Understanding Miniature Paint Types: A Complete Comparison

Hey again, friends. I want to let you in on something I learned the hard way. For years I thought there was one type of miniature paint. You bought the little pots from the store, you put them on the model, and that was painting. I had no idea there were fundamentally different kinds of paint, each designed to do completely different things. And once I figured that out, a bunch of stuff that had been frustrating me for years suddenly made sense.

Why won't this paint cover smoothly? Because it's a contrast paint and it's not supposed to. Why does this wash keep reactivating when I paint over it? Because it's an enamel product, and that's actually a feature. Why does this oil paint take three days to dry? Because oil paints are slow. That's the whole point.

So today we're going to break down every type of paint you'll encounter in the miniature hobby. What they are, what they're good at, what they struggle with, and when you'd actually want to use each one. No brand worship. No sales pitch. Just honest information so you can figure out what works for you.

Acrylic Paint: The Standard

If you've painted a miniature, you've almost certainly used acrylic paint. It's the default. The baseline. The bread and butter of the hobby.

Acrylics are water-based, which means you thin them with water, clean your brushes with water, and if you spill some on your shirt, water will get it out (if you catch it before it dries). They dry relatively quickly, usually within a few minutes depending on how thick you've applied them and how humid your room is. They're non-toxic. They don't smell. And they're safe to use without any special ventilation.

The way acrylics work is pretty straightforward. Pigment (the color) is suspended in an acrylic polymer medium (the binder). When the water evaporates, the polymer hardens and locks the pigment in place. That's why acrylic paint is permanent once it dries but easy to work with while it's still wet.

What Acrylics Do Well

Pretty much everything, honestly. Base coating, layering, highlighting, glazing, drybrushing. Acrylics are versatile enough to handle every fundamental painting technique. They're the Swiss army knife of miniature paints. Not necessarily the best at any single task, but good enough at all of them that you could paint an entire army and never touch another paint type.

What Acrylics Struggle With

Smooth blending over large areas. Because they dry fast, you have a narrow window to push paint around on the model before it starts to set up. On a small detail, this doesn't matter. On a large cloak or a monster's skin, that fast drying time can work against you. There are ways to manage it (wet palettes, retarder medium, working in smaller sections), but it's the one area where other paint types genuinely outperform acrylics.

Coverage Varies by Brand

Not all acrylic paints are created equal when it comes to opacity. Some brands give you smooth, opaque coverage in one or two thin coats. Others need three, four, five coats to get solid coverage. And some colors are just inherently tricky no matter who makes them (looking at you, yellow). More on brands in a minute.

Contrast and Speed Paints: One Coat and Done

Contrast paints (Games Workshop's term) and Speed Paints (Army Painter's version) are a relatively new category, and they've changed the hobby for a lot of people. These are translucent, heavily pigmented paints designed to be applied in a single coat over a light primer. They flow into the recesses to create shadows and stay thin on the raised areas to let the primer show through as highlights.

The result, when it works, is a base coat plus shading in one step. You paint the entire cloak in one smooth coat, and when it dries, the folds have darker shadows and the raised areas are lighter. It's not magic, but it's close enough to feel like it the first time you try it.

What Contrast Paints Do Well

Speed. That's the whole pitch, and it delivers. An infantry model that might take two hours with traditional basecoat-wash-highlight can be tabletop ready in thirty minutes with contrast paints. For batch painting armies, they're incredible. They're also genuinely great for organic textures like cloth, skin, fur, and leather, where the natural pooling creates realistic-looking shadow variation.

What Contrast Paints Struggle With

Flat surfaces. If you put contrast paint on a large, flat armor panel, it's going to pool unevenly and leave tide marks. There's nowhere for the paint to naturally flow, so gravity just pulls it to whatever edge or corner it finds. They also don't play well with traditional layering on top. And there's a learning curve to application. Too much paint and you get splotchy pools. Too little and you get streaks. The sweet spot is achievable, but it takes a few models to find it.

Oil Paints: The Blending Kings

Oils are where things get interesting. Oil paints use a drying oil (usually linseed) as the binder instead of an acrylic polymer. And the single biggest difference is drying time. Where acrylics dry in minutes, oils stay workable for hours. Sometimes days.

That extended working time means you can blend to your heart's content. Put two colors down, grab a clean brush, and smooth them together. Come back an hour later and blend some more. The paint is still wet. Still moveable. You can push it, pull it, wipe it off entirely, and start over. Try doing that with acrylics.

What Oils Do Well

Blending. Smooth, seamless gradients on skin, cloaks, large armor surfaces, and anything else where you want buttery transitions. Oil paints are also excellent for rendering and glazing, where you build up thin transparent layers to create depth. Many competition-level painters use oils for their final rendering passes precisely because the extended working time allows for precision that acrylics simply can't match.

