Paint Brand Comparison and Review: Games Workshop & Vallejo

[lilloser]

Hello everyone. I'm writing a series of articles dealing with my personal experience of using differnet paint brands.

 

Article 1: Games Workshop Citadel paint

 

http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x450/LilLoser2011/m1185077_99179999003_GWPaintSetMain_873x627.jpg

 

 

Article 2: Vallejo

 

http://i1182.photobucket.com/albums/x450/LilLoser2011/P1010978.jpg

 

 

 

I'd love to hear your thoughts and your own reactions to the brands above. Does my experience match your own? Any feedback would be of great help to me.

 

LilLoser

[Brother Immolator]

Pretty much you said it.The quality of the pigments is roughly equal with a borderline edge given to vallejo.Also the container is much much more useful since you use what paint you need with the drop bottles and they almost never dry up due to the air.It also makes mixing easier.

Games workshops washes are a must and i cant understand why they stopped the inks,though vallejo does them exactly the same though.

 

Overall i have recently switched to vallejo due to the triplet of lower cost,roughly better quality and droplet system but i still declare for GW washes.

[AyanamiKun]

Pretty much you said it.The quality of the pigments is roughly equal with a borderline edge given to vallejo.Also the container is much much more useful since you use what paint you need with the drop bottles and they almost never dry up due to the air.It also makes mixing easier.

Games workshops washes are a must and i cant understand why they stopped the inks,though vallejo does them exactly the same though.

 

Overall i have recently switched to vallejo due to the triplet of lower cost,roughly better quality and droplet system but i still declare for GW washes.

 

I use a mixture of GW and Vallejo paints. Vallejo is mainly used for colors I use often (Ultramarines Blue, Black, some grey tones, Gunmetal). For colors I use very rarely and in extremely low quantities I just prefer the GW containers because I usually disgorge to much from the Vallejo bottles ;) And of course I use Vallejo inks and GW washes (mainly GW washes).

[sarabando]

i prefer vallejos darker colours but i like GWs metalics vallejos white is nicer imo too

[kataklysm]

I Lean towards vallejo for most of my model painting. the amount of pigment just seems to be a little higher. As said above the dropper bottles are indespencible. Vallejo also is readily available in very convienant bundles on most websites, While you usually have to wait until GW feels like putting out a mega paint set which is overpriced and full fo crud that you dont really want.

 

As for GW, I adore their wash line. Every time i walk into my local hobby store i find myself purchasing another pot of ogryn flesh wash, or devlan mud. The quality of these washes are amazing, and this is coming from an old time AFV hobbiest, who is used to swear by mediums and filters for everything. only bad side to this is that most of the washes i buy smell like sesame oil and crap. I have read up on this and according to GW it is a harmless manufactoring side effect from the new chinese factory. or something... personally i wont be licking my brushes after using these washes, but the quality is unaffected.

 

I also tend to lean towards GW for some of my metallic needs. You just cant beat their boltgun metal, hands down one of the better dark tinted mettalics out there. Vallejo's equivilant is "oily steel" and it just has a strange green tint to it sometimes and sometimes requires an extra layer if you are basecoating with it from a black primer. Dont get me wrong, sometimes that is a great for other applications but not an adequate substitute for good ol' boltgun.

 

 

All together vallejo wins for two reasons:

 

1. The HUGE selection of color available.

 

2. A little thing called vallejo "model air". for those of you not familiar with airbrushing pay no attention. But if you are an airbrush nut like i am and havent heard of this you are welcome. "Model Air" is vallejo's line of paints that are prethinned explicitly for use with airbrushes. This line is invaluable for the avid airbrush artist. It cuts painting time practically in half. The downside is the price, where a bottle of model air cost roughly the same amount of money as the game or model color does, and since it is thinned and used with an airbrush, seems (to me at least) to dissapear off of my paint shelf very quickly. My idea would be to sell them in larger bottles, but i guess i could just stop being a cheap bas**rd and buy two when i stock up.

 

So there is my rant. sorry if their are misspellings english is not my first language.

 

-kataklysm

[Taliostro]

I'm a little biased here.

The Model Color and Air Color Range from Vallejo are both superb, good coverage, good handling and I love them for modelbuilding and a more realistic look. But I wouldn't recommend the Game Color Range. The colors are a real mixed bag and you get bottles, which are just too thin to apply (happens with their red, yellow and white tones) or which dry to something pastelike in the bottle (I have a white and a ultramarine blue, which are literaly pastes...) and I had 2 bottles of Regal Blue, which had different tones of color in them...

And yes, I have agitators in the bottles and shake well, that is not the problem. It seems there is a problem with the manufacturing process and the pigments involved, you can't say "just avoid XY color from them" because the next bottle of the same paint may be just fine.

