good golds I suggest scale75 metal and alchemy range.

Indeed - they're very limited outside of the "real world" colour range, as they're designed for [historical/contemporary] aircraft modellers, and they also don't drybrush well. I quite like the DarkStar and P3 ranges for colours not in the Vallejo Metal Colour range (they both have a lot of nice "yellow metals"), or when drybrushing. I've never used Scale75's range, although I hear they're good.

 

 

After seeing the youtube video pawl linked above I feel sold on that recipy. Now onwards to GSW homepage and order their gold pigment.

 

 

I want to see Custodes (or Stormcast) painted with that recipe. Or not, because then I'd want to start a Custodes army.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Another gold option from VV. I bought some of these but haven't tried them yet.

 

[Evil Eye]

Some notes on Vallejo metal color:

 

I agree that vallejo metal color are the best acrylic metallics out there, but for silver colours, they have like 10-15 shades of silver ranging from dark ones such as gun metal to very bright and light ones such as chrome, and then som in between but also some that have a brownish tint (exhaust manifold and jet exhaust).

 

But when it comes to golds and copper, vallejo only have one for each in the vallejo metal color range, and the gold they have is quite cold with a eery green tint. If you're looking for good golds I suggest scale75 metal and alchemy range. The pigment size is smaller than many other ranges (dark star, P3, citadel etc) and therefore airbrushes quite well (although not as smooth as vallejo metal colour).

I can confirm that S75's golds are fantastic, their Necro Gold being one of the best metallics I've ever used. I haven't used Vallejo's Metal Colour but I have heard good things about them. If you're willing to dip into alcohol based paints, Vallejo Liquid Metal is amazing- their copper is incredible.

[Rik Lightstar]

My experience with paint ranges is that they all seem to have their own good and bad parts of their ranges.

 

As people have said, the Vallejo Metal Colour range and Scale 75 do some incredible metallics as far as variety goes.

 

GW have some of the best covering reds and yellows you'll find with a really good variety too.

 

GW Technical stuff especially Lahmian and Contrast Medium are great to play around with.

 

Army Painter have some colours that are absolutely fantastic and are that little bit different from the tones available elsewhere, Toxic Mist is a favourite of mine.

 

Vallejo offer an incredible range of greys from almost white to not quite black covering pretty much every step in between and with tints of blue, green or brown as required making your "monochrome" stuff a lot easier and giving options for contrast.

 

InStar I've heard good things about and they have some very close or even perfect colour matches for some of those retro GW colours you might miss. They also have some really good value offerings on bigger bottle sizes which is perfect when you'll be doing an entire army.

 

-------

 

TLDR: As these are all hobby acrylics and can have various mediums added to change how they behave a bit I'd recommend to anyone that you don't worry about the brand itself and go on what gives you the colour you want and behaves the way you want on the brush and the model.

 

Rik

[Firedrake Cordova]

Just to add to what Rik Lightstar said in case it's of interest... the range of colours from the 1990's (white) "flip-top" GW range are available from Coat D'Arms (they're the same paints, made by the same manufacturer). The company who manufactures Coat D'Arms paints - HMG Paints -  also makes the Privateer Press/Formula P3 line, which has some great colours - they've got some near-blacks (Thornwood Green, Coal Black, Sanguine Base, Exile Blue), near-whites (Frostbite, Menoth White Highlight), and quite a few nice browns and skin-tones.

 

As an aside, the 1990's-era GW line and P3 lines were designed by the same person (Mike McVey)...

Edited December 21, 2021 by Firedrake Cordova

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I love the P3 line and my only real complaint about is that it has the feature of drying to a more durable, plastic-like matte finish than most paints do. Which is good, don't get me wrong, unless you want to spray them through an airbrush or put them on a wet palette. Fantastic colors though, and almost all of the colors have fantastic coverage - yellow/orange and white still being a nightmare.

[Bung]

P3 Coal Black is great for shading red tones.

[Arkhanist]

Has anyone tried the pro acrylic reds or metallics instead of games workshops line of paints? I used my buddies pro acrylic ivory paint on bladegaurd tabards for my fists and am thinking of how easy it could make shoulder pads for Templars, then got to thinking about the red robes of Grimaldus etc, if anyone has I’d love to hear how it went.

In short, they're what GW base paints wish they were. The pigment density is just nuts, and they go on very smoothly. After trying out a few, I bought the whole base set, and expansion #1. The coverage on the whole range is just a big step above anything else I've tried, even generally tough colours like yellow will cover over black in 2 coats.

