Malifaux Paint Recipes

[Grayfax]

I'm going to be picking up two sets of Malifaux miniatures in the very near future for my wife and I do some Friday Night Paint sessions together.

Hers: Kirai (Resurrectionist)
Mine: Shenlong and the Temple of Dawn (Ten Thunders)

So far I've only painted Zombicide miniatures using Army Painter's Warpaints. I want to test out some other ranges, but need to find a good set grouping.
Have you painted these with Vallejo, P3, GW, etc. and have a good set that went with the basic colors outlined in the Malifaux artwork?
There are so many options and I want to at least have a feeling for a deep color, a midtone and a highlight color for the two main figures. Even if you used recipes pulling single paints from various paint lines. Eventually I want to add a more extensive collection and I want to see how they compare to the Warpaints, but want to focus on one specific area first.

 

[Dragonsreach]

If you're just looking to emulate the "official" colours then the easiest thing would be to head to your local game store and Peruse the paint rack looking to find a triad of yellows for Kirai and Orange for Shenlongs trousers.

Now that sounds 'relatively easy' I know (if you have access to such a store) but you can mix any paint with any and all the paint ranges you mentioned.
If you're ordering online then one paint I'll reference is Vallejo Model Colour Dark Yellow, it's not much of a yellow being closer to a green tone.
Oh and to avoid 'chalky dry Highlights' used VMC Ivory to lighten the paint not White.

 

[Grayfax]

Thanks. Unfortunately I live at least an hour and a half to the closest game store and I'm not sure what their selection would be. My safest bet would be the three hour trip to Dallas or Houston and even then unless they had painted samples it can be hard to eyeball.
The good news is my supportive bride helped me get the Vallejo model color suitcase, so I am certain I will have some good mixtures. And having a good base color helps when looking for the others. I will try to remember the non-white tip!

 

[MAXXxxx]

Vallejo model color suitcase, so I am certain I will have some good mixtures.

that's correct. Not sure how good they go with malifaux though. Most of the M minis are painted in pretty strong colors. VMC are more muted.

As for good color recipes for malifaux crews:
- malifaux forums
- Wyrd Chronicles (free pdf from Wyrd). About every issue has at least 1 painting article, and they are good. In the articles they mostly use P3 and Vallejo paints.

 

[Grayfax]

MAXXxxx... you are correct. I found the Chronicles on Friday and have been looking through them. Best of all, they are free (and my DriveThruRPG account has been active for a very long time)!
I also had finally gotten a login for Wyrd forums. For some reason they could never get the authentication email to my gmail account. That is resolved and I am able to at least look at the forums. Well, truthfully, I could have looked at the forums if I had used a computer I had not tried to create the login with... on that one, it would just keep telling me I needed to verify my email and I couldn't see the forum at all. Wyrd little bugs.

I'm ok with colors being a bit muted. And I will probably experiment with colors, but I wanted to give my wife an example and have some color ranges she could at least pick up without having to figure out a lot of things at first. At some point I will probably play with the Scale75 colors too. I had been trying to decide which way to go and one video I watched made a very valid point. It is the only company that is solely based on paint and not tied to miniatures of any kind. That is a pretty strong selling point and they won't be changing manufacturers of the paint any time soon, even if they do adjust their own formulas... at least the whole range isn't impacted. I have also seen some mixed reviews of the Game Color line, so didn't want to start with that but I can always add in a few and test them and make my own judgements.

 

[MAXXxxx]

At some point I will probably play with the Scale75 colors too.

good choice. Tried some, liked them.

I had been trying to decide which way to go and one video I watched made a very valid point. It is the only company that is solely based on paint and not tied to miniatures of any kind. That is a pretty strong selling point and they won't be changing manufacturers of the paint any time soon, even if they do adjust their own formulas... at least the whole range isn't impacted. I have also seen some mixed reviews of the Game Color line, so didn't want to start with that but I can always add in a few and test them and make my own judgements.

not sure about this point.
except for the price the GW paints are pretty good.
Same for Reaper, Scale, Andrea and P3 paints. And all of them make minis too.
The only one who changes paints / colors is GW so far and even they because of tm shenanigans.

Vallejo changed their paint mix at least once since I'm painting. Around 2005 the VGC line was good, but when I rebought some colors after 2010, they were bad. Handling was worse, covering was worse, colors with same name didn't match(old UMBlue is different from new UMBlue).
And based on the review of others it's not only a bad batch that I got, but appears to be because of changed formula.
No idea if it's the same for the VMC line. So far I only had to rebuy black and ivory and they were ok.

as for avoiding the VGC line: I think it's a good choice for now. No idea if VGA (Game Air, colors are about the same) is better or not, it's the only I haven't tried, but based on the reviews it's closer to VAC/VMC than to VGC in quality.