So I wouldn't generally recommend the whole GC Range from Vallejo, they seem to have quality issues sometimes, which GW seems not to have.

 

For the bad smell from GW Washes, the water from one of the factory was polluted with bacterias in one production go, that's why they stink as hell sometimes. And I would avoid liking the brush too!

[kataklysm]

For the bad smell from GW Washes, the water from one of the factory was polluted with bacterias in one production go, that's why they stink as hell sometimes. And I would avoid liking the brush too!

 

 

Is this a serious health issue?? Obviously GW wouldn't tell us if there were. I really dont want to contract some awful disease because my damn hobby paint was contaminated with cholera or something!

[Taliostro]

Don't know to be honest. I read that a while ago, probably 4-5 month ago...

The statement from GW was, that there was a small margin of washes contaminated with bacterias, when they switched to a new factory. There would be no health issue, the washes just smell bad because of a chemical reaction between the bacterias and something in the wash.

Just take that with a grain of salt and decide for yourself. Since no wash I bought smelled unusually bad, I just saved this info. I'm surprised that this is a not widely known...

 

But isn't this a general advice: If something smells bad, don't take it into your mouth ^_^

[Marshal Wilhelm]

I look forwards to you giving P3 a whirl, as you get 18 mL for the same price as GW's 12mL....

:D

 

I have a few Vallejo paints, some P3 paints, some Coat d'arms inks and of course a number of GW paints. Like Tim said on the GW review, GW paint isn't actually bad per se, it is more the value for money that is the issue.

 

For those wanting a really white white, P3's Morrow White is much whiter than Skull White ;)

For me, whoever can make a good white-red-yellow trio will be crowned Paintor, Lord of Paints.

 

I have used Vallejo Thinner Medium to rejuvenate my GW paints, and it works a treat. Better than just adding water, if you have to add a good amount to the old pot. But I routinely drop some water into any paint that is open for a while, just to compensate for the air exposure, or it being an old pot.

 

I have tried Vallejo's Glaze Medium. I am a pretty by-the-book painter, and so doing 'fancy stuff' like glazing, etc. is pretty wild for me :lol:

I used it to preserve a mix of GW Bilious Green and V Sky Blue, that I was tinkering with to get the glow effect on my Retribution of Scyrah minis. It really help it to flow through the crevices, yet carried the paint with it, unlike what can happen with water -> the water isn't carrying the paint and you just get a flood. D'oh!

I'd guess this is just as good as the Thinner Medium for more advanced painters.

 

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Hopefully it can be expanded upon, and perhaps even sticky'ed here.... ^_^

 

+++

 

Has anyone done this kind of thing for brushes?

[lilloser]

Thanks for all the replies guys and I'm glad you enjoy the write ups.

 

I've written an article on the brushes I use that I will be putting up next week.

 

I've re-designed the blog so that it is clearer to read. Let me know of there are any critisms of the new site.

 

All the best

[MordentHex]

I generally use Vallajo for my basing and the Gw paint for the details and such. Especially on brighter models like blood angels. Vallajo scarlet is a must for me and it works rather well for blood and other things as well. I love GW foundation paints and the washes but i do miss the inks. B) GW paints dry to fast now. Much faster than the older GW paints. I find that annoying. P3 and Tamiya Spray primer is better than GW primer and also cheaper. GW paints seem to be better for the rigid 1,2,3 highlight system and dry brushing, Vallajo is better for blending and higher skill painting techniques. With the new paints coming out or out in some area's already i will probably be switching over to a non GW company for my paints as my GW things get used up and/or dry out. Some things i may keep but i doubt i will be forking over $$$ on much. Example of something good idea bad execution is gw will have a new textured paint so i hear. Thats great and all, but a bottle of cheap black/white/gray acrylic paint and a hand full of sand work just find for me and is a lot cheaper. If you can just walk into a local arts and crafts store look at some of the larger and cheaper bottles of acrylic paint they have. The quality may not be the same or tmay take longer to dry but it would save you a little money on simple things like neutral tones and/or basing your models. This post is a bit random i think, sorry but I'm rather tired.

[Ironfoe]

I can't justify using GW paints anymore.

 

There is such huge paint loss due to the kind of tubs that GW paints use. The paint always dries around the top and I probably loose 50% of the paint I purchase due to paint drying up in this manner.

 

I am much happier with the Vallejo bottles. I pour out exactly how much I need into my paint tray and voila, no loss.

 

 

Vallejo prices are also much lower and the pots are bigger... you do the math.

 

 

I have only worked with Game Color, I have been very happy with the pigments and consistencies of the paints. I have no experience with Model Color.

[saadeath]

Is there anywhere where i can buy vallejo paints singly? I seem to only be able to find their 'sets'.