What Oils Require

Here's the catch. Oil paints require mineral spirits or turpentine for thinning and cleanup. That means ventilation becomes important. You can't just rinse your brush in your water cup. You need a separate container of mineral spirits for cleaning, and you should be working in a ventilated area or at minimum near an open window.

Oils also need to be applied over a fully cured acrylic layer. You paint your base coats in acrylic, let them cure thoroughly, and then apply your oil work on top. Oil over acrylic works great. Acrylic over uncured oil does not.

The drying time is both the strength and the complication. If you're painting an army and want to knock out a unit in an evening, oils aren't your tool. If you're painting a single display piece and you want every blend to be flawless, oils are unbeatable.

Enamel Products: Weathering Workhorses

Enamel paints in the miniature hobby are primarily used as weathering products. Washes, filters, streaking effects. Companies like AK Interactive, Ammo by Mig, and Tamiya make enamel-based products designed specifically for creating grime, rust streaks, oil stains, and general weathering effects.

The key property of enamels is that they're reactivatable. Apply an enamel wash over a cured acrylic surface, let it start to dry, and then use a clean brush dampened with mineral spirits to selectively remove or blend the enamel. You can pull streaks downward, clean up areas you want pristine, and control exactly where the grime sits. Try doing that with an acrylic wash. Once it's dry, it's locked in.

What Enamels Do Well

Realistic weathering. The reactivatable nature of enamels gives you a level of control over grime and environmental effects that no other medium matches. Pin washes (applying wash only in specific recesses with a fine brush) are cleaner and more controlled with enamels because you can wipe away any spill onto the surrounding surface.

What to Know

Like oils, enamels require mineral spirits for thinning and cleanup. Same ventilation considerations apply. They also need a protective varnish between your acrylic work and the enamel layer, or the mineral spirits can damage your paint job. A coat of gloss or satin varnish seals the acrylics and gives the enamel wash a smooth surface to flow into.

Inks: High Pigment, High Impact

Inks are highly pigmented, very fluid paints. Think of them as acrylic paint with the opacity dialed way up and the thickness dialed way down. They flow like water but carry intense color.

What Inks Do Well

Glazing and washes. Because inks are so fluid and pigmented, a tiny amount thinned with medium creates a beautiful transparent glaze that shifts the color of whatever is underneath it. Want to warm up a section of skin? Glaze with a red ink. Want to add depth to green armor? Glaze with a blue ink. Inks also make excellent washes, flowing into recesses and creating strong shadow definition.

Some painters use inks for basecoating over white or light primers, similar to contrast paints but with more control over the intensity. And because they're acrylic-based, they clean up with water and play nicely with the rest of your acrylic workflow.

What Inks Struggle With

Opacity. Inks are transparent by design. You can't base coat with a single layer of ink and expect solid, opaque coverage. They're a layering and finishing tool, not a workhorse paint. They can also stain your palette and your brushes more aggressively than standard acrylics, so keep that in mind.

The Brand Comparison (Honest Version)

Alright. Let's talk brands. And I want to be really clear about something before we start. The brand of paint you use does not determine how good your painting is. I painted a Chaos Marine to near golden demon quality using only Army Painter paints, a brand that a lot of "serious" painters look down on. And the lesson I took away from that project wasn't about whether Army Painter makes good paint. It was about how I put unrealistic expectations on my tools instead of listening to what they do well and leaning into that.

Every paint range has strengths and weaknesses. The more you work with one range and learn how it behaves, the better your results will be. Jumping between brands before you understand the one you already have is a great way to stay frustrated.

That said, here's my honest take on the major brands.

Games Workshop Citadel

The most widely available miniature paint on the planet. You can find it in any Games Workshop store and most local game shops. The color range is enormous and the quality is consistent. Their washes (Shades) are genuinely best-in-class, and their contrast paint line is excellent. The paint is formulated specifically for miniatures, so the consistency is usually good right out of the pot.

The downsides: those pots. The flip-top pots dry out faster than dropper bottles, they're harder to get paint out of cleanly, and the hinges break. Also, Citadel paints tend to be the most expensive option per milliliter. You're paying for availability, consistency, and the enormous color range.

Vallejo

Vallejo has been around forever and makes a massive range of paints across multiple lines (Model Color, Game Color, Mecha Color, Metal Color). Their dropper bottles are convenient, the paint thins well with water, and the coverage on most colors is solid. Vallejo Metal Color is, in my opinion, the best metallic paint in the hobby. Their aluminum is my go-to for pretty much every metallic surface.

Vallejo's main weakness is consistency across the range. Some colors are excellent. Others are chalky, or