Lets review a great company for 3D printed miniatures paints. We are not an affiliate or associated with Army Painter, let us say that first. However the rest of this post is pretty much about their products. We highly like them and have been using them for all our 3d printed miniatures. We do get a small commission if you purchase anything through the referral links to Amazon though that helps us keep the site going.
Colour Primers
They have a great line of colour primers that come in a spray can with a special nozezle that allows you to apply a perfect finish. They have a variety of colors for whatever your working on also. You can cover a whole set of miniatures with one coat. Just pick your matt color and shake up the can for a good minute then spray your set of 3d printed miniatures at a distance of 8+ inches and your set for your base coats.
Army Painter recommends you test spraying it on some old test prints or something. It takes a little bit of practice so its best to follow that recommendation. As most of us familiar with 3d printing miniatures know even when we have everything tuned in we still get failed test prints, keep them and put them to good use with testing sprays, different color combo’s, etc. and other 3d printed miniature paints methods.
Army Painter 3D Printed Miniatures Paints
Pros
- The quality of the paints is great. You usually only need one maybe two coats.
- Each bottle is 18 mL which is a decent amount more than GW or Citadel paints and the value is excellent at around $1.60 per bottle versus $4.25 for GW or Citadel.
- Your coats come out clean and clear. Even metallics turn out good, they do not look like glitter and coat smoothly.
- The dripper bottles are great too. Allows you to just use a little as needed then recap the bottle.
- The paints dry quickly.
- Great assortment of colors
Cons
- Same as the pro but can be a con is the paints do dry quickly
- Can be a bit thick on the tones when working on detail
- The paint separates also if it sits a while
Tips From Manufacturer
Normally our Warpaints are thick and filled with pigment. Part of the chemical composition is a thin resin-component that aids the flow of the paint and prevents is from drying out.
The problem could be that we fill the new paints right to the top of the pot, leaving very little air inside the pots. That means it is very hard to shake the pot thoroughly. Imagine the difference when shake a filled water bottle or a half empty water bottle. Same thing here.
Here’s a trick that I think will help you. Try to store your Warpaints pots upside down. Leave them like that for 24-48 hours and then the pigment should have moved down (into the tip). You still need to give them a good shake and the first few drops might still be see-through resin base. However the paint should be excellent, it just needs a good shake 🙂
Another option is to take one of the colours and do a test. Simply squeeze out about 1/4 of the pot (or less) until the paint that comes out is all thick. That should show you that the paint is good, but the resin-component causes the issue. The downside of this, is that you might need to add a little water to this particular paint when you use it.
We highly recommend the starter set for anyone getting into painting of 3d printed miniatures. We have been printing D&D miniatures on a our 3d printers the Creality Ender-3 and ANYCUBIC Photon (read our review here) for over a year and these 3d printed miniatures paints work great on them!