Warhammer 40k
- Thread starter Great Unclean Chris
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Incoming paint sperging...
They work excellent, no reason they wouldn't. You can also add Schminke, Lascaux, Holbein, plenty of other brands with different availability around the world. If people can do "proper" art with them, no reason it can't work on a mini. A common specific one that I haven't personally used but gets talked about a lot is golden soflat.
The miniature paint brand lines of artist acrylic wannabes, AK artistic dense, Kimera, proacryl expert artist, and so on all of that shit is just normal artist acrylic paint for the most part, except with a markup.
The thing to keep in mind with artist acrylics is what the consistency is. Heavy body is closer to toothpaste, soft body is going to be closer to what you normally get from a mini paint but a little thicker(this means you also get more for your money because you're still thinning your paints anyway), fluid acrylics are going to be runny(I wouldn't advise these). Also because these companies provide information about the pigments used(pigments go by series, some series cost more than others.. one shade of blue might be $9 a tube, another could be $50... just don't go buying yinmin blue unless you know what you're doing and this is easy to avoid). It also means for things like ivory black(brown tone) vs mars black(generally a more blue tone) you can control shit better when mixing paints(this also applies to zinc white having a slightly different tone than titanium white in addition to zinc being more transparent, depending on what you want to do). Don't like the shitty hobby yellow paint? Buy an artist acrylic with better opacity(since there's multiple yellow pigments). Fuck, most of the brands will actually have a black and white box on the label with a color swatch from the paint batch across it so you can see what you're actually buying.
student grade vs artist/professional grade. I personally wouldn't bother with the student stuff on minis, as they generally try to use as little pigment as possible(hence the cheaper price). But for terrain where I'm using a ton of paint, sure student grade it is.
Mediums. Because fuck GW and their insane prices for a spoonful of "ardcoat" or "lahmian medium" or even worse their texture paints. Check this out. https://www.dickblick.com/categories/painting/mediums/acrylic/ The liquitex page does a pretty good job of showing some of the textures of this stuff visually and of course the descriptions are a little better but they don't make everything https://www.liquitex.com/pages/professional-mediums
Yes, there are literally dozens of additives and mediums you can get. Paint dries too quick? Add retarder. Doesn't flow right? Add flow improver. Want to mud texture? Get some paste or gel medium with the consistency you want and tint it with paint to get the exact color you want(still cheaper to buy spackle from the hardware store and dye that with paint though). Can get crackle paste and make that whatever color you want too. And you can buy this shit by the half gallon bucket if you want. This is really all about getting the shit to do exactly what you want.
What you don't get is "convenience" colors, as in pre-mixed to match whatever shade a graphic designer decided that some space marine chapter would use. Yeah it means you'll have to mix the color yourself, big whoop. You can keep a journal in your desk drawer with swatches and recipes of 2 parts this 1 part that or whatever. But another benefit of this is predictability when mixing, because you won't find that 2 colors didn't mix the way you thought they might from Citadel, AK, Vallejo, etc. because the green pigment in the orange paint you never noticed that changes the tint slightly fucked with the result of trying to mix it with another color.
Now do I personally only use artist acrylics, fuck no. I've even said I've got uses for contrast paints. But if I decide a base coat with a normal artist acrylic paint will work for a bunch of models... yeah I'll just use that. I've also replaced a lot of basics with them, white black, and having a basic pile of mostly primary colors.
Even Michaels and similar craft stores will carry this stuff, it'll just be in a separate section away from the garbage $2/bottle applebarrel or whatever brand garbage craft paints they also sell.
There's also acyrlic gouache, which is generally softer than a soft body and closer to ak/citadel/etc. I've got some colors of that I use if I want that particular consistency. Acrylic inks, daler rowney FW and liquitex are 2 that I've used, and they also list their pigments, if they're transparent or opaque and are very liquid because they're an ink so they work better for some scenarios as well(mostly the transparent stuff).
Goes over normal primer, dries just like the mini paint brands, can apply a varnish on top to protect it just the same.
Fuck, you can use oil paints too, but that's a whole separate beast of different thinning products(mostly mineral spirits), fumes, long drying times(potentially days), but works well for washes, pin washes/iining, filters/streaking, etc.
Emir_Quesadilla
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2025
This is actually an insanely good explanation. Thanks for the correction. I was under the presumption for some reason that the paint was made with cadmium or some shit that caused a sort of yogurt effect that caused the particulate of the pigment to clump together.
Also just did my first reply using the click and drag feature. I know Josh is the site admin and all but sometimes it's nice to see little things new tech surprises pop up that don't involve somehow losing more privacy or shoving ugly black women in my face.
Cadmium yellow would be the pigment that I was thinking of. It still exists in artist paint but yeah no shot any miniature paint company is going to be using that and have it marketed to a kid. There's also some cadmium free cadmium pigment paints labeled as such, but it's questionable if the stuff without the cadmium free label actually has it or not...
But yeah that Mr Pigments guy does a decent job of explaining a lot of paint shit in plain English without some of the faggotry you get from other channels.
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2020
I was watching a vid listing some of the more obscure SM chapters, and remembered long ago I painted a 1000pt force of Guardians of the Covenant for a team tournament. The black, silver, and red was a cool combo and I had a good time painting these guys.
These were done over a decade ago, hence the small bases and the crappy photo quality.
These were done over a decade ago, hence the small bases and the crappy photo quality.
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2023
Dark Angels have some cool as successors.
Mr Clark
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2022
@p1138
Thats a fantastic explanation. I truly appreciate the paint spergery. I'll admit im super lazy and went citadel, but im branching out into Pro Acryl and wanted to see what else I could look at. I dont have too much issue in cost, I'm looking for quality and application (contrast painta for example)
The texture one is a good one too. I cant remember where I saw it but Liquidtex Coarse Texture Medium does exactly what you said. It gives you the basing texture that you can colour/tint as you please.
