How many paints do you need to start painting mini's?

This article is based primarily at the newer people wanting to dip their toe into the mini painting world.

It is a common occurrence on most of the Facebook groups to see people just starting out in mini painting asking about "sets" of paint.

While sets do have their place in the hobby, you do not necessarily need to have a set in order to get started on your painting journey.

It looks pretty cool to see someone with an entire line of a paint brand all set up in their custom desktop paint racks, a virtual rainbow of colors at their fingertips.

The main benefits of buying sets :

• Buying a set normally equates to a lower price per bottle , most often , the bigger the set, the more discounted each bottle works out to.
  A larger assortment of colors makes things more convenient when looking for a particular shade
  A larger assortment of colors can make painting a bit quicker as you don't have to spend the time mixing colors to obtain the color you want.
  

Benefits of not buying those sets:

• Initial outlay to start painting is generally much lower since you are starting with fewer bottles of paint
  You force yourself to learn color theory which will help you along in your mini painting theory
  The money you save on paints can then be used to either buy more minis or better brushes for your hobby.
  

I will admit, i have more than just a base set. It is easy to fall down the rabbit hole and start accumulating bottle after bottle just in the name of convenience.

As i am still new to the mini side of my hobby arc, i am not going to profess that i know all there is to know here. But i will tell you that in my short time painting minis so far...i already find myself backtracking and limiting myself on colors as i paint.  I feel that if i would have done this from the onset, my progression would have been quicker and more evolved.

Why?

Well, simply because i would have looked at painting a mini as more of an art, where you progress by pushing your boundaries and trying new things regularly until the "new" becomes habit and you move onto the next stage in learning.

Basically, I am just going to cover a portion of the variety of colors you can get from what some would consider, not enough supplies....

one thing i am going to recommend to every new mini painter is to get a color wheel. yes you can look on the net and find digital versions, but there is nothing that can replace actually having the color wheel in your hand so you can figure out color schemes you want to use for different projects. the one i use is this one.



For this article i am using craft paints, only because for the sheer amount i am going to be blending and mixing, i did not want to blow through my better hobby paint colors. Keep in mind that the craft paints have a generally lower pigmentation than miniature paints do themselves. Depending on the paints you use, you will get more vibrant colors, also manufacturers like kimera that use single pigments to make their colors ( this is a reason a full set of kimera paints only has 13 colors ) . The brands with single or limited pigments to make their colors tend to mix and provide a broader range of variables when it comes to different hues and variants. The mixes and blends i show in this article are simply to show what even the lower level pigmentation can get you enough colors to work with to paint any mini.


these are the colors i will use today....


like i said, cheap and cheerful for this demo lol

i am not using a wet pallet for this so they will probably start to dry out fairly quickly, but thats OK
Lets lay out a blob of each.. i am exaggerating the amount of paint actually needed just to make pics easier to see.


the white and black are simply used to tone or shade a color up or down the color range.
the other 3 are primary colors, these you can use to make hundreds of other colors just by mixing them together with each other in different ratios.

i will start with a red and blue mix ( this is where the limited pigment colors would give you a brighter end result ) but this will still give you the idea.
mixing equal parts of the red and the blue give me a dark purplish color

now from that initial color mix, i add a bit of white and mix, then i add another bit of white and mix again. leaving you with this...

now in its most basic usage, the darkest would be your shadow color, the middle would be your mid tone and the lightest would be your highlight.

i will now take that a bit further and add some more red to the mix an then tone it out...

that is something similar to what i would use for the tri color mix for lets say... demon skin

i can go the other way as well and add more blue to the mix then tone it out

dont think you are limited to just 3 steps per color, you can add smaller amounts of white and reduce the difference between each color which will give you smoother gradients while blending things.

now if i go back to the reddish mix and add a touch of yellow to it. and then tone that down with some white again

that looks similar to a tanned skin tri color mix  to me

now if i add some yellow to the blue side of the mix i start to pull a green color out of it


a mix of red with the yellow will give an orange base to start with


these paints are not the best for this demo but you get the idea here. if i add a small bit of black to each one ( this black seems more pigmented than most of the other colors so it is a bit harsh..ie: i should have used less lol )
This palette gives you an idea of how many different colors you can achieve from just 5 basic paints, i could have broken them down more and ended up with 150 different variations but i think you get the idea.


If you buy a couple bottles of decent paints and use a bit of knowledge to mix them together, you can build your own rainbow to be able to paint anything you like.

Overall i would like to see people be a bit more fearless when it comes to mixing paints, there is a massive payoff when you are done. You didnt just buy different color paints and slap them on a mini, you bought paints, mixed your custom colors, and painted your mini for a fraction of the cost of the premade paint "sets"

The worst that can happen is you dont like a color,  with experience you will get to learn how different colors blend and with the help of the color wheel you will also learn complimentary colors so your minis look more cohesive.

Once you get the basics down of color mixing you can decide selectively what other colors you want to add to your arsenal.

Happy Painting!