For those that use Army Painter paints for Blood Angels ....

[Helias_Tancred]

First, how do you like it versus using GW?

Secondly, what are the Army Painter paints that would replace Mephiston Red, Evil Sunz Scarlet, and Wild Rider Red?

I only use AP hobby tools, and brushes but after a buddy got into using AP paints, I'm considering ....

Thanks.

 

[Silas7]

Dragon red and Pure red are where id start but you'll want to search youtube for color comparisons. Chaotic Red If your looking for something closer to Flesh tearers

AP are my main color range cuz I bought a mega set years ago and never paint. So I can't justify trying another range but AP is better vs GW overall imo.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Silas7

[Cleon]

I picked up the army painter reds when GW changed over as at first I didn't like Mephiston Red compared to the old Blood Red, personally I didn't get on with them at all and ended up finding a way to make Mephiston work for me. I'd agree Dragon Red and Pure red are the best they have for Blood Angels, be very careful if you are going to use the spray as it can be quite heavy compared to the GW ones.

[Arkhanist]

I've switched to airbrush my blood angels these days (inks over zenithal), but I did try out army painter for them a while back. Dragon red is pretty close to mephiston, pure red is evil sunz, and I think the closest to wild rider is mythical orange.

Army painter paints can be a bit thick akin to base paints, so you'll want to thin on your palette. Coverage varies depending on colour, but tends to be decent. Adding mixing balls and shaking the hell out of them, or a vortex mixer is recommended if they've been sat a while. Also, they come with extra medium at the top of the bottle to protect the paint in shipping/storage, so squeeze that watery goop out into a tissue or wet palette until you get the actual paint. I found the reds to have nice coverage, and are of course significantly cheaper than citadel per ml. Not all AP colours are great, but most are fine.

The acrylic army painter washes are also nice; strong tone wash (not the dip tin) was a drop in replacement for devlan mud back in the day, and I still use em in preference. They're akin to current GW shades, but the new 18ml shades will be different with the new contrast-like medium.

They've also got their speedpaints range if you fancy something like Contrast but cheaper. I've bought a few now. They go on smoother more easily than Contrast, but you still need to be somewhat careful with coverage and soaking up pools on flat surfaces, but the results can be pretty impressive, I'd say this is accurate.

They do reactivate sometimes if you use normal paint over the top. One trick is to thin highlight paints with speedpaint medium instead of water, or do a thin coat of varnish before you do other layers, both of which solve the problem. It does mean you can wipe out minor mistakes onto primer with a wet brush though after the fact, which is handy if you're a klutz like me! But they're definitely not suitable for wet-blending.

[Karhedron]

I use army painter Pure Red on my Blood Angels as I started my army a long time ago when Bood Angels were a much brighter shade than today. I found Mephiston Red too dark and it clashed with my old models which were painted with Blood Angels red (a shade close to Wild Rider).

The colour and coverage are good. I normally highlight up to a very bright orange and then knock it back with a megenta ink wash. This gives a very vivid red. The problem with Army Painter is that it dries shinier than GW paints. This means that anything you overpaint with has a tendency to rub off. The first squad a did I painted the chest eagles black and worked my way round picking out the details. I found that as I worked, the black started rubbing off the corners like the edges of the bolters and the chest eagles. This is annoying and I have to be very careful until the entire model is finished and varnished

Here are some of my models. I prime with Pure Red and then switch to GW colours. Highights are with Ryza Rust and then Hexos Palesun. The magenta is from my dwindling supply of GW Magenta.

 

[Helias_Tancred]

Right now I have a red paint scheme with my blood angels I feel is near perfect for what I like .... so maybe I shouldn't try to fix what isn't broken? 

 

But I do like all the Army Painter products I've used except their sprays like Cleon said, they go on way too heavy! I've even used them from more than 12" away, in no humidity, using multiple "passes" and they still tend to go on heavy. I wish they'd fix that as the rest of their product line is a solid GW competitor or better with some products?

 

I'l probably pick up a couple of the AP  red colors you guys suggested and try it out? I'm considering moving to their paints predominantly in the future.

[Arkhanist]

The biggest weakness of army painter paints, for me, is nothing to do with the paint. It's that all the painting tutorials and guides almost all use citadel paint. Some use vallejo air paints for airbrush schemes, and I've started to see a few references to pro acryl (which I have some of - their white and off whites are outstanding!). But army painter, other than the washes, pretty much nada.

I use guides a lot as a starting point, seeing as I tend to paint a random grab bag of stuff, not just the same models in one army. So even though I switched to army painter when I came back after the big citadel re-do rather than buy a whole ton of new paints, I've still ended up with a rack of citadel paints since simply because the colour I needed was a GW one. Plus the range was bigger at the time, though Army Painter have been expanding quite a bit lately and have an extensive airbrush collection now.

[Helias_Tancred]

Makes sense. I do just Blood Angels, and less frequently my Dark Angels, and a budding Raven Guard force. The latter is extremely easy to paint, and DA and BA are comparable imo.