Liquitex Acrylics

[SevenHours]

I've been painting figures for a few weeks now whenever I get a spare five minutes, unfortunately it's all been on Games Workshop miniatures when I've been looking to paint larger scale models. However I'm not going to complain as a friend graciously gave me some miniatures and some Citadel paints, as well as a few Maimeri and WN oils to try.

I quite like using the oils for particular things like flesh, and the odd bright colour for enhancing the clothes. I'm looking, however, to make the leap entirely to Liquitex Soft Body Acrylics as I've seen nothing but praise for this paint line. The problem is that I'm facing a 'paint overload' as it were. There are so many colours to choose from that I don't want to break the bank and purchase too many.

Is there anything I should definetely limit myself to, or should I maybe buy one of the cheaper lines such as Series 1 and just go nuts?

 

[jcichon]

Let me say that first off, I am an oil guy and just use acrylics to undercoat with. But in buying paints be it oils enamels or acrylics, start with your color palette basics, whits black, yellow, red, brown, green, etc, get my drift. Having a solid base to start with and learning to mix colors will go a long way in developing your painting skills. Thats the trick with oils. We dont have all these wild colors or pre-mixed german or british uniform packs. We mix our own colors to find our uniform color scheme. Now if you are talking about the liquitex acrylic tubes that are out in sets, I imagine the series one would be a nice start, get a nice large set for 25-30 dollars or so and experiment. Thats the great thing about this hobby. You can change your color mix ever so slightly and have a completely different appearance to your item painted. Hope this helps, or I was just rambling!

 

[Einion]

Hi Kevin, if you look at a wider range of opinions on artists' acrylics you'll find plenty of painters who don't share the same high opinion of the Liquitex Soft Body paints that you've read so far.

Of the big names in acrylics Liquitex is really not a contender for the leader of the pack in all honesty. The Soft Body paints are certainly not bad, but there are better and certainly better choices for modelling; in addition to one or two other issues, a paint range that's more consistently matt is highly desirable for modelling (since it's so easy to add gloss but more of a hassle to battle it).

For a paint of a similar type I'd highly recommend the Jo Sonja Artists' Colours which in addition to being very matt are also significantly cheaper - can be half price or better!

Einion