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"Once bitten, twice shy" Great balance of being genuinely honest and thorough, while addressing the previous situation. I love your content, and I am always impressed at what you discover. Great job!!
Why I love hearing positive reviews of AP is for the pure reason of competition. It's a healthy sign seeing many different brands with a high standard and a good price.
Amazing review. I really appreciate the comments about saturation. It's not something that bothers me, but the comparision made it crystal clear what to expect. I'm really hyped to get my hands on some of these next month, especially the daemonic yellow. They look like they have done a really good job with the new line of paints.
The mini-segment on saturation and the trade off between opacity and de-saturation with the paints was very useful and definitely something I appreciate knowing before buying a new paint. So much so, I kind of wish it was discussion point in every paint review by everyone reviewing them. This was a great review. Truly. Comprehensive, in depth where it needed to be, and quite fair.
If you look at the bottle where it shows you the name of the colour triad, you see that "Pure Red" is part of the "Cool Reds" group, which leans more towards the pink. I absolutely agree with you that the naming is an issue. A Pure Red should be a nice warm red like a scarlet, this is more towards the vermilion side of things.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Fully agree with you on that one. Also, I wouldn't eb surprised if Army Painter tried their hands at a "pure pigment" range at some point. They work directly with a lot of artists and I'd be surprised if that wasn't a concern they brought up.
Pure red is one of the primer spray matched colors, and the name was used in the old range. I suspect AP decided to keep the name as a holdover in order to have it match the sprays of the same name. Possibly confusing? Yes. Could the primer issue have been solved better? Probably. I wonder what the practical name on the side of the bottle is for Pure Red. I feel including that aspect would have made the criticism stronger, but it's still a good video!
@@Wintericecrystal I'm pretty sure that a lot of the issues with the range stem from their attempt to carry over similar colours from the old range in an attempt not to lose fans of those paints. I think they should have just re-arranged all the colours new from the gorund up without worrying about colour matching. That said, I'm pretty happy with the range overall. My two biggest gripes are the lack of "true" reds, like you noted, and the puples.
They should have called the ice yellow 'yellow snow' so no company can take offence. Then add a little message 'do not eat'. T.A.P. seem to have personality as a company, a good sense of humour, where as most companies in our hobby are largely corporate and faceless.
@UntiltedName I love Monument Hobbies for this reason, they were who I had in mind when I said most companies. The Pants Blue is a favourite of mine; I thought they were referring to someone like Homer Simpson because his trousers (I'm English so Pants to me are under pants, but I'm aware that Americans call trousers pants) are blue and are similar to that blue paint. They told me on Instagram that it is a reference to 40 year old Virgin with Steve Carell. eye for an Ivory is another great name they have.
They could have worked with Ryan Reynolds to come up with a whole range of colors inspired by Deadpool (Betty White, Clockwork Orange, Mennen Black, etc)
I preordered the complete set and I've been very happy so far. I agree that some of the color descriptions are odd, but actually putting paint on models has been a joy. Coverage is outstanding, flow is excellent, and as a colorblind painter the triad system is autocorrect for my stupid eyes. :D
I have been using Army Painter for a number of years mostly thanks to being the only brand immediately available in my area until recently. While not satisfied with their War Paints line or the original Speed Paints line, I am glad to see a company listening to and appropriately responding to their community and constantly evolving their products to be better.
Excellent breakdown! Agree with you on the white added; it is definitely not going to make pro painters happy. Commission painters are going to have a field day with these paints, though. The excellent coverage and speed in application is going to make commission work more manageable and less time-consuming.
My two takeaways were that 1. This seems like an extremely fair review, kudos 2. My slightly colorblind was could /barely/ tell that any of those reds were different lol
I greatly enjoyed this review. I am purely an amateur when it comes to painting, and actually up until 3 months ago, I actively hated painting my minis, finding it to be a chore. About 3 months ago I was in need of painting up 4 or 5 minis and saw the Warpaints Fanatics line was just released in my area, and so grabbed about a dozen to try. 3 months later and I've got close to fifty of the Fanatic line, and enjoy painting my Battletech minis in a way I never did before.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures I wanted to say as I couldn't say it before as I had to go to work that at least as an Australian, getting Vallejo/AK paints is easy for us. Its the other more niche brands such as Pro Acryl and Two Thin Coats for example that are difficult for us. The problem I have with AP's new range is that they're going to be between $8-9 aud, so roughly $3.50-$4 dollars more than Vallejo! Also, the warpaints air are something that is also very saturated. I love some of their teals and brighter colours, but I find they just lack the vibrancy Vallejo Game Colour has which is something i've always seen as a staple for VGC. Any chance you'll be talking about Vallejo model colours range refresh?
@@ImperialguardftwYeah they defos are looking expensive for us. I did order some Pro Acryl from Gap Games in Brisbane who have decent prices if you were looking for em.
I really appreciate this, Juan. AP IS much easier to get ahold of than Vallejo, even in the states. I’d love to have a fuller Vallejo collection but I have to mail order them. It seems everyone has AP and Citadel paints. I’m glad you pointed that out. Good call.
Its great to see so many good reviews with the new Army painter sets, I am late to the party on it all but that's simply because I have been watching ALL of the reviews on them and also painting ( and watching your amazing tutorials ). Going to have to buy a set as I love the colour triads on the side and the fact there are 6 colours per. Makes it so much easier to blend with and I am starting to blend a lot now.
Ive been using AP paints since i began painting 4 years ago. Ive used a few Valejo (impossible to get in canada) and the naming scheme and colours of Citadel paints didnt make any sense to me. I bought the complete set of the fanatics range, and they are next level. Compared to the original range its actually unbelievable how much better it is. I never had issues with the AP paints even if they were inconsistent since you just figure out how to work with each colour, but the fanatics range is considtent and effective across the entire range
I think the point reg. the Pure Red is mostly because they used a few names of the old paint range. Some, like the Demonic Yellow are quite close in terms of hue. Maybe thats one of the holdovers?
That's why there are so many different paint companies and I'm convinced that paints that work for me don't work for you not only because of preference but also where you live in the world , your surroundings play a huge role in how a paint reacts ........let's not forget Options are good , in so many ways........this new fanatic paint is great , is it lacking in some areas .......yes .......but what paint line isn't ........
Very interesting review. I love your channel. Your plasma video is a go to for me. interesting points made in the video. I cant recall if you do say it but i just wanted to clarify that in many cases white has been added create to create tints of that hue colour. However in several cases there is also a shift in hue to maintain vibrancy in the triads. Were there any stand out paints for you that you would go back to? The magentas are excellent as are the vibrant blues imo. Love the content.
Thanks for watching!! I don't have any issues with the fleshtones and off whites but I also have no incentives to go back to them as I also have plenty of AK and Vallejo. That's the main problem, why pay more money for the same quality? But that's just my very particular case.
Thanks for the honest and interesting video (as always). Seeing pics of various minis painted with this new range, I was actually wondering if they had some white in them since in many cases I could notice a sort of pastel finish on the paintjobs. Thanks for clearing up that doubt
Great balance. I imagine for my level of painting the will be excellent. The good coverage will be a bonus rather than a problem with mixing. Then I'm painting armies and not specimen pieces to artist standard like you are Juan. Great job.
Solid take, amigo. I hadn’t heard about the mixing capabilities, yet, so it’s good to know that in advance. They basically become the range you reach for if you want to go fast and stay in the box. I can respect that. ¡Salud!
I picked up the whole set recently and I've been testing them out too. I similarly was a vocal critic of AP's previous products and wouldn't touch them, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt when I saw various content creators previewing this set and liking it. Overall, I'm a fan of them. I'm not over the moon about them, but I find them easy and straightforward to use. Colors belonging to expanded pentads from triads makes seamless layering simple to do without doing any color mixing. I think your point about mixing colors creating corrupted grays is a bit moot because of this. The reformulated washes are great. I was impressed by how well they flow into recesses while leaving surfaces mostly clean. This is the first line of washes I like more than GW's. The metallics likewise worked well for me. I think the set is missing a dark black metallic silver color, but they have a good range of gold tones. Death Metal is a great dark brown/gold. My biggest criticism about the paints are actually their bottles. My paints have loose caps that don't cover the mouth of the nozzle when screwed closed. This results in the cap filling with paint when I shake them or vortex them. AK-Interactive has significantly better bottles and caps that I wish AP had copied.
