I am wanting to paint my scum faction to make them a little unique I don’t want anything massive just a little touch that is small but super effective. My question is what paint is best to buy? (for a reasonable price) I have never painted miniatures before, I like my spray painting so I’m not a crazy beginner but don’t get me wrong I am still a beginner and am wanting to do something simple and yet effective at the same time. What paint will be best for this? And if you’ve done some cool matching scum designs they are very welcome for ideas.

I personally use the craft paints from walmart $1-$2.

Most people will say that use craft paints isn't a good idea, but it works. Vallejo and Citadel are good companies too. (I used Vallejo until I found that craft paints worked just as well.

Vallejo or Citadel I would say. A little expesive pots, but very good quality and a durable and leegit sutff. Even if they dry for years, most of times you can revive them with a few drops of water.

Whatever you choose, choose something easy to find on time and space. It is terrible to need the same paint at future and can't find it.

If you are simply curious about painting and just want to dabble, craft paints are fine.

If you discover that it's what you do to "find your center" or get a lot of enjoyment from it, then I'd begin to invest into model paints.

My preference is Vallejo.

The cool thing about acrylic paints is if you start out with the cheapy paints and further down you've improved and have moved on to the better paints, you can strip the paint off relatively easily and re-paint them.

There's not too much you can do to completely ruin a model. It's only paint after all and you can always start over.

1 hour ago, Force Majeure said:

There's not too much you can do to completely ruin a model. It's only paint after all and you can always start over.

Maybe a thick layer of oil-based paint...

If you do start out with craft paints, remember that you're going to need to thin them out (with water). More lighter thinner coats is always better, craft acrylics come out of the bottle pretty thick.

For mini paints, I also vote Vallejo, although most of them are pretty similar in terms of quality and coverage.

Thanks Guys. I will be getting some Vallejo now the bigger question. What colours? It’s for scum ships so I’m thinking a dirty colour. What do you think would look best?

I'll throw in another brand which tends to get overlooked (and I'm not sure if it is worth it outside of Europe): Army Painter. They are on the same level as Citadel or Vallejo with most paints (except their greys, frustration in a bottle as they want to seperate so badly, those always demand a strong shake) and beat Vallejo by about 10 cents per bottle using the same hyperconvenient format. They also offer a great starter set that gets you all the colours you need if you gain some colour-mixing basics. Those are useful regardless of what range you use, though, as they greatly reduce the number of colours needed:

This guide is a good place to start: https://admin.thearmypainter.com/files/downloads/pdf/TAP_mixing_guide.pdf

Some colour theory behind that: Use a colour wheel like this one

to determin how to mix colours. The easy part is mixing neighboring primary colours to create the hues between them. The slightly more advanced and very useful for painting with a limited colour selection part is the ability to darken a colour without adding black, thereby desaturating it, by adding (small amounts of) it's complementary colour (always the one opposite on the wheel). For example yellow with a tiny amount of purple becomes yellow-ish brown, very useful for shadows on yellow.

Turning a colour lighter is a bit more difficult and is often done with desaturation or shifts (blue tends to get highlighted by adding some white, red tends to get highlighted by moving into the orange spectrum a bit).

Armed with this knowledge you in theory only need red, blue, and yellow (oh and black and white of course) and these colours should be part of your arsenal in any case. Buying additional tones comes down to what you want to paint and how consistently you want to hit an exact colur. If you, for example, want to have all ships uniformly purple, always mixing that tone from blue and red will be a nightmare to do consistently, especially considering that most tones look different wet on the pallet than dry on your miniature. So in that case, get a purple. If each ship is supposed to be unique, you can get by with a lot less tones.

This post is a bit of a mess I am sure, so feel free to ask anything you want to know about mixing colours. I will do my best to answer and maybe someone with more artistic knowlegde than me can explain (and understand) colour theory better than I can.

6 hours ago, Dengars Toilet Paper said:

Thanks Guys. I will be getting some Vallejo now the bigger question. What colours? It’s for scum ships so I’m thinking a dirty colour. What do you think would look best?

Take a look at the Vallejo paints and choose by yourself. Don`'t think, use the Force.

6 hours ago, Dengars Toilet Paper said:

What colours? It’s for scum ships so I’m thinking a dirty colour. What do you think would look best?

You can make any color dirty. But it seems you're probably looking for colors that look like actual dirt and grime. In that case, you'll want tans, browns, grays, and greens.

Probably one of the best things you can do is find a reference picture or photograph that gives an example of the colors you want to use and build from there. The pic could be of anything: cupcakes, a fire hydrant, clouds, a desert fox, a stopwatch, a scene from a movie, an illustration from a book/comic book or someone else's paint job, etc. As long as it evokes what you're striving for. Then you can pull the colors from there.