Again, really appreciate the information. You didnt need to make it a 10 min video with ads, sponsors and waffling. Straight to the key info
Thats a fantastic explanation. I truly appreciate the paint spergery. I'll admit im super lazy and went citadel, but im branching out into Pro Acryl and wanted to see what else I could look at. I dont have too much issue in cost, I'm looking for quality and application (contrast painta for example)
The texture one is a good one too. I cant remember where I saw it but Liquidtex Coarse Texture Medium does exactly what you said. It gives you the basing texture that you can colour/tint as you please.
Again, really appreciate the information. You didnt need to make it a 10 min video with ads, sponsors and waffling. Straight to the key info
Yeah but they've even got different texture mediums. Different sized grits, one of the companies makes one with balls for some reason(not sure wtf you'd use that for), fibers(muddy farm field or something maybe?), thick gel that you can actually shape for a splash effect in a puddle, and so on.
There's a lot out there available beyond the tabletop miniature paint stuff. I've mentioned gunpla, but there's also the scale model guys who build accurate war dioramas, the model train weirdos(the trains are expensive as fuck, but the crafting materials are generally fine), nail salon shit(in addition to the stamps and decals, I just recently used some UV nail building putty to make clear eyelenses for that titan I've been working on, which is done but like I said not willing to show that painted here). It's not that I would recommend switching entirely to all of that stuff, but it's a good thing to know those other industries exist(some being as big as tabletop minis, or even larger like the nails bullshit) when you're stumped and can't think of a way to do something with what's available at the game store. More tools in the toolbox afterall.
Yeah most people spending money to shove plastic minis around and roll dice aren't going to be worried about an extra couple bucks on a pot of paint. But if you've ever thought "I like this brand but I wish it were more... whatever" those products exist, since that's what these model paint companies are doing. None of them are doing anything "innovative" they're using the same pigments, fillers, binders, biocides, etc. that other paint companies use and even the artist paint companies at least with regard to pigments get their products driven by larger industries like automotive and house paint(it's why there's been a number of non toxic pigments abandoned over the years unless you hit up a specialty pigment store, and those do exist.
Speaking of pigments, something I forgot to mention. A lot of the miniature branded weathering powder? Shit's just ground up hard or chalk pastels, which you can buy on their own and grind up yourself or apply from the stick.
I've linked blick before because I'm in the US and they're around, but for UK people interested in browsing this shit, the one I know of would be Jackson
That's one of the reasons I like that Mr Pigments channel I posted. No bullshit. His livestreams are bland as fuck because hes' got the charisma and yapping skills of a brick, but his videos are loaded with information that when you look it up on your own you'll see he's correct.
So play it at 1000 points using the 2025-26 rules which specify a rule of 2 instead of 3(4 for battleline instead of 6). The old space marine demi-company box is around 900 points worth. Some stores even run 1k tournaments just fine.
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2019
I wouldn’t mind a more boarding action game style focus (not combat patrol boxes). No Im not saying this because I could probably field a guard army with all the KT models I have in such a case.
I’ve just been diving into the books this weekend and I enjoy the smaller more intense focused battles an missions.
Mr Clark
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2022
Reduce unit point cost by 25%. This puts it at 1500 point games. Then run games at 1k points.
It reduces the cost but still kneecaps the "I have a unit that counters every unit" and makes you have strengths and weaknesses in your list.
kalma
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2020
Makes sense to me.
Have a small group of us starting Crusade in a couple weeks and looking forward to the flavor it brings, playing more for a narrative focus than just current meta.
Wish I could could get my hands on some more Nemesis Claw KT kits before then... need more of those upgrade sprues.
augment
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2020
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
Read a preview of the dark heresy game and it looks great. There's a lot more focus on detective work and being strategic with how much information you give to people. With a full blown deduction mode where you can correctly or incorrectly deduce what happened and paint a picture of the crime. Also you can get enemy's to surrender if you break their morale which sounds Awesome. ( I wanna capture a night lord Pokemon style)
It's supposed to be a smaller game then rogue trader but they are interested in making sequels. Also fully voice acted apparently. Personally I want to roleplay as psyker Harry Dresden.
It's supposed to be a smaller game then rogue trader but they are interested in making sequels. Also fully voice acted apparently. Personally I want to roleplay as psyker Harry Dresden.
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2017
The Tau are basically an annoying zit the Imperium hasn't gotten around to popping yet because they have bigger fish to fry.
StevieLasVegas
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
You could even say a bigger Devilfish to fry
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2023
I'm interested but goddamn I just cannot get into Rogue Trader. It feels shallow even if the game is "big". Especially when it comes to role-playing and character building. Plus visually its just pathfinder with a 40k skin. Ugly. I've tried yet again to do a playthrough, this time with the Arbitrator class, and burnt out in the middle of act one. Would be a real bummer if Dark Heresy ended up the same.
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
Having trouble understanding your point of view. As I think rogue trader looks and plays great. It was interesting because I tried Pathfinder after trader and hated it because the control scheme for console was shit. I think you'd be surprised how much depth it can have if you mix and match the morality options. Structurally there's a LOT of stuff to do in act 2 that makes it feel open world while the following chapters are more linear but still interesting.
People bitch about the writing bloat but as an avid novel reader I loved the choose your own adventure elements that would pop in from time to time.
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2024
I had the misfortune of my autoplay putting on an Auspex Tactics video. Why the fuck does he talk like that? Shit irritated my butcher’s nails.
New Deathwatch head and pauldron options shown off, shit is really hurt by the Gravis and Phobos insistence.
New Deathwatch head and pauldron options shown off, shit is really hurt by the Gravis and Phobos insistence.