Great review and agree entirely with all your points! Been using the mega set a couple weeks and within the first use of using Pure Red I put it back and reached for my AK and Citadel reds again.
Just stumbled on your review; appreciate your honest take and informative explanations --you obviously have been playing with paint for a while. Look forward to seeing more. My Fanatic Mega set is on the way.
Looking in the wrong places champ vallejo is as easy to fin in Australia as Citadel.... in fact its harder to find single Army Painter pots in Aus than Vallejo. I just looked and got heaps of hits
Thanks for the paint-through review. I've always been a Valleho fan and love the new game colors which allow some wet blending. Yes there is less saturation also washes and glazes did make me pause a good bit. Not a problem since I'm a slow painter. Looking forward for the express colors to arrive next.
Great review of the paint line! I’m glad I didn’t pull the trigger on preordering the entire line. I’ll probably pick up a few to complement the paints I have instead. Since you focused on saturation so much in your review, could you recommend a good saturated magenta and/or purple? I’m painting some Necrons and I can’t find one that feels right to me.
With those colours (purple and violets) you run into a bit of an issue. They are so transparent that the most saturated colours are also VERY dark. These are my favourites I'm both categories, mixed and single pigment: Single pigment: - Kimera Magenta (PR122 THE magenta pigment) - Kimera Purple (PV19 a good warm purple pigment) - Kimera Violet (PV23 EXTREME saturation and tinting, super rich dark colder violet. Looks almost black until you thin it out) - Liquitex Quinacridone Magenta ink (PR122, same as the Kimera Magenta) Mixed pigments: - Pro Acryl Royal Purple - VMC Royal Purple - Scale75 Artist Dark Violet (mix of two transparent pigments, no white in it whatsoever, very rich and warm purple) - VGC Evil Red (I think this one is pure pigment or a mix of two transparent ones, has ZERO white in it. One of my favourites) - VGC Deep Magenta (a BIT desaturated but not much, almost anecdotal) - VGC Warlord Purple (this has white in the mix but not as much)
6:00 I realized when i use it myself, the colours are on all on the whiter side when out of bottle. but when it fully dries, it becomes the colour it says it is. Like Ultramarine blue dont look like Maccrage Blue but colour matches when dry. Must be the white pigments in there settling below the colour pigments
It’s good to see Army Painter come out with a competitive product. For too long they kind of existed as the bottom of the rung cheapo product, the option when citadel and Vallejo were too expensive. Seems like they’ve still got a bit of work to do but if AP have proven anything recently it’s that they are receptive to feedback. I’m definitely going to have to pick up some AP washes now citadel have screwed the pooch on their shades.
I have taken what you said with the flaw and I experienced exactly what your talking about but then if I just add the white or black in smaller quantities they mix just fine and getting the deeper colors is very achievable.......I think that's good , having these paints behave as good as they do even with the do called flaw is well worth it , so just take your time and mix the colors gradually and they will mix just fine .........
Looks incredible Juan.... I'm only halfway thru the video and considering it's your first time using Fanatic, you seem to be enjoying it. Plus, you aren't the first nor the last individual I've seen vocalize their concern about the "PURE RED"...in my opinion, it definitely falls into the pink undertone red category. At any rate, cheers.
Where im at in the US there's a hobby lobby that has testors model paint, tamiya paint, and a small selection of individual vallejo bottles. The non-chain hobby locations have primarily testors and tamiya, and the one location I know that does sells warhammer and other tabletop stuff is mostly citadel and AP.
The washes pulling away is for surface tension, it happens when there is a bigger pool nearby, it happens with Contrast Paints by GW too, same reason, not much that a user can do other than avoid the pooling or repeating the shading
I think your review hit the nail on the head. I found that the AP Fanatic paint comes across like a gouache for block painting with high opacity but make them not great for wet blending by not being single pigment. To be clear, not good for mixing in most cases. A great beginner paint. Painting over with shadow / highlight / wet blending may need an artist paint like Kimera possibly for better chroma. I am VERY happy I can finally recommend this paint however, I was VERY disappointed with the old paints. Glad to see your hard work.
Looking through the flexible triads (actually six colours), the red you're looking for looks like Angelic Red. Having an LGS with a full rack is invaluable if you need a specific shade. It should be possible to find equivalents of most shades by using the...er...hexads? Sacrificing punch for coverage puts them in a similar place to Vallejo Model Colors. You could always glaze them with Speedpaint. I have a few Reaper paints which very much lean the other way. Good to have both, I suppose.
This will be an interesting watch Juan. I was sent the test x3 Fanatic paints last year and they seemed amazing. Great coverage, lovely creamy texture, generally lovely paints. It was when I started using other brands on top of them plus glaze medium that I started to notice a few movements. I might have been imagining it but I was sure that other brand lighter colours experienced Fanatic paint bleeding though into them. I only had x3 Fanatic colours (orange, green and blue) so when I tried to highlight them I used Citadel and Vallejo lighter colours with glaze medium added, and almost every time I noticed colour bleed through. I even tried the OG Warpaints on top of them (Warpaint white) and that too seemed to settle back into the Fanatic base colour. I'm assuming Fanatic on Fanatic paint doesn't do this kind of thing as yours (and other YT painters) are showing some lovely pieces using these new paints. My biggest question though is are these new Fanatic paints any better than current premium hobby paints at the same price point?
Great review. I'd love to see a side by side comparison between the old and new paints to emphasise the differences. I've been buying proacryl but I'm definitely thinking of getting some of these.
Understandable that so much of a hobby is dependent on availability. I can't get Pro-Acryl easily at all, but Vallejo is omnipresent and 2.3EUR per 18ml bottle is awesome.
Sounds like a very fair review, theres a few of the paint colours im looking at and those will be for final highlights, i think they'll do fine for it. Not going to place the paints i have with the war paint range but they certainly have a place alongside them.
I have similar thoughts about that. Last night when I painted first miniature with these new paints I discovered that Basilisk Red is actually pretty pink. When I tried mixing Warpaints Ice Yellow with Scale 75 Fantasy & Games Resurrection Flesh for highlight it ended almost pure grey. It is possible to slightly lighten or darken them, but any serious colour mix will end in grey. That's why they have large palette and their flexible triads, I think. Reason is not to mix new colours, but use what's already on their palette. It seems like they did achieve better coverage with adding a lot of white pigment in each paint. All in all it looks like they remained loyal to their original goal: Army Painter produces paints for less adept hobbyists that want to paint their models fast for tabletop purposes and do not waste time with mixing their own colours. Overall I'm quite happy with the Fanatic range, but I must work more with them to test different applications.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Wait, I've just had the stupidest idea possible: what if you try to mix colours with highly saturated inks? It's a shame I'll not be able to try this before friday...
@PrzybyszzMatplanety you will gain saturation and lose opacity but the paints will always have that white in them. Glazing with an ink over them would be the best solution
Have the complete line enjoy it and this review is fair. That’s why I have multiple paint lines so I can mix and match playing to each lines strengths.
Great in-depth review. I guess you could call me a "hater" too - after years of trying Warpaints, their hit-and-miss color sprays, and then Speedpaint, I finally decided never to touch AP products again. I dislike that they behave so differently from other products, and/or just don't work like they're meant to. However... I can see uses for the new line, especially the washes. I think you've tempted me back to an extent, and I'll definitely try a few colours.
I agree with your sentiment about the Pure Red - I compared it to Mephiston Red & Evil Sunz Scarlet, and even with the complete paint set, it didn't have anything that compared. A few new paints down the line that have higher saturation would be fantastic.
