Different brands that do miniature supplies.

Abbreviations I tend to use:

Acrylic Paint Brands

The top miniature painting brands that I recommend for people:

Note that here I'll consider only the base paints for basecoating and highlighting e.g., Citadel does produce better price-to-quality washes/shades.

1. AK Interactive Third Generation Acrylics: the 2020 paint range of AKI. Superior quality and the basic paints cost 2.6€ for 17 ml. Extra bonus for a good bottle design.
2. Vallejo Model Color / Vallejo Game Color: Vallejo is the long-time champion, and AKI has only recently matched their quality. Vallejo has good quality and basic paints cost 2.6€ per 17 ml. An excellent range for all experience levels.
3. Scale 75 Scalecolor: Thick and matte miniatures colors. Very different from their other ranges e.g. Fantasy, Warfront, Artist and Instant Colors. Those have totally different formula. Usually around 2.7€ for 17 ml. Interesting for more advanced painters as they allow more advanced techniques but require more thinning and the matte finish is unforgiving. Would not recommend for beginners or speed painters.
4. Army Painter: AP is less pigmented but still perfectly usable with a lower price point; I use them all the time. Hard to use with techniques that require a lot of thinning. Might require quite a bit of shaking. Lower quality, and you can get basic paints as low as 2€ per 17 ml.
5. AK Interactive (the older ranges) I mean they are decent, but I wouldn't buy these over AKI 3rd Gen, Vallejo or even Army Painter. The main thing they have going for them is that they are ultra matte, even more matte than Scale75 Scalecolor.
6. GW Citadel: The Game Workshop's standard for many miniature painters. Generally as good of a quality as Vallejo, but almost double the price; basic paints cost 3.6€ per 12 ml. Good but expensive paints; nice if you have them, but I wouldn't recommend you to buy them. Also, a big minus from the non-dropper pots.
7. Artist Acrylics like Winsor & Newton Galeria Acrylics, Amsterdam Standard Series, Liquitex Basics, etc. are artist grade paints and are excellent, but they are not made for miniatures. They are too thick. They can also be expensive, especially the professional lines. I would not recommend them for beginners, although they can be used to achieve a very saturated look if you are into that.
8. Craft Acrylics like FolkArt or Apple Barrel don't cover as well as they are less pigmented. The pigment grains are too large but the paints are economical. Nice for terrain and such where you slap it in. Most of the other generic acrylic craft paints land in this category. Unnecessarily hard to utilize for beginners.

Range - Scale 75 Instant Colors

I can't recommend the range to anybody, but I've learned to live with them.

Scale75 Instant Colors (SC75IC) are great for speed painting low fantasy or military miniatures. There are 13 different greens and 7 browns, but e.g. just one violet, one purple, no teal and no pink. The paint range palette can be described as limited, matte, desaturated and earthy.

No metals here. The range is also missing metallics and good colors for doing NMM, so all metals should be done with something else.

How I use SC75IC:

• Prime the model black.
• Airbrush zenithal white or off-white.
  • Undercoat color affects the result greatly, so pick creamy for warm and blueish for cold colors.
• Apply basecoats with undiluted SC75IC. Be extra careful not to allow too much pooling. You'll need multiple coats.
• Add selective black lining between sections of vastly different colors using black ink.
• Create selective shades by mixing the base color with darker SC75IC or ink.
• Retouch with white miniature paint or heavy body acrylic; followed by more SC75IC.
  • You can also mix white paint with SC75IC to create easier to control highlight.