Vallejo Game Color Advanced Acrylic Paint Set - Assorted Colours (Pack of 16)

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I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the whites and light greys in the Game Color range. White can be a bit hit and miss, either being too watery or too clumpy. Vallejo’s whites and light greys – Wolf Grey, Ghost Grey, Arctic White and Dead White – are excellent. This is another feather in the Game Color range’s cap. In spite of their relative thinness, you can basecoat with a Game Color paint, you’ll just need to build your colour up in a lot of layers. You can also use the exact same paints for layering, so you’re not limited by the range in any way. A set of highly pigmented acrylic colours developed for painting fantasy or science fiction miniatures, the Vallejo Game Color Set provides paints that adhere to plastics and metals perfectly, brushing on easily and smoothly and drying to an opaque, matt finish that is waterproof once dry.

There are a couple in this range that do take well to drybrushing and arguably with enough practise and time, all can be drybrushed fairly well. They just wouldn’t be my go-to range. Vallejos own Model Color paints fair much better in this area. Paint is one of those personal things. Some people love certain paints that others hate and vice-versa. As such, it’s very difficult to try and slap a catch-all conclusion on such a dynamic and varied paint range. As with just about every aspect of this hobby, certain people will love parts of this range, whilst others won’t. I myself love the browns and the blues – and even rather like the greys and whites – in this range, but would quite happily never touch the yellows ever again. In general, I have moved on to Contrast-like paints. In fact, Game Color Inks and the new Xpress Colors are very similar in terms of consistency and pigmentation. The only difference is in their behaviour. As you can see, the Game Color Inks create harsher transitions as the pigments tend to collect in the recesses more, whereas Xpress Colors create a more even tint with softer transitions. The coloured washes on the other hand are very bright compared to their counterparts from Games Workshop or The Army Painter. Especially Yellow Wash, which is almost unusable because the yellow pigment they chose is so light that you can hardly see the wash even over white primer. Red, blue and purple are ok, but the red and blue washes are also very bright, so they are only suitable for shading really light colours, which limits their usefulness. Game Color Inks review Vallejo metallics – their golds in particular – are leaps and bounds ahead of Citadel metallics when it comes to layering. Whilst I’d recommend Citadel’s Base metallics to anyone, I’d try to avoid their metallic Layer paints as far as I could. I remember spending fruitless hours battling with Auric Armour Gold and Liberator Gold to almost no avail. Vallejo’s Polished Gold, on the other hand, is excellent and goes on wonderfully.Note you will need only an extremely small amount of Vallejo’s own airbrush thinner to get the regular paints to pass through an airbrush with very little trouble. Chances are, even if you’re relatively new to the miniature painting hobby, you’ll have heard of Vallejo. I’m not saying this is the fault of the paint – it’s probably as much my own inexperience – but it’s worth bearing in mind. I think the lesson here is that if you’re tempted to try some new techniques, do so with paints you’re more familiar with.

But apart from these minor issues, the new Game Color acrylics are amazing, and really feel like next-gen miniature paints that are up there with more pricier paints like ProAcryl or Two Thin Coats. Game Color metallics review

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Looking to spread your wings and fly from the Citadel Colour nest? Wanting to set foot out of your painting comfort zone? Or just looking for something new to try? You can’t go far wrong with Vallejo. An excellent alternative to most game-brand colour ranges and a solid rung up on the painting ladder, Vallejo’s Game Color range will see you right. Vallejo Game Colour Paints Review – Introduction The vast majority of the paints in the range go on as smooth as silk and work excellently with water. This makes them perfect for gradually shifting or building colour on the surface of a miniature. Vallejo Game Color is a line of acrylic paints produced by the Spanish company Vallejo. These paints are specifically designed for use in miniature and model painting, particularly for gamers who require a wide range of colors for painting their armies or other gaming miniatures. The good thing about Vallejo’s Game Color range is that they work fairly well with airbrushes – so much so that even a complete airbrushing novice like me can appreciate them. I noted above that, on the whole, paints in the Game Color range are quite thin. Whilst this makes certain techniques more difficult, a thinner consistency to a paint does make the non-metallic paints ideal for airbrushing.