After a couple of years of using Army Painter I want a change. There is too much randomness for me. Some of the colours are excellent and true to the shade labeled on the bottle others less so, and the speed paints often look too dull or faded when fully dry. I'm thinking of going the Vallejo way, especially their Xpress range. Good idea?
Looks like they are slightly desaturated but easy to use colours that I may want to augment with a few vibrant colours from other ranges. Good to know. Thank you 😊
Given that their speed paints are SO vibrant, what do you think about using these as layers over a speed paint base coat? That’s why I bought them. I wanted to have something smooth that layered well, but I always speed paint for my base coat.
This is a really nice review. I got the paints myself. the same box you have, I am just an avarage hobby painter. and i really like the paints. I have paints from AK 3rd gen and a few Pro acryl both brands which i also like, i do have to say though for me i prefer the AK metallic over the new army painter ones here as for me the gold / bronze covered very poorly compared to the AK3rd versions. as just a hobby painter aswell i think no matter which brand you you be it AP, pro acryl or citadel. there will always be some in each range you go to. Bold titanium white from pro acryl is to me the best pure white hands down. i have not noticed the problem you had with the shades on my end. personally i was rather disapointed with the overall selection as there are 3 reds, but a massive 7 different blues. Worst for me though is they all over their advertisements have said you can thin them extremely much with the supported medium. which they then do not supply. unless you bought the complete set. I really like the set and all the paints i just wish the selection was a bit more broad, having almost 1/5th of the paints taken up by blues seems a bit much. also i have no idea why they in a mega set chose those 3 effects as the ones to show off. as i am guess such paints as oozing vomit is extremely limited as a use case.
As someone who lives in Spain, it's astounding to me to hear Vallejo is hard to come by. It's hard to find a hobby store that doesn't offer Vallejo here. I don't know of any stores that offer a range of Army Painter.
I live in Singapore, when I heard that it hard to find Vallejo hard to find outside of EU I was surprised, it's one of more common here, maybe only Citadel is more common
I had a similar issue with the red that looks more pink with an ink from Liquitex I bought a grey tone ink called muted grey but when I tested it out it was actually purple when I contacted the customer service they told me that this was not a bad batch but by design I think in art this type of grey supposed to be a dark purple color so they actually sent me a brand new ink of my choosing
Great and fair review. I didn’t grab the mega or complete set, but did grab a good amount of the skin tones and the darker green and blue. From what I used so far, I enjoy them quite a bit. My go to for a Caucasian skin tone was bugmans->cadian-->kislev(yeah I know super “original” 😅), and having more variations with the deep and rose skin tones is quite nice. I do think they worked best thinned with either their stabilizer or flow aid and/or medium/water mix over just water, but to each their own. Edit (6/6/2024): Doubt this will be read, but tried the 'Resplendent Red', the one that shows a color on the bottle as dark as Burnt Red from PA, Deep Red, S75, or Dragon Red from the old line is basically 'very dark' orange. Oof the Reds in this set are 'not good' in my opinion, and I'd stick with PA or VMC/VGC for your good red fix.
Good to know that the white in them is the issue with them. Im wanting to try some. Probably will avoid buying the reds though 🤣🤣. Im mostly interested in what colour groups they perform well in
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures ah very cool. I got some of the new game color. They are really good as well. But im allways been a more "model color" dude haha
The way they added grey to the paints sort of reminds me of those old GW "opaque" foundation paints with really good coverage. Of course, that was how they cheated back at the time when most paints besides enamels had pretty poor coverage.
Absolutely love your videos. You really made me up my painting game. Im just curious, do you ever start from a black primer for your own models? I love the contrast work but im just wondering if you ever prefer to layer something more traditionally
I've been pretty impressed with the reviews of the new line (I think you might be the first to mention things like "pure" reds actually being slightly pastel, I wonder if this is just a limitation of the colour range you had?). Good to see them going in the same direction Vallejo did with the Game Color revamp. The original AP range wasn't even particularly good for basic tabletop/speed-painting stuff, and pretty much an auto-exclude for display or competition-tier, since it felt like I was fighting the paint every step of the way. That said, some areas like the horse head are good examples of why I'll be keeping my AK Ultra-Matte varnish on hand if I pick some of these up. I get why people might want a slight satin finish for the "flat colours with outline highlights" style GW etc. teach, but for more blended or volumetric highlighting like you did there, the shine just fights the hand-painted highlights too much, and can kill the illusion of scale. But that's probably not a concern for AP's main target audience.
Great take on the paints. The AP full set for me in UK was £515. I love AK 3rd gen and have a good amount of them but there full case set in UK is £700+
I swear my "pure red" was like pink man. Dragon Red was a lot closer to the red I wanted. Your pure red looks even redder than mine - I might even contact AP to see if it's defective or something.
I love your channel, used to love blue, but actually found Revell Light Green as my base color for my Chaos Space Marines, so blue can go to hell!!! Love the vids!
Have you tried darkening the colours by mixing in the opposite colour on the wheel, rather than black? Does that make the paints more vibrant in the shadow zones when done this way?
I loved the army painter flesh wash and Matt black. I hear the Matt black has changed but I’m not sure what that means except it’s not quite Matt. I’m interested in how their new flesh washes are but I’m hoping that particular shade hasn’t changed much. It was amazing in the past. I wasn’t fond of any other AP paint except metals and their spray cans
I would guess most pro painters would be main-lining stuff like kimera.. But i still think this might be a good "per bottle" compliment. For me who mostly paint flat things such as mechs and machines i can say they work like a dream. The smooth creamy feel is worth the slight loss in saturation and i still have a pile of old AP paints to "spice" things up if need be. =) Great review.
As someone who was really happy with Speedpaint 1.0 and misses the longer working time and didn't find reactivation to be a significant issue (and actually a plus in some cases), I'm glad you're taking your time to judge these. I really wish AP had not changed the formula of Speedpaint as I find 2.0 just doesn't have the working time needed to achieve the same effects, which is directly caused by the changes made to make it cure faster and not reactivate. The whole Speedpaint thing was blown way out of proportion, not just by you, but largely with your video as a catalyst. I think your points about desaturation may be bordering on the same level of blowing it out of proportion. They may be slightly desaturated, but the words you are using are stressing this like it is a huge deal. To people that don't paint to a competition level, that red looks red. They will not notice. You mention the finish being satin being satisfactory for gamers or beginners, so why isn't the hue? It may be good to know for very technical painters, but for many or even most it may not be an issue. You do address this in your overall scoring a bit, but I wish perhaps you acknowledged other ways more throughout.
When testing and painting with these were you thinning down the paint with water or did your set come with thinning medium? Or were you paintong straight from the bottle onto the wet pallete?
I just feel a lot of the colours (red especially) have white dumped into them to improve coverage rather than pure pigment - they feel really muted compared to AK/Vallejo counterparts.
Excellent review JH - I'm looking forward to giving these a try myself. Out of curiosity, what camera do you use for your up-close shots of the miniatures?
I'm not Spanish but sitll in the EU (Poland) and both Vallejo and AK are noticeably cheaper than AP Fanatic. So yeah, the price difference might be a Europe thing.
I think in terms of pricing, as new formulas from companies have come around from almost every company, it's better to 'future proof' the line so that they are in a strong position to move on.
Came to drop a like and comment to help Juan battle the almighty algorithm. But, I've no interest in how well or poor these AP paints perform, as I've been burned a few times already with poor quality products.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Also, Vallejo and AK are in every hobby store here in Canada (at least in Ontario). No sourcing issues here, and by comparison AP Fanatics look to be about $1 more than Vallejo or AK. So yeah, with the crap paints in the past and 2/3 drybrushes falling apart after the first cleaning, AP won't get my wallets attention. Great video regardless.
Agree with this 100%. I don’t think AP should be applauded for selling bad products for years, then owning up to it so they can sell you a new line of paints that do what other acrylic paints have been doing for 20 years. They did it with speed paint, they did it with these, I’m sure they’ll do it again it the future.
