Yeah if you don't find PVA+sand time consuming then its probably not worth getting these texture paints. The texture paints will be as good as sand at best, and not quite as good at worst since you can't control the grain size. For me though, over the course of the 60 or so Tyranids and 80 or so Orcs and Goblins I have sitting here unbased, I can see it saving me quite a bit of time. Also for my newly started Necrons I can see it saving me time by letting me glue the Necrons down to their bases while painting them instead of what I've been doing so far. From my perspective, these days I don't have much time to work on my miniatures, so spending a few bucks to save me a day or two is useful. Though I'll still look and see if I can find some of the cheaper Vallejo stuff before going too far
I don't really understand how texture paints are necessary for basing. I don't think it gets any quicker than pva and sand. It takes what, 10 seconds to apply the glue to one base and 5 seconds to throw it a tub of sand. Repeat. I usually do my basing at the end of a painting session, that way the next time I paint, my bases I've done the previous session are all dry and ready for paint. Multiple layers of expensive GW texture paint is like using Morse code instead of a cell phone.
Maybe I'm just a slow worker, but I find its quicker to use these texture paints than PVA and sand. Not that sand is super time consuming, but by the time I've done the PVA and sand and then applied a basecoat (being careful not to accidently get paint on the model's legs but still get into the crevices between the sand) I reckon it'd be saving me a couple minutes per model, which over the course of nearly 100 models is gonna save a few hours, not including the day or so waiting time for the PVA to dry. It's not a cheap way to base models, and I wouldn't recommend it for someone trying to save money, but the way I see it, it's probably gonna cost me less than $20AUD to base an army that probably cost me $300-400 or more for the actual miniatures themselves, and then probably another $60 for the paints to actually paint the models themselves. I'm much more hurt by GW's constant increasing of the price of models and paint as a whole ($6AUD for paints out here means to get the 20 sitting on my table right now is supposedly worth $120!!) than the cost of these texture paints. Saying it's like using Morse code instead of a cell phone is implying it's a step backward when its more like a step sideways and slightly forward.
I do the pva and glue before i start any painting. a quick pass of spray paint and i have a base color for the models as well! I can definitely see the appeal of the new "basing" paint, but if nothing else i'd grab super cheap paint and mix high quality sand (like $10 for a 50 lb bag) bam instant "base paint"
Yeah, I have done that on past models as well. I find the amount of spray I want to use for an undercoat is often thinner than the amount of spray required to get in the crevices between the sand meaning I end up going over the base with a brush either way, assuming I was undercoating the models in the same colour I want the base undercoated as well (most my models are white undercoat, but most bases are better off with a black basecoat). No doubt you could mix some up yourself with paint and sand, or buy some of the Vallejo stuff which is much cheaper (and what I'll try and buy before spending much more money on GW paints). But the GW paints are just there for convenience sake for people like me who care less about their money and more about their time I just added up the retail price of my Tyranids and buying everything brand new direct from GW there's $608AUD worth of miniatures Luckily I buy a lot of models 2nd hand or from small hobby shops who give 10-20% discount, but its still probably around $400 I paid for those models. Add the several cans of spray paint and I count 10 different colours on them, so that's another ~$100 in paint on the models themselves. So I'm not having a heart attack or anything when I think of paying around $20 to base them. Oddly enough it's still a cheap hobby for me. Still far less than I've spent on either my car, my computer or random booze with mates
As you have noticed, one of the Texture paints is called Lustrian Undergrowth. Anyone care to share a quick tutorial/painting guide on how to base lizzies with that? I'm not a fan of bases, but still feel tempted to try...
All the textures are the same, just with a different colour. I doubt there's any better way to do it than what AllSeeingSkink did with the grey one a few posts up. You'd probably go with a thick layer of Lustrian Undergrowth, leave it to dry thoroughly, then wash it dark green or brown and finally drybrush it with something really light, maybe Underhive Ash.
I haven't tried the Lustrian Undergrowth, but I reckon just apply it the same way as for the grey then wash it something like Devlan Mud/Black or maybe dark green if you want a more of a pure green. Then drybrush it with a light green of some sort depending on how you want it to look, Underhive Ash looks like a pale green (haven't seen it in person, just going off the pictures) or maybe Snot Green or Goblin Green to go for a more pure green or yellowish green. I guess it depends on whether you want to have it as the only texture on the base (then you probably want the texture to look more grassy) or whether you plan to apply a bit of static grass here and there (in which case you probably want the texture to look more dirty and mossy).
Cool. I just went and shopped some Lustrian Undergrowth and Underhive Ash to try out. I also bought that green glaze. Do you think that would work with bases? I don't really know much about using glazes. Do you apply it like wash or just to the higher areas?