 

You can also thin them easily with water for blending, and the paint just keeps chugging along without any additional mediums, without separating or struggling for intensity, so they play nice with a wet palette. For whites and off whites, they are the best non-primers I have by a significant margin, and the other colours are very solid.

 

The main weakness is the range is relatively small, so if you're used to the GW approach of having a defined base coat, wash, highlight and edge highlight mapped out ready for you, there won't be enough pre-mixed colours for that. So you will either need to mix your own (and thin to do layering), or use another range in order to fill the gaps. They do have a good range of basic colours that finish as they look though, so they're a great replacement for GW's entire base coat range that are just really easy to paint with.

 

The other annoyance, and it is a small one, is the pot size is larger than usual for a dropper. More paint for your money, but it won't fit in normal 17ml dropper racks. It does fit in my P3/coat d'arms flip-top bottle sized rack though (and fits, though a bit loose, in a GW rack). Doing a quick comparison from my usual discounter, pro acryl are 16p per ml, vs 19.5p per ml for GW base paints, and the pro acryl come with a shaker included and a screw dropper that works well enough. You will need to wipe off the tip sometimes if you squeeze out too much, rather than let it dry as a big blob on the nozzle.

 

I haven't tried the transparent range, as I already am fairly happy with army painter washes and GW contrast for that role; it looks like they go on like dense inks, but again, only 8 in the range.

 

The metallics are reported to be fine; good, but not spectacular, so I didn't get any of those either now they've been split out into their own set. I'm using Vallejo metal color for steel/silvers, darkstar metallics for brass and bronze, and scale 75 for everything else.

 

I will be buying the GSW metallic pigment to add to my metal colors to try out the gold recipe pawl linked next time I need to paint some sanguinary guard or the like though!

[pawl]

I will be buying the GSW metallic pigment to add to my metal colors to try out the gold recipe pawl linked next time I need to paint some sanguinary guard or the like though!

I'm actually on their website now for that very reason, as I also want some of their recessed bases!

[KnightofSigismund]

Okay so a bit of an update, I managed to grab every pro acryl box of paints except expansion set 1.

 

The transparent paints are absolutely replacing my contrasts from here on out.

 

The regular paints are so rich that I literally could load paint on my brush , then move over to a drop of water on my pallet and just touch the brush to that and no kidding just with that alone I painted a beautiful vibrant red on an entire model.

 

The metallics are smooth and cover great, they look amazing as well, especially the dark silver which was a bit of a surprise because if I was going to speed paint my Templar’s I’d be tempted to just use that for the armor. However, while there is a nice copper color to base helbrect with, there isn’t anything like games workshop’s brass scorpion to actually get that on the box look. So if you want an accurate helbrect you can do literally everything else except that brass scorpion type main Color the studio uses.

 

The ivory colors, the white paint, any of the colors, would absolutely outclass and speed up painting anything from shoulder pads to cloaks, capes, or tabards. If anybody has any questions over a certain color I should be able to answer it or even test it on something for you.

[Scribe]

This is another take on gold, for those willing to mix

 

https://youtu.be/26_1W7zR-cA

 

Man thats impressive.

[pawl]

 

 

This is another take on gold, for those willing to mix

 

Man thats impressive.

Vince Venturella is one of my go-to painters. If there's a thing I want to learn about he probably has a video where he makes it look and sound very simple. The guy is fantastic!

[gorg_graggel]

I have started to use Pro Acryl's (Soylent) green for my Salamanders. I was looking for a substitute for GW's Warp Lightning and bought a bunch of similar greens from different manufacurers to try out as the exact tone doesn't seem to be available from anyone, according to various conversion charts and apps. Before I could try out most of them I just stopped looking after I tried Pro Acryl. It isn't the exact tone as WL, but I personally like it even better. Adding to that how easy and smooth it brushes on and how well it covers, I never looked back. This is obviously neither red nor metallic, but the properties probably mostly apply to the rest of their range, normal variance within all ranges making this not a guarantee ofc.

 

Anyway, I also wanted to add another one of those comparison videos of various golds that has a little bit of a surprising result regarding Retributor Gold depending on how it is applied...

 

 

It starts out to be about a specific gold that claims to be the 'goldiest gold' (along the lines of those videos about the 'blackest black' and 'whitest white'), but turns into a bit of a comparison between quite a few different golds with blind testing the results.

 

(Some of the ones mentioned here still win out, like the GSW pigments, Pro Acryl and Scale 75, but still a bit surprising).

Edited January 6, 2022 by gorg_graggel