Still, those few paints aside, some of the paints are superb – the greens, the browns, the blues and the greys in particular – but others require a bit of patience. Again, this applies double to the reds, oranges and yellows. I am really disappointed with the gold colours, though. Shining Gold and Glorious Gold are not only thin but weak, and need quite a few coats to cover. By now, we have many better options for gold paints, and I recommend Retributor Armour, as well as Duncan Rhode’s Two Thin Coats and ProAcryl golds, which just cover so much better. Let’s take a look at the washes. These didn’t change very much at all and should be consistent with their old versions, but for some reason, Vallejo removed the green and grey wash, and added a yellow wash instead. While the colours themselves stayed consistent, I did notice that they flow better than the old washes, I heard they switched to a medium based on the new Xpress Color formula. Vallejo is that paint brand people first go to when stepping out of the “Citadel Comfort Zone”. You know, that point in your hobby life where you know the Citadel range inside and out. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this whatsoever, Citadel make great stuff.

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The Game Inks also stayed pretty much the same, which is good news for those that liked the old Game Color Inks. However, they removed Brown and Smokey Ink, which of all things were the only ones I was still using, and added a new Magenta Ink, Dark Turquoise Ink, and White Ink instead. With all the metallic colours I tested, I needed only the slightest amount of water to get the metallic colours thinned down appropriately. This actually caused me a few issues, as the amount of water you need to thin these down to their optimum consistency still actually varies within the range. For example, at one point during testing, I used the same amount of water to thin down two very similar amounts of Chainmail Silver and Glorious Gold. Chainmail silver drank the water up and thinned down beautifully, but Glorious Gold became a frustrating runny puddle on my wet palette. And that was the complete new Game Color range in fast forward, except for the 24 Xpress Colors, which I have reviewed in a separate review.

This compact range has been especially developed to contain all the frequently used colours in fantasy figures, in a formula particularly designed for adherence on plastics and metals, using a new resin of unequalled durability and resistance to scrapes and abrasion. Colours brush on easily and smoothly, and dry to an opaque, matte finish. Their finely ground texture makes them perfect for the most miniature details as well as for large surfaces. They are highly pigmented, light fast and waterproof once dry. Errors can be corrected immediately with water or a small amount of alcohol. I then swapped in a more familiar-looking Games Workshop figure (a Lord-Imperatant from the new AoS 3.0 ranges) to test out some of the metallic paints. I found the metallic paints actually went through the airbrush and onto a figure very well. Given how good Vallejo’s Metal Color Airbrush range is, this shouldn’t really have been a surprise. But yes, in the majority of instances, the colours were great and went onto my miniatures without any trouble whatsoever. You’ve got the consistency of the Vallejo Game Color paints right and they go on beautifully – but that can sometimes be a little more of a battle than you may first assume it will be. Vallejo Game Color Paints Review- Price and Availability The new Game Colors should already be available from our partner shops Wayland Games, Element Games, Firestorm Games, and Taschengelddieb, which all have them at an additional discount. Layering is when the Vallejo Game Color paints really come into their own. They are spectacular layer paints and are ideal for blending. Just make sure you shake them like crazy before trying to use them, and be ready to thin things down with a little water, as you would a normal paint.To a degree, the same is true for the bronze paints, which are also rather thin, here I would prefer Runelord Brass and Brass Scorpion. Hammered Copper and Tinny Tin are decent, however, and cover well. But, if you want to continue to grow as a painter and hobbyist, you’re one day going to have to take the plunge and leap from the Citadel nest. The likelihood is, as you’re plummeting towards the ground, you’ll hit the Vallejo branch at least once, if not several times, on the way down. The Best Paints for Miniatures & Models One of the benefits of Vallejo Game Color is their versatility. The paints can be used on a variety of surfaces, including plastic, metal, and resin. They can be applied with brushes, airbrushes, or even with a sponge, allowing for a range of painting techniques and styles. The silver paints are okay, but rather thin, their consistency is more like airbrush paint and much thinner than the old Game Color metallics. You can work with them, but they are not as good as Steel from the Vallejo Model Air series and Steel and Dark Steel from the Mecha Color series. Those are also airbrush paints, but their opacity is higher and they apply more nicely with a brush. Moreover, those three colours correspond very closely to the classic three silver paints from Games Workshop: Mithril Silver, Chainmail, and Boltgun Metal (or Stormhost Silver, Iron Hands Steel, and Leadbelcher for those that aren’t a grizzly Grey Hunter like me), whereas the new Game Color Gun Metal is significantly darker than Leadbelcher, and even darker than Iron Warriors. Because the Vallejo Game Color range are, on the whole, very thin, the non-metallic paints aren’t the best for drybrushing. Sure, you can do it – as evidenced by the images below – but it might just be easier to reach for a less watery paint in the first instance and save yourself some time, and stress.