As someone who decided to just get most of the Vallejo (New) Game Color paints for my premixed paint needs, since they're slightly cheaper out here in Poland and actually already released a long while ago, I felt a bit of regret when Fanatics were close to releasing, due to all the hype. Your review actually made me content with my decision, so that's nice. However, now the "I should've went with Fanatics" is replaced with "maybe I should've went with AK 3rd gen", since out of a sudden, everyone is talking about them despite me having a very hard time finding comprehensive reviews of the line (and they cost exactly the same as Vallejos out here, so that adds to the regret). So the real question is - should I gift Vallejos away and get an AK lineup instead? (ProAcryl are supposedly nice too, but they're very expensive here - over twice as expensive as AK or Vallejo - and they seem to be a smaller lineup of more mixing-oriented paints from what I see - and I already enjoy Kimera and Scalecolor Artists for mixing my own shades well enough)
Vallejo will be fine. With mini paints we like to talk a lot about which one is best, but at the end of the day if you are using even a halfway decent paint you can get a mini painted well. I've used proacryl, vallejo, AP, reaper, and golden. They all basically work the same (except the older gen AP that stuff I use only for dry brushing now) in that they won't fight you. Dont feel regret in buying a "slightly less hyper optimal" paint range. There is no such thing as a perfect paint range they all have flaws and different cost/benefit ratios. You bought a paint range that's not going to fight you and has very good qualities for painting.
No single paint brand is the best. They all do different things. Some have terrible metallics. Some lack saturated paints. Some have poor reds, etc etc. I have paint from 5 different brands for this reason. Even more if you factor in the paints I have for model kits
Thanks for all the replies! Glad to hear it's too paranoid of me to think Vallejos were a bad decision after all. I'll probably be supplementing the line with a few AK paints though, they have some nice shades that are still missing from Vallejo GCs (although that New Model Color is around the corner, maybe I'll wait and see). Cheers
@@Bakecrustolol Don't regret anything. I was in similar spot as you not so long ago. I have lots of AK, some Pro Acryl, few Vallejo, full set of Scale 75 Fantasy & Games and new set of 50 Warpaints Fanatic (I don't buy Citadel). I dumped a lot of money into different paints I've never needed and can say this: choose two or three brands you feel comfortable with and work with them. It really doesn't matter which ones. Pro Acryl are nice, but here (I'm from Poland too) their price does not justify purchasing them. They're just not that good. I buy AK from Al Legro at 11-13 PLN and I'm pretty happy. Scale 75 F&G are nice, but need some learning to use. Vallejo has some really good Metal Color range (the best metal I've ever seen) and that's what I'm mostly using. I've painted Blood Pass Thunderer with Warpaints and they're nice too. Miniature painting is not science - there's very little objective things there. People are swearing by Vallejo Model Colors and I find them too thick to use. People will die on Pro Acryl hill and I find them too expensive to buy. New Army Painter Fanatic seem nice and as they're easy to find, I will supplement my AK collection with them (plus AP washes are the ones I use, no other). Don't regret anything, just paint and have fun. Reach out for new paints here and there to try something new and don't limit yourself to one brand. If you go with Vallejo, AK and new Army Painter you'll not be dissapointed.
Hater review! Love it! Edit: your review is more than fair. I got the complete set, which i now have a little bit of buyers remorse because of the desaturated colours. I think if i got the pro acryl paints instead, i might've been happier. But the prospect of a full spectrum of colour in progression sets really appealed to me. I would've liked to have the Vallejo paints. But like you said, their availability is atrocious and it was impossible to find a full set of it.
Yeah, ProAcryl paints do basically the same thing better, except for the relatively narrow color selection. Proacryl as just two reds. They are both amazing... but it's just two, you are going to need mixing, or another range to get anything done well.
@@jorgemontero6384 that's a good point. I was thinking about getting some pro acryl to complement what I have. But you just have me the justification for it 😄
A few thoughts. I bought the whole range. Regarding the quick dry, they have a retarder that can help if you prefer a longer drying time. As far as the saturation issue, I am wondering what would happen if I mixed a tiny bit of the Speed Paint 2.0 into my mix to bump up the saturation.
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"Once bitten, twice shy"
Great balance of being genuinely honest and thorough, while addressing the previous situation. I love your content, and I am always impressed at what you discover. Great job!!
Thanks, much appreciated
Why I love hearing positive reviews of AP is for the pure reason of competition. It's a healthy sign seeing many different brands with a high standard and a good price.
The more good brands we have the better for everyone
Fine, but what do they taste like?
Nowhere as good as pro acryl
Delicious! ...except for the ice yellow 🤢
Actually pretty good
Used them over the weekend, had brush lick, can say they taste awhful, it's the first time I have licked a brush and went uuggghhh
@@JuanHidalgoMiniaturesEven the Blue (Bleugh)?
Amazing review.
I really appreciate the comments about saturation. It's not something that bothers me, but the comparision made it crystal clear what to expect.
I'm really hyped to get my hands on some of these next month, especially the daemonic yellow. They look like they have done a really good job with the new line of paints.
They are such a massive jump in terms of quality that they really feel like a total different company
The mini-segment on saturation and the trade off between opacity and de-saturation with the paints was very useful and definitely something I appreciate knowing before buying a new paint. So much so, I kind of wish it was discussion point in every paint review by everyone reviewing them. This was a great review. Truly. Comprehensive, in depth where it needed to be, and quite fair.
Thanks
Thanks for the honest review. So many influencers were given the full range sets that it was hard to know what they were really like.
I tried to be as honest and fair as possible
all the haters become tame when they get sent stuff for free. so awesome that you purchased them yourselves!
Yes, I wanted to give the most honest review I could and I think I did just that.
If you look at the bottle where it shows you the name of the colour triad, you see that "Pure Red" is part of the "Cool Reds" group, which leans more towards the pink. I absolutely agree with you that the naming is an issue. A Pure Red should be a nice warm red like a scarlet, this is more towards the vermilion side of things.
Yeah I noticed that, but the name is a problem and wanted to point it out
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Fully agree with you on that one. Also, I wouldn't eb surprised if Army Painter tried their hands at a "pure pigment" range at some point. They work directly with a lot of artists and I'd be surprised if that wasn't a concern they brought up.
Pure red is one of the primer spray matched colors, and the name was used in the old range. I suspect AP decided to keep the name as a holdover in order to have it match the sprays of the same name. Possibly confusing? Yes. Could the primer issue have been solved better? Probably.
I wonder what the practical name on the side of the bottle is for Pure Red. I feel including that aspect would have made the criticism stronger, but it's still a good video!
Their warm reds aren't red either. I've just tried the darkest shade ("Resplendent Red"). I wouldn't even call it a red. It's more like dark orange.
@@Wintericecrystal I'm pretty sure that a lot of the issues with the range stem from their attempt to carry over similar colours from the old range in an attempt not to lose fans of those paints. I think they should have just re-arranged all the colours new from the gorund up without worrying about colour matching.
That said, I'm pretty happy with the range overall. My two biggest gripes are the lack of "true" reds, like you noted, and the puples.
They should have called the ice yellow 'yellow snow' so no company can take offence. Then add a little message 'do not eat'. T.A.P. seem to have personality as a company, a good sense of humour, where as most companies in our hobby are largely corporate and faceless.
LOL
pro acryl/monument can be a little sassy in a fun way, too. Look at the most expensive line item on their website.
@UntiltedName I love Monument Hobbies for this reason, they were who I had in mind when I said most companies. The Pants Blue is a favourite of mine; I thought they were referring to someone like Homer Simpson because his trousers (I'm English so Pants to me are under pants, but I'm aware that Americans call trousers pants) are blue and are similar to that blue paint. They told me on Instagram that it is a reference to 40 year old Virgin with Steve Carell. eye for an Ivory is another great name they have.
Yellow Snow is taken by Cuttlefish Colors.
