10 replies to this topic

[kpsmith]

Hi!

I'm new to painting miniatures and I want a strong recommendation of colors (paints) to buy to begin painting with. Using Reaper paints, what would you recommend for a fledgling painter?

Thanks Reaper community.

Kyle

[MonkeySloth]

Primary colors, black, white, flesh tones. Then you need to decide if you want to use metallics for metals or just grays. You'll be mixing a bit but this will be the cheapest investment, especially considering the $18 paint set via the kickstarter contains all of these but the metallics, and then you can start growing your paint collections.

[psyberwolfe1]

However if they are looking at getting in on this today Paint Set 1, in the Kickstarter, is probably the best selection of colors and then throw a silver and gold in there and you'll be good to go.

[Lastman]

Look up some tutorials about color theory before you go out and buy a ton of paints. Do this, for real.

Great series:

You can mix every color from the three primaries (red, yellow, blue) but that requires some training and is not as fun as having an array of paints.

You'll want some cool colors and hot colors to get started.

Edit: I didn't mean to embed the video, just the link. If this is a violation of board rules please fix it as I don't know how.

[DixonGrfx]

ALL OF THEM!!! hehehehehe

Seriously, the kickstarter http://www.kickstart...n-of-gaming-min is a great place to get your first paints. If your willing to wit til the closing date and when they ship. a $1 pledge and +$18 gets you a great starter set.

The other thing to consider is that the Reaper MSP line is designed in a triad system. A base, shadow, and highlight color. So when your first learning it's nice to have out of the bottle colors that are formulated to work together. So you could look at the first mini your going to paint and decide which color triads would work best for that figure and buy those.

I'll also say if you have never painted or mixed paints in the past, mixing from primary colors can be very frustrating, unless you just have a natural talent for color mixing. I always recommend to folks new to painting minis that they should just pick a few colors specific to the mini they are going to paint.

[Wren]

I haven't had time to watch the video yet (which looks pretty cool, thanks for the link!), but a few notes on mixing colours. The mixing colours from the three primaries thing works best with pure artist pigments. Miniature paints are already mixes from the factory (so what looks like a pure red could have some black, or white or other colours mixed in to make it more opaque or obtain the exact shade that was wanted.) Even using pure pigments people usually use 6 (two different types of reds, blues and yellows) to be able to obtain the full range of mixed secondaries and so on. So it's trickier with our paints because you can't just follow the guides that say two parts red to one part yellow will make this orange and so on. It can also use a fair amount of paint. Some people enjoy mixing more, some find it a little tedious. I also find it uses more paint.

When making your initial choices, also consider what you want to paint. If you mostly paint elves and rangers, you might want two or three greens and browns, but need only one blue, one red and one yellow. If your favourite colour is purple, you'll probably want one or two of those, that sort of thing.

[smokingwreckage]

Personally, I suggest, if you have the money, that you get the basics and then look at going shade-main-highlight, especially if you want to paint moderately large numbers of minis. This takes some guesswork as not all combinations work the way you'd like, and some colours possibly due to formulation, mix up and down easily, so no need for multiples. Like Wren said, look at what you want to paint.

For example, f you want to paint armour, get a mid silver metallic, a highlight silver, and a dark (brown or black) wash. I hate to say it, but for me, Citadel or coat 'd' arms Chainmail is non-optional for this.

So, maybe you could tell us what you want to paint, and why, or maybe tell us what models you like? if you want to learn to paint an army, that's different from if you want to learn to do high quality character pieces. If you have D&D campaign with two Elvish rangers versus a horde of skeletons, then that's a different case again, and being pretty specific, we can make better recommendations.

[buglips*the*goblin]

For example, f you want to paint armour, get a mid silver metallic, a highlight silver, and a dark (brown or black) wash. I hate to say it, but for me, Citadel or coat 'd' arms Chainmail is non-optional for this.

That Coat D'Arms Chainmail is a wunderpaint. I also love the old Reaper pro paint Truesilver, that stuff is amazing. Not so fond of the MSP metals that replaced it, though.

[smokingwreckage]

Another metallic secret weapon is Vallejo Metallic Medium. Metal fleck in a clear base. Good for adding a little extra bling. With the MSPs I found, back when I was painting a bit, that they need to be used more like conventional colours. They didn't seem to like drybrushing very much.

Not like Chainmail! It's a drybrush dynamo!

[RocksAndKittens]

FYI the Kickstarter now has the second basic paint kit (paint kit 3) that has a silver and a gold metallic in it.

[Morgan]

I'm in for all 4 of the KS paint sets, and I just bought the 2 MSP HD sets. How do these all compare to one another? Also, what else would you recommend to me?