Mwahaha!!!!! I have amassed 6 pots of devlin mud,(a.k.a makes gold look awesome wash) I couldn't risk them discontinuing it, and also for any lizard players out there who play a dark green paint scheme camo green primer is the same color as the camo green Gw paint from the now old paints, just thought I'd throw this out there
I only picked up 2 pots of Devlan Mud, as I already had an almost full one anyway and a couple of almost empty ones. After painting a bunch more Tyranids I've probably used half a pot of that already I'm getting mixed reports on whether Agrax is identical to Devlan. This person reckons they're pretty much identical... http://imgur.com/a/iZXLT But another blog claims there is a difference, though it's hard to see any difference from the images. One thing to watch out for is that after being opened, GW washes do darken over time, so if you have a 6-12 month old Devlan Mud it probably looks different to a brand new Devlan Mud anyway. One person commented that Devlan was darker and it took 2 coats of Agrax to match it, though I'm suspicious that it might just have been an old semi-dry pot of Devlan. I haven't tried the green glaze, but I tried the blue glaze and found that it's just like a slightly lighter blue wash. An actual blue wash is quite dark, to create the shades when applied heavily over a blue base, but the blue glaze is quite a bit brighter so it's more suited to apply lightly to bring out a blue tone or blend the shades/highlights that are already on the model. I was kind of expecting the glazes to be more like the old GW inks, but they're not really. That doesn't really answer your question other than to say it might work for what you want, depending on what you want. Personally I think the best thing would just be a Devlan Mud (or Agrax) wash over the Lustrian Undergrowth. You'll just have to experiment and see, as no one has written any tutorials or guides that I've seen for the new texture paints.
BuyPainted did a review and brings up a lot of good points and is mostly negative. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lyLGC4cK6lQ Oddly enough he has the exact opposite opinion to me on the texture paints Saying they take longer than PVA and sand and have course grit... I think the exact opposite, I found them quite fast (though I use a massively larger brush than he uses) and found the grit to be quite fine and needing to be built up so the fine grit holds it together rather than relying on the grit itself to form a texture. He also noted that there were flat spots when the paint had dried, which to me suggests he didn't really play around with them much because I noticed that on my first model so on subsequent models I laid it on much thicker to avoid that. I haven't bought any of the layer paints yet, if what he says is true and they don't have as much pigment then I'm severly disappointed.
Lucky! If they were going that cheap at any of my local stores I would have bought a dozen of them. Unfortunately it wasn't until the 4th store I visited that I found somewhere that hadn't sold out within a couple of days of the new paints being announced, and they were still full price!
Ok guys, I picked up a pot of Agrax today and NO it's not like Devlan Mud and NO I will not use it as a replacement for devlan mud. Devlan Mud is much more of a grey-brown. Agrax is more of a pure brown, less grey and more yellow and red in it. It actually reminds me of my wolves, which I painted using a 50/50 mix of Devlan and Gryphonne Sepia... Agrax looks like that mix straight out of the pot. However, all is not lost (yet). It seems if you mix Agrax Earthshade + Nuln Oil in about 50/50 mix (need to play around with the exact proportions) you get something that looks very close to the old Devlan, and I might start using that for my Orcs and Goblins and save my last couple of pots of Devlan for my Tyranids, who use a Devlan stain so any variations are very noticable. So (hopefully!) a good replacement for Devlan will just be to buy a pot of Agrax AND a pot of Nuln and just pour the Nuln straight into the Agrax, give it a shake and you're good to go (the pots are only half filled anyway, so it should be easy enough to do).
Here's a quick comparison. Apologies for the fact it's taken with a camera phone in non-natural light (it's night time and I won't be home tomorrow during the day to take them then) and also because I just noticed the 3:5 Agrax:Nuln mix wasn't fully dry in the deep crevices when I took that photo, lol. Devlan vs Agrax (Hormagaunt on left is Devlan) Devlan vs Agrax:Nuln 6:4 mix (approximately) Devlan vs Agrax:Nuln 3:5 mix (approximately) The ratios are based on how many brush-fulls of paint I took of each colour, I didn't use an actual measuring dropper, so don't blame me if they're slightly out It's hard to tell from the pictures I suppose, but the 3:5 mix is the closest I think and really quite close to Devlan Mud. If you're going to be picky, it's probably slightly more yellow than Devlan, and maybe you could go with even more Nuln Oil to get a bit closer (perhaps 1:2 mix of Agrax:Nuln). Another thing I'll say is the new washes do tend to go into the recesses more, like they're more watery or something. They tend to be better behaved on large flat areas and pool more in crevices, but they also tend to be more affected by gravity when you slop it on like I do. On the flip side, it's harder to manipulate, it's pretty well behaved off its own accord, but if you want to manipulate a pool onto an area where it won't form naturally, it's harder to do than the old washes. Overall they're much the same though, I'm just being picky because I use washes a lot for my miniatures.
Wow yeah the new one really is very yellow. Thanks for the comparison photos! It looks like you've come up with a pretty close match to devlan mud.
I did a quick run through with Steg Grey, Sotek Green, and TG blue. Seems to work out well enough. Still, it is a shame that Delvan Mud, Gryphonne Sepia, and Ogryn Flesh are gone. They made a great gold/bronze.
The more I paint and look at the new paints the more I'm disappointed. Where are all the light coloured base paints? Deneb Stone and Astronomicon grey were mainstays in my painting line up because of how quickly they let me put down light toned colours, now they've been replaced with "layer" paints so are gonna be pretty useless for that task. Amazingly, they've "expanded" their range with more paints, but actually limited the painting styles you can use unless you want to mix paints or move to another brand. They've designed the range around dark base -> wash ->layer -> layer -> layer -> drybrush -> glaze, but removed some of the useful colours you need if you liked to paint in slightly different styles.