They could have worked with Ryan Reynolds to come up with a whole range of colors inspired by Deadpool (Betty White, Clockwork Orange, Mennen Black, etc)
I preordered the complete set and I've been very happy so far. I agree that some of the color descriptions are odd, but actually putting paint on models has been a joy. Coverage is outstanding, flow is excellent, and as a colorblind painter the triad system is autocorrect for my stupid eyes. :D
They do have their good ideas for sure
I have been using Army Painter for a number of years mostly thanks to being the only brand immediately available in my area until recently. While not satisfied with their War Paints line or the original Speed Paints line, I am glad to see a company listening to and appropriately responding to their community and constantly evolving their products to be better.
You are going to love them
"I have been using Army Painter for a number of years"
😱😱
@@an0nycatonce my local shop started carrying Vallejo I quickly switched.
@@karlcarpenter771 Then keep using Vallejo, AK and Two Thin Coats are also top tier
Excellent breakdown! Agree with you on the white added; it is definitely not going to make pro painters happy. Commission painters are going to have a field day with these paints, though. The excellent coverage and speed in application is going to make commission work more manageable and less time-consuming.
Good point, they are going to be amazing for commission painters!
My two takeaways were that 1. This seems like an extremely fair review, kudos
2. My slightly colorblind was could /barely/ tell that any of those reds were different lol
It's more noticeable once dry but again, this might not be a problem for you or most people but it is for me and my very particular needs
I really couldn't see much of a difference, either - but things like that don't always carry well on a computer monitor with a limited color space.
This is such a fair review. Honestly, we should strive and desire honest reviews and not just an extensive commercial for a product.
Thanks, I agree
I greatly enjoyed this review.
I am purely an amateur when it comes to painting, and actually up until 3 months ago, I actively hated painting my minis, finding it to be a chore.
About 3 months ago I was in need of painting up 4 or 5 minis and saw the Warpaints Fanatics line was just released in my area, and so grabbed about a dozen to try.
3 months later and I've got close to fifty of the Fanatic line, and enjoy painting my Battletech minis in a way I never did before.
NICE
Between you and stahly you offer the most honest reviews 😊
Love Stahly!! He is a reference for me in terms of reviews and he is also a super nice guy in person. 10/10
Stahly’s reference charts are gold
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures I wanted to say as I couldn't say it before as I had to go to work that at least as an Australian, getting Vallejo/AK paints is easy for us. Its the other more niche brands such as Pro Acryl and Two Thin Coats for example that are difficult for us.
The problem I have with AP's new range is that they're going to be between $8-9 aud, so roughly $3.50-$4 dollars more than Vallejo!
Also, the warpaints air are something that is also very saturated. I love some of their teals and brighter colours, but I find they just lack the vibrancy Vallejo Game Colour has which is something i've always seen as a staple for VGC.
Any chance you'll be talking about Vallejo model colours range refresh?
@Imperialguardftw yes I will do a similar review of the Model Color range soon. Stay tuned.
@@ImperialguardftwYeah they defos are looking expensive for us. I did order some Pro Acryl from Gap Games in Brisbane who have decent prices if you were looking for em.
I can’t for the life of me figure out what you said in the intro after “hello” 😂 well made, helpful video!
I really appreciate this, Juan.
AP IS much easier to get ahold of than Vallejo, even in the states. I’d love to have a fuller Vallejo collection but I have to mail order them.
It seems everyone has AP and Citadel paints.
I’m glad you pointed that out. Good call.
Happy to help
Its great to see so many good reviews with the new Army painter sets, I am late to the party on it all but that's simply because I have been watching ALL of the reviews on them and also painting ( and watching your amazing tutorials ). Going to have to buy a set as I love the colour triads on the side and the fact there are 6 colours per. Makes it so much easier to blend with and I am starting to blend a lot now.
Awesome!
Ive been using AP paints since i began painting 4 years ago. Ive used a few Valejo (impossible to get in canada) and the naming scheme and colours of Citadel paints didnt make any sense to me. I bought the complete set of the fanatics range, and they are next level. Compared to the original range its actually unbelievable how much better it is. I never had issues with the AP paints even if they were inconsistent since you just figure out how to work with each colour, but the fanatics range is considtent and effective across the entire range
They are great, glad you enjoy them
I think the point reg. the Pure Red is mostly because they used a few names of the old paint range. Some, like the Demonic Yellow are quite close in terms of hue. Maybe thats one of the holdovers?
Maybe, it's still extremely desaturated as are most of the paints in the set.
I get it, but it's not for me as I like to mix colours a lot.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Will you retain the same coverage but get a brighter color by adding a few drops of ink to the wet palette?
You will lose coverage as you are adding a transparent pigment
That's why there are so many different paint companies and I'm convinced that paints that work for me don't work for you not only because of preference but also where you live in the world , your surroundings play a huge role in how a paint reacts ........let's not forget Options are good , in so many ways........this new fanatic paint is great , is it lacking in some areas .......yes .......but what paint line isn't ........
The added white, does give you a CHALKY appearance in the miniature you painted. GOOD REVIEW.
You are correct and thanks
Very interesting review. I love your channel. Your plasma video is a go to for me. interesting points made in the video. I cant recall if you do say it but i just wanted to clarify that in many cases white has been added create to create tints of that hue colour. However in several cases there is also a shift in hue to maintain vibrancy in the triads. Were there any stand out paints for you that you would go back to? The magentas are excellent as are the vibrant blues imo. Love the content.
Thanks for watching!!
I don't have any issues with the fleshtones and off whites but I also have no incentives to go back to them as I also have plenty of AK and Vallejo. That's the main problem, why pay more money for the same quality?
But that's just my very particular case.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniaturesthanks for the reply ❤❤❤
Thanks for the honest and interesting video (as always). Seeing pics of various minis painted with this new range, I was actually wondering if they had some white in them since in many cases I could notice a sort of pastel finish on the paintjobs. Thanks for clearing up that doubt
They totally have and the brighter and more colourful the colour scheme the more you notice it. The yellow here is a perfect example
Great balance. I imagine for my level of painting the will be excellent. The good coverage will be a bonus rather than a problem with mixing. Then I'm painting armies and not specimen pieces to artist standard like you are Juan. Great job.
Exactly! If you don't mind that you are going to LOVE then
Solid take, amigo. I hadn’t heard about the mixing capabilities, yet, so it’s good to know that in advance. They basically become the range you reach for if you want to go fast and stay in the box. I can respect that. ¡Salud!
Exactly!
I picked up the whole set recently and I've been testing them out too. I similarly was a vocal critic of AP's previous products and wouldn't touch them, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt when I saw various content creators previewing this set and liking it.
Overall, I'm a fan of them. I'm not over the moon about them, but I find them easy and straightforward to use. Colors belonging to expanded pentads from triads makes seamless layering simple to do without doing any color mixing. I think your point about mixing colors creating corrupted grays is a bit moot because of this.
The reformulated washes are great. I was impressed by how well they flow into recesses while leaving surfaces mostly clean. This is the first line of washes I like more than GW's.
The metallics likewise worked well for me. I think the set is missing a dark black metallic silver color, but they have a good range of gold tones. Death Metal is a great dark brown/gold.
My biggest criticism about the paints are actually their bottles. My paints have loose caps that don't cover the mouth of the nozzle when screwed closed. This results in the cap filling with paint when I shake them or vortex them. AK-Interactive has significantly better bottles and caps that I wish AP had copied.
Good point about the bottles! That happened to me too
I only find it’s the bottles for the Metallics that leak in the cap. The acrylic I don’t see them doing this issue.
Great review and agree entirely with all your points! Been using the mega set a couple weeks and within the first use of using Pure Red I put it back and reached for my AK and Citadel reds again.
Exactly
Just stumbled on your review; appreciate your honest take and informative explanations --you obviously have been playing with paint for a while. Look forward to seeing more. My Fanatic Mega set is on the way.
Hope you enjoy it!
Really appreciate this review. Would be really useful if you did the same sort of review for the other big paint ranges.
I will for sure. It was so much fun
In Australia, it took me months to get Vallejo Ice Yellow - yes, I tried ordering it online... Army Painter is everywhere here.