Or you can do it off the top of your head, if you're confident enough.

I know this is a little off topic but....

You will eventually want to wash you scum models. It makes all the little details show and dirties them in a unique way (depending on how you use the wash!) each time. You can buy your own washes from places like Citadel, and I would recommend that. I personally made my wash using this (The "Darkling" one) blog as a guide. If you are to use this guide, use ink instead of paint, you will get better results.

-DD

Personally, I prefer Vallejo paint for the easy dropper design. For the wash, I go with Citadel Nuln Oil. For my 3D prints that require primer, I use Krylon spray primer. I use a few coats of Krylon matte spray for the sealer.

11 hours ago, Darth Drago said:

I know this is a little off topic but....

You will eventually want to wash you scum models. It makes all the little details show and dirties them in a unique way (depending on how you use the wash!) each time. You can buy your own washes from places like Citadel, and I would recommend that. I personally made my wash using this (The "Darkling" one) blog as a guide. If you are to use this guide, use ink instead of paint, you will get better results.

-DD

Oh man, totally forgot about washes! Magic in a bottle, get a brown one, as brown shades almost any colour, and a black one for those colours where a brown tinge doesn't work, like gray or blue.

One last Quesion what sort of brushes? My guess would be thin ones but is there a brand that does awesome quality brushes?

44 minutes ago, Dengars Toilet Paper said:

One last Quesion what sort of brushes? My guess would be thin ones but is there a brand that does awesome quality brushes?

A size larger than what you think you need. Too small brushes don't hold enough paint to paint larger surfaces and make things very frustrating, while a brush with a fine tip almost can't be too large (well, within reasonable boundaries). I picked up a good deal on DaVincis series 1522 and use the sizes 4 and 2 most. Those aren't usually affordable brushes, though. Another high end choice are Windsor and Newton series 7 brushes, of which I only own size 1, which is a brush I adore.

However you don't need to go this far. There are some budget brands like Optimo that will cost you about half of the higher end brands, while still offering very decent brushes. I own some of those and only don't use them because I bought them way too small! Stay away from Citadel brushes, they don't hold long and aren't cheap enough for that. If you want some lower quality brushes for techniques that are rough on them, turn to you craft store.

If you get decent brushes, also invest in soap to clean it. This can be a small piece of raw soap or a dedicated brush cleaning soap with conditioning. It is very important for your brushes life spans that you remove any traces of dried in pigment. Also never store them bristles up (to avoid water creeping into the ferrule) or standing on their bristles (duh!). If you care for your brushes, you will be able to enjoy them for a long time. I used to be a one brush every three months guy, but since I stepped up my brush game on both quality and care, my DaVincis have lasted me for 1.5 years at this point, with no signs of stopping. The day I will have to give them up will be a sad day indeed.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

A size larger than what you think you need. Too small brushes don't hold enough paint to paint larger surfaces and make things very frustrating, while a brush with a fine tip almost can't be too large (well, within reasonable boundaries). I picked up a good deal on DaVincis series 1522 and use the sizes 4 and 2 most. Those aren't usually affordable brushes, though. Another high end choice are Windsor and Newton series 7 brushes, of which I only own size 1, which is a brush I adore.

However you don't need to go this far. There are some budget brands like Optimo that will cost you about half of the higher end brands, while still offering very decent brushes. I own some of those and only don't use them because I bought them way too small! Stay away from Citadel brushes, they don't hold long and aren't cheap enough for that. If you want some lower quality brushes for techniques that are rough on them, turn to you craft store.

If you get decent brushes, also invest in soap to clean it. This can be a small piece of raw soap or a dedicated brush cleaning soap with conditioning. It is very important for your brushes life spans that you remove any traces of dried in pigment. Also never store them bristles up (to avoid water creeping into the ferrule) or standing on their bristles (duh!). If you care for your brushes, you will be able to enjoy them for a long time. I used to be a one brush every three months guy, but since I stepped up my brush game on both quality and care, my DaVincis have lasted me for 1.5 years at this point, with no signs of stopping. The day I will have to give them up will be a sad day indeed.

Thanks for the great post. I will make sure to take care of my brushes.

If you're just starting out, you can get away with a "value pack" of brushes that has a variety of sizes. They're decent for learning with. Once you're more confident in your abilities and if you're certain this is something you like to do and want to continue, then I'd "level up" my brushes at that point.

Windsor and Newton Series 7 sable brushes are by far the ones I see most higher echelon painters go on and on about.