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

Product Information

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.

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.

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. Now a lot of pro painters favour matt paints, but keep in mind that matt paints are more prone to abrasion as matt resins are not as strong as more glossy ones. Old vs. new Game Color match 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. 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.

All in all, with a few exceptions the Special FX colours are not bad, and better than The Army Painters’ Effect paints in my opinion. Though if in doubt, I would always go for the Technical Paints from Games Workshop. I feel these are more straight-forward to use, and do what they say on the tin better. But for those who want to create more subtle effects and like to experiment, the Game Color Special FX paints might be worth a look. Game Color Additives & varnishes review 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. Chances are, even if you’re relatively new to the miniature painting hobby, you’ll have heard of Vallejo. 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.Game color is a special selection of fine waterbased acrylic colours maunfactured with a special resin and permanent pigments for miniatures figures in fantasy and war games. In spite of knowing this, in a moment of madness, I decided to have a go at some OSL on one of the figures I was testing with – I couldn’t look at the fireball in her hand and not feel as if there should be some light on her. I seriously struggled to do this, not only due to my inexperience with OSL (this was the first time I’d ever attempted it) but also because I really struggled to get the paints to do what I wanted to on the figure. 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.

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. 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. 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. You have to be careful with the new Game Color varnishes, because they are not water-based, unlike the old ones, but polyurethane-based. Polyurethane varnishes are more durable, but more aggressive and can reactivate Inks, Contrast and Xpress Colors as well as washes and Shade paints and also damage decals. Polyurethane varnishes are useful for preparing models for oil paints and enamel washes, but what’s the reason to put them into an acrylic paint range I don’t know. I don’t think polyurethane varnishes are suitable for the average painter, so maybe that’s a question for Angel. Value & verdict 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.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. 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.