Availability is an important factor
Looking in the wrong places champ vallejo is as easy to fin in Australia as Citadel.... in fact its harder to find single Army Painter pots in Aus than Vallejo. I just looked and got heaps of hits
Where on earth do you love that you can't get Vallejo but you can get army painter. Vallejo is all over the place in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Perth
Thanks for the paint-through review. I've always been a Valleho fan and love the new game colors which allow some wet blending. Yes there is less saturation also washes and glazes did make me pause a good bit. Not a problem since I'm a slow painter. Looking forward for the express colors to arrive next.
Hope you like them!!
Great review of the paint line! I’m glad I didn’t pull the trigger on preordering the entire line. I’ll probably pick up a few to complement the paints I have instead.
Since you focused on saturation so much in your review, could you recommend a good saturated magenta and/or purple? I’m painting some Necrons and I can’t find one that feels right to me.
With those colours (purple and violets) you run into a bit of an issue. They are so transparent that the most saturated colours are also VERY dark.
These are my favourites I'm both categories, mixed and single pigment:
Single pigment:
- Kimera Magenta (PR122 THE magenta pigment)
- Kimera Purple (PV19 a good warm purple pigment)
- Kimera Violet (PV23 EXTREME saturation and tinting, super rich dark colder violet. Looks almost black until you thin it out)
- Liquitex Quinacridone Magenta ink (PR122, same as the Kimera Magenta)
Mixed pigments:
- Pro Acryl Royal Purple
- VMC Royal Purple
- Scale75 Artist Dark Violet (mix of two transparent pigments, no white in it whatsoever, very rich and warm purple)
- VGC Evil Red (I think this one is pure pigment or a mix of two transparent ones, has ZERO white in it. One of my favourites)
- VGC Deep Magenta (a BIT desaturated but not much, almost anecdotal)
- VGC Warlord Purple (this has white in the mix but not as much)
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Thanks for all of those recommendations! I'll see which ones I have available to me and start experimenting.
6:00 I realized when i use it myself, the colours are on all on the whiter side when out of bottle. but when it fully dries, it becomes the colour it says it is. Like Ultramarine blue dont look like Maccrage Blue but colour matches when dry. Must be the white pigments in there settling below the colour pigments
It’s good to see Army Painter come out with a competitive product. For too long they kind of existed as the bottom of the rung cheapo product, the option when citadel and Vallejo were too expensive. Seems like they’ve still got a bit of work to do but if AP have proven anything recently it’s that they are receptive to feedback. I’m definitely going to have to pick up some AP washes now citadel have screwed the pooch on their shades.
Vallejo expensive?? They're like 2.99 a bottle!
I have taken what you said with the flaw and I experienced exactly what your talking about but then if I just add the white or black in smaller quantities they mix just fine and getting the deeper colors is very achievable.......I think that's good , having these paints behave as good as they do even with the do called flaw is well worth it , so just take your time and mix the colors gradually and they will mix just fine .........
Gran video Juan.Muy honesto y bien presentado
Gracias
This has been one of the best reviews so far. Very unbiased. I’m still waffling between these and Vallejo’s new Game Color line.
Both, the answer is always to get as many brands as possible
Looks incredible Juan.... I'm only halfway thru the video and considering it's your first time using Fanatic, you seem to be enjoying it. Plus, you aren't the first nor the last individual I've seen vocalize their concern about the "PURE RED"...in my opinion, it definitely falls into the pink undertone red category. At any rate, cheers.
Thanks
Wonderful review. Good balance of pros and cons, your pricing analysis was excellent.
Thanks! I really appreciate it
Great review. It’s amazing to me that people attacked you over your last review. You are obviously so well educated on the subject.
Thanks!
Where im at in the US there's a hobby lobby that has testors model paint, tamiya paint, and a small selection of individual vallejo bottles. The non-chain hobby locations have primarily testors and tamiya, and the one location I know that does sells warhammer and other tabletop stuff is mostly citadel and AP.
Model shops sell primarily Tamiya as that's what model makers prefer
The washes pulling away is for surface tension, it happens when there is a bigger pool nearby, it happens with Contrast Paints by GW too, same reason, not much that a user can do other than avoid the pooling or repeating the shading
That makes sense but I never had that happen with Contrast
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures you don't make it pool unlike us noobs :)
Great review! Super honest as always. After finishing my current project with Speedpaints 2.0 I will start to use my fanatic 50 paints set
Awesome!!
I think your review hit the nail on the head. I found that the AP Fanatic paint comes across like a gouache for block painting with high opacity but make them not great for wet blending by not being single pigment. To be clear, not good for mixing in most cases. A great beginner paint. Painting over with shadow / highlight / wet blending may need an artist paint like Kimera possibly for better chroma. I am VERY happy I can finally recommend this paint however, I was VERY disappointed with the old paints. Glad to see your hard work.
Thanks! I fully agree with your assessment. Probably right now the best beginner paint in the market
Looking through the flexible triads (actually six colours), the red you're looking for looks like Angelic Red.
Having an LGS with a full rack is invaluable if you need a specific shade. It should be possible to find equivalents of most shades by using the...er...hexads?
Sacrificing punch for coverage puts them in a similar place to Vallejo Model Colors. You could always glaze them with Speedpaint. I have a few Reaper paints which very much lean the other way. Good to have both, I suppose.
This will be an interesting watch Juan. I was sent the test x3 Fanatic paints last year and they seemed amazing. Great coverage, lovely creamy texture, generally lovely paints. It was when I started using other brands on top of them plus glaze medium that I started to notice a few movements. I might have been imagining it but I was sure that other brand lighter colours experienced Fanatic paint bleeding though into them. I only had x3 Fanatic colours (orange, green and blue) so when I tried to highlight them I used Citadel and Vallejo lighter colours with glaze medium added, and almost every time I noticed colour bleed through. I even tried the OG Warpaints on top of them (Warpaint white) and that too seemed to settle back into the Fanatic base colour. I'm assuming Fanatic on Fanatic paint doesn't do this kind of thing as yours (and other YT painters) are showing some lovely pieces using these new paints. My biggest question though is are these new Fanatic paints any better than current premium hobby paints at the same price point?
I haven't experienced any bleeding into lighter tones myself.
Are they better? No. Are they close or even equal in quality in some cases? Yes.
I made the same experiences. I noticed that the colors reactivate and start to bleeding?
on the speed paints i miss the the v1. the reactivation and long work times was so useful
Great review. I'd love to see a side by side comparison between the old and new paints to emphasise the differences. I've been buying proacryl but I'm definitely thinking of getting some of these.
I had the whole set and gave it away to sole kids, it was that bad
Your review of the speed paint was spot on. So spot on... They re-released the range 😂
Fantastic review and great quality content as always ❤
Thanks!
They did that, didn't they? 😂
This was a really fantastic review - I've seen a few now and almost no one talks about the color consistency with regards to the name.
Happy to help
Understandable that so much of a hobby is dependent on availability. I can't get Pro-Acryl easily at all, but Vallejo is omnipresent and 2.3EUR per 18ml bottle is awesome.
Exactly
Thanks so much for the detailed and thoughtful review my friend! I just got my Complete Set and am looking forward to using them! ❤
Awesome
Sounds like a very fair review, theres a few of the paint colours im looking at and those will be for final highlights, i think they'll do fine for it. Not going to place the paints i have with the war paint range but they certainly have a place alongside them.
The lighter tones are fantastic and you won't regret it
I've found using a black wash to mix them with creates darker tones very nicely, although it does thin them but they still have really nice coverage
Not a bad idea
I have similar thoughts about that. Last night when I painted first miniature with these new paints I discovered that Basilisk Red is actually pretty pink. When I tried mixing Warpaints Ice Yellow with Scale 75 Fantasy & Games Resurrection Flesh for highlight it ended almost pure grey. It is possible to slightly lighten or darken them, but any serious colour mix will end in grey. That's why they have large palette and their flexible triads, I think. Reason is not to mix new colours, but use what's already on their palette.
