Paint & Switch: From Vallejo to Foundry

I really must learn to paint faster. One step towards that has been to slowly shift towards using more serviceable paints. I've found Vallejo paints to be rather uneven in quality with far too much uneven lumpiness and chalkiness. I suspect I could try diluting with matt medium instead of water to improve consistency without overdoing flow.

They served well for my World War II project which relied on a fairly simple approach, but won't hold up for the brighter, crisper look I'm aiming for with ancients. It's also taking too long to match colours as I have effectively shifted to a triad approach.

Thus, I've slowly made the shift to using Wargames Foundry paints after very pleasant experiences with their flesh triads. The Sacred Band below were painted using Foundry's Mediterranean Flesh triad and its very subtle.

The Foundry paint had a good consistency out of the bottle, required very little thinning, and applied very evenly to surfaces. The three tones also worked harmoniously creating a surprisingly realistic impression even at close distance. Sometimes I had cause to deepen the shade with a wash, but it mostly applied fine.

I found it was particularly effective to apply the flesh tone shade in a light coat over a white primer as this created a natural highlight on the raised areas which provided clear guidance on where to apply subsequent lighter tones.

The spearshafts above were haphazardly painted with whatever earth and wood tones I could muster amongst my existing Vallejo paints but I'm not satisfied. The Flat Earth basecoat was far too red. Now I have the Foundry Spearshaft spears and javelins should be a doddle. A good thing to as there will be many to paint.

I painted the linothoraxes above with a Vallejo stone grey basecoat, a homemade wash, followed by a highlight with a frustratingly chalky Vallejo ivory. The ivory was coming thick as toothpaste out of the bottle. Since dilution with water was leading to chalkiness - the titanium oxide in white paints is quite coarse - I tried diluting with matt medium which led to better results.

With Carthaginian and Greek projects lined up there will be many many linothoraxes to paint, so switching to the Foundry Canvas triad should speed up the work. For my next lot of Libyan spearmen I've a mind to employ more Hellenistic colours such as madder and blue for the linothoraxes to create some variety and visual interest.

I've yet to identify a suitable blue triad out of Foundry's selection for this purpose. Possibly their Vivid Blue. The only drawback with ordering Foundry paints is that all one has to go on are the names (which are at least usually indicative) and website colours (which will vary with one's monitor).