It seems like they did achieve better coverage with adding a lot of white pigment in each paint. All in all it looks like they remained loyal to their original goal: Army Painter produces paints for less adept hobbyists that want to paint their models fast for tabletop purposes and do not waste time with mixing their own colours.
Overall I'm quite happy with the Fanatic range, but I must work more with them to test different applications.
Most definitely a range to not mix at all, but great for simple painting
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Wait, I've just had the stupidest idea possible: what if you try to mix colours with highly saturated inks? It's a shame I'll not be able to try this before friday...
@PrzybyszzMatplanety you will gain saturation and lose opacity but the paints will always have that white in them. Glazing with an ink over them would be the best solution
@@JuanHidalgoMiniaturesso as I understand it - it seems a quick glaze with diluted speedpaints would do the trick (they are quite vivid)?
@waldemarbata325 for sure
Have the complete line enjoy it and this review is fair. That’s why I have multiple paint lines so I can mix and match playing to each lines strengths.
Thanks!
Great in-depth review. I guess you could call me a "hater" too - after years of trying Warpaints, their hit-and-miss color sprays, and then Speedpaint, I finally decided never to touch AP products again. I dislike that they behave so differently from other products, and/or just don't work like they're meant to. However... I can see uses for the new line, especially the washes. I think you've tempted me back to an extent, and I'll definitely try a few colours.
Happy to help!
I agree with your sentiment about the Pure Red - I compared it to Mephiston Red & Evil Sunz Scarlet, and even with the complete paint set, it didn't have anything that compared. A few new paints down the line that have higher saturation would be fantastic.
Totally agree, some transparent line as a complement would be AMAZING
thanks for always reviewing things honestly and thoroughly.
Happy to help
After a couple of years of using Army Painter I want a change. There is too much randomness for me. Some of the colours are excellent and true to the shade labeled on the bottle others less so, and the speed paints often look too dull or faded when fully dry. I'm thinking of going the Vallejo way, especially their Xpress range. Good idea?
Looks like they are slightly desaturated but easy to use colours that I may want to augment with a few vibrant colours from other ranges. Good to know. Thank you 😊
They are exactly that
Given that their speed paints are SO vibrant, what do you think about using these as layers over a speed paint base coat? That’s why I bought them. I wanted to have something smooth that layered well, but I always speed paint for my base coat.
Good use
This is a really nice review. I got the paints myself. the same box you have, I am just an avarage hobby painter. and i really like the paints. I have paints from AK 3rd gen and a few Pro acryl both brands which i also like, i do have to say though for me i prefer the AK metallic over the new army painter ones here as for me the gold / bronze covered very poorly compared to the AK3rd versions.
as just a hobby painter aswell i think no matter which brand you you be it AP, pro acryl or citadel. there will always be some in each range you go to. Bold titanium white from pro acryl is to me the best pure white hands down.
i have not noticed the problem you had with the shades on my end. personally i was rather disapointed with the overall selection as there are 3 reds, but a massive 7 different blues. Worst for me though is they all over their advertisements have said you can thin them extremely much with the supported medium. which they then do not supply. unless you bought the complete set.
I really like the set and all the paints i just wish the selection was a bit more broad, having almost 1/5th of the paints taken up by blues seems a bit much.
also i have no idea why they in a mega set chose those 3 effects as the ones to show off. as i am guess such paints as oozing vomit is extremely limited as a use case.
Completely agree and thanks!
Gran analisis maestro. Tenía curiosidad por probar esta nueva gama, pero con esa desaturación y el precio en España creo que pasaré.
En España no tiene sentido por el precio
As someone who lives in Spain, it's astounding to me to hear Vallejo is hard to come by. It's hard to find a hobby store that doesn't offer Vallejo here. I don't know of any stores that offer a range of Army Painter.
Outside the EU is different but here they are everywhere and glad that's the case
I live in Singapore, when I heard that it hard to find Vallejo hard to find outside of EU I was surprised, it's one of more common here, maybe only Citadel is more common
I had a similar issue with the red that looks more pink with an ink from Liquitex I bought a grey tone ink called muted grey but when I tested it out it was actually purple when I contacted the customer service they told me that this was not a bad batch but by design I think in art this type of grey supposed to be a dark purple color so they actually sent me a brand new ink of my choosing
I think it's important to have accurate naming
Great and fair review. I didn’t grab the mega or complete set, but did grab a good amount of the skin tones and the darker green and blue. From what I used so far, I enjoy them quite a bit.
My go to for a Caucasian skin tone was bugmans->cadian-->kislev(yeah I know super “original” 😅), and having more variations with the deep and rose skin tones is quite nice. I do think they worked best thinned with either their stabilizer or flow aid and/or medium/water mix over just water, but to each their own.
Edit (6/6/2024): Doubt this will be read, but tried the 'Resplendent Red', the one that shows a color on the bottle as dark as Burnt Red from PA, Deep Red, S75, or Dragon Red from the old line is basically 'very dark' orange. Oof the Reds in this set are 'not good' in my opinion, and I'd stick with PA or VMC/VGC for your good red fix.
Thanks
Good to know that the white in them is the issue with them. Im wanting to try some. Probably will avoid buying the reds though 🤣🤣. Im mostly interested in what colour groups they perform well in
Siege Studios had the same issue with the "whitening" and Pure Red naming also. It's good to see Army Painter stepping up their game.
It really is, the more good brands we have the better
Very nice Review! Im just really trying to hold back. And wait for the new Vallejo Model color :) Hope you will Review them soon.
I'm going to receive the full range VERY soon
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures ah very cool. I got some of the new game color. They are really good as well. But im allways been a more "model color" dude haha
The way they added grey to the paints sort of reminds me of those old GW "opaque" foundation paints with really good coverage. Of course, that was how they cheated back at the time when most paints besides enamels had pretty poor coverage.
It's exactly the same idea
Absolutely love your videos. You really made me up my painting game. Im just curious, do you ever start from a black primer for your own models? I love the contrast work but im just wondering if you ever prefer to layer something more traditionally
I still prefer to start from a midpoint and go up and down. I do black sometimes but it's rare
I've been pretty impressed with the reviews of the new line (I think you might be the first to mention things like "pure" reds actually being slightly pastel, I wonder if this is just a limitation of the colour range you had?). Good to see them going in the same direction Vallejo did with the Game Color revamp. The original AP range wasn't even particularly good for basic tabletop/speed-painting stuff, and pretty much an auto-exclude for display or competition-tier, since it felt like I was fighting the paint every step of the way.
That said, some areas like the horse head are good examples of why I'll be keeping my AK Ultra-Matte varnish on hand if I pick some of these up. I get why people might want a slight satin finish for the "flat colours with outline highlights" style GW etc. teach, but for more blended or volumetric highlighting like you did there, the shine just fights the hand-painted highlights too much, and can kill the illusion of scale. But that's probably not a concern for AP's main target audience.
I think they do strike a perfect balance for most people. I just wish they didn't try to make all colours opaque
I thought this was very interesting. Clear and concise. And fair.
Thanks
Great take on the paints. The AP full set for me in UK was £515. I love AK 3rd gen and have a good amount of them but there full case set in UK is £700+
Yeah, the AP set is for sure a great value if you like the paints
I swear my "pure red" was like pink man. Dragon Red was a lot closer to the red I wanted. Your pure red looks even redder than mine - I might even contact AP to see if it's defective or something.
Mine looks worse once dry, and my camera makes it a bit more saturated even. I really don't like it.
I love your channel, used to love blue, but actually found Revell Light Green as my base color for my Chaos Space Marines, so blue can go to hell!!! Love the vids!
Thanks!!
I have watched the first five seconds of this three times, and I'm convinced it's a psyop to increase engagement.
It is
Have you tried darkening the colours by mixing in the opposite colour on the wheel, rather than black? Does that make the paints more vibrant in the shadow zones when done this way?
No because both hues have white in them so you end up with a greyish mess again. You need pure pigments for that yo work
Interesting review Juan, thank you for your unbiased evaluation.
Happy to help
I loved the army painter flesh wash and Matt black. I hear the Matt black has changed but I’m not sure what that means except it’s not quite Matt. I’m interested in how their new flesh washes are but I’m hoping that particular shade hasn’t changed much. It was amazing in the past. I wasn’t fond of any other AP paint except metals and their spray cans
I would guess most pro painters would be main-lining stuff like kimera.. But i still think this might be a good "per bottle" compliment. For me who mostly paint flat things such as mechs and machines i can say they work like a dream. The smooth creamy feel is worth the slight loss in saturation and i still have a pile of old AP paints to "spice" things up if need be. =) Great review.
Thanks!
As someone who was really happy with Speedpaint 1.0 and misses the longer working time and didn't find reactivation to be a significant issue (and actually a plus in some cases), I'm glad you're taking your time to judge these. I really wish AP had not changed the formula of Speedpaint as I find 2.0 just doesn't have the working time needed to achieve the same effects, which is directly caused by the changes made to make it cure faster and not reactivate. The whole Speedpaint thing was blown way out of proportion, not just by you, but largely with your video as a catalyst.
I think your points about desaturation may be bordering on the same level of blowing it out of proportion. They may be slightly desaturated, but the words you are using are stressing this like it is a huge deal. To people that don't paint to a competition level, that red looks red. They will not notice. You mention the finish being satin being satisfactory for gamers or beginners, so why isn't the hue? It may be good to know for very technical painters, but for many or even most it may not be an issue. You do address this in your overall scoring a bit, but I wish perhaps you acknowledged other ways more throughout.
When testing and painting with these were you thinning down the paint with water or did your set come with thinning medium? Or were you paintong straight from the bottle onto the wet pallete?
Water or course
A nice honest review. Thank you.
Happy to help
Good review - thank you.
No reason to switch if already invested in other brands.
No reason at all, but it's good to see AP finally catching up. The more competition in the market the better
A very good and thorough review. Thank you!
Happy to help!
I just feel a lot of the colours (red especially) have white dumped into them to improve coverage rather than pure pigment - they feel really muted compared to AK/Vallejo counterparts.
Exactly my thoughts
The reds are absolute garbage in this line. Daemonic Yellow is solid, but I won't even try the oranges, and stick with vallejo or AK
Great review! Appreciate your through perspective. I learn a lot from your videos.
Thanks
I think you are correct. The titanium white also makes a lot of the colors look grainy.
It most definitely can do
Best test of TAP so far!!🙌🙌
Excellent review JH - I'm looking forward to giving these a try myself.
Out of curiosity, what camera do you use for your up-close shots of the miniatures?
While painting I use a Canon M50 with a EF 24-70 L lens.
I'm not Spanish but sitll in the EU (Poland) and both Vallejo and AK are noticeably cheaper than AP Fanatic. So yeah, the price difference might be a Europe thing.
More than probably
I think in terms of pricing, as new formulas from companies have come around from almost every company, it's better to 'future proof' the line so that they are in a strong position to move on.
I think so
Came to drop a like and comment to help Juan battle the almighty algorithm. But, I've no interest in how well or poor these AP paints perform, as I've been burned a few times already with poor quality products.
Totally get it
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Also, Vallejo and AK are in every hobby store here in Canada (at least in Ontario). No sourcing issues here, and by comparison AP Fanatics look to be about $1 more than Vallejo or AK. So yeah, with the crap paints in the past and 2/3 drybrushes falling apart after the first cleaning, AP won't get my wallets attention. Great video regardless.
Agree with this 100%. I don’t think AP should be applauded for selling bad products for years, then owning up to it so they can sell you a new line of paints that do what other acrylic paints have been doing for 20 years. They did it with speed paint, they did it with these, I’m sure they’ll do it again it the future.
As someone who decided to just get most of the Vallejo (New) Game Color paints for my premixed paint needs, since they're slightly cheaper out here in Poland and actually already released a long while ago, I felt a bit of regret when Fanatics were close to releasing, due to all the hype. Your review actually made me content with my decision, so that's nice. However, now the "I should've went with Fanatics" is replaced with "maybe I should've went with AK 3rd gen", since out of a sudden, everyone is talking about them despite me having a very hard time finding comprehensive reviews of the line (and they cost exactly the same as Vallejos out here, so that adds to the regret). So the real question is - should I gift Vallejos away and get an AK lineup instead?
(ProAcryl are supposedly nice too, but they're very expensive here - over twice as expensive as AK or Vallejo - and they seem to be a smaller lineup of more mixing-oriented paints from what I see - and I already enjoy Kimera and Scalecolor Artists for mixing my own shades well enough)
Vallejo will be fine. With mini paints we like to talk a lot about which one is best, but at the end of the day if you are using even a halfway decent paint you can get a mini painted well. I've used proacryl, vallejo, AP, reaper, and golden. They all basically work the same (except the older gen AP that stuff I use only for dry brushing now) in that they won't fight you.
Dont feel regret in buying a "slightly less hyper optimal" paint range. There is no such thing as a perfect paint range they all have flaws and different cost/benefit ratios. You bought a paint range that's not going to fight you and has very good qualities for painting.
Vallejo are amazing, instead of giving them away, just buy AK to COMPLEMENT the range
No single paint brand is the best. They all do different things. Some have terrible metallics. Some lack saturated paints. Some have poor reds, etc etc. I have paint from 5 different brands for this reason. Even more if you factor in the paints I have for model kits
Thanks for all the replies! Glad to hear it's too paranoid of me to think Vallejos were a bad decision after all. I'll probably be supplementing the line with a few AK paints though, they have some nice shades that are still missing from Vallejo GCs (although that New Model Color is around the corner, maybe I'll wait and see). Cheers
@@Bakecrustolol Don't regret anything. I was in similar spot as you not so long ago. I have lots of AK, some Pro Acryl, few Vallejo, full set of Scale 75 Fantasy & Games and new set of 50 Warpaints Fanatic (I don't buy Citadel). I dumped a lot of money into different paints I've never needed and can say this: choose two or three brands you feel comfortable with and work with them. It really doesn't matter which ones. Pro Acryl are nice, but here (I'm from Poland too) their price does not justify purchasing them. They're just not that good. I buy AK from Al Legro at 11-13 PLN and I'm pretty happy. Scale 75 F&G are nice, but need some learning to use. Vallejo has some really good Metal Color range (the best metal I've ever seen) and that's what I'm mostly using. I've painted Blood Pass Thunderer with Warpaints and they're nice too.
Miniature painting is not science - there's very little objective things there. People are swearing by Vallejo Model Colors and I find them too thick to use. People will die on Pro Acryl hill and I find them too expensive to buy. New Army Painter Fanatic seem nice and as they're easy to find, I will supplement my AK collection with them (plus AP washes are the ones I use, no other).
Don't regret anything, just paint and have fun. Reach out for new paints here and there to try something new and don't limit yourself to one brand. If you go with Vallejo, AK and new Army Painter you'll not be dissapointed.
Hater review! Love it!
Edit: your review is more than fair. I got the complete set, which i now have a little bit of buyers remorse because of the desaturated colours. I think if i got the pro acryl paints instead, i might've been happier. But the prospect of a full spectrum of colour in progression sets really appealed to me. I would've liked to have the Vallejo paints. But like you said, their availability is atrocious and it was impossible to find a full set of it.
I decided to lean into it
Yeah, ProAcryl paints do basically the same thing better, except for the relatively narrow color selection. Proacryl as just two reds. They are both amazing... but it's just two, you are going to need mixing, or another range to get anything done well.
@@jorgemontero6384 that's a good point. I was thinking about getting some pro acryl to complement what I have. But you just have me the justification for it 😄
It this still a problem for you?
Im contemplating whether or not I should get the complete set.
My advice is to NEVER get a full range of anything.
A few thoughts. I bought the whole range. Regarding the quick dry, they have a retarder that can help if you prefer a longer drying time. As far as the saturation issue, I am wondering what would happen if I mixed a tiny bit of the Speed Paint 2.0 into my mix to bump up the saturation.
You will bump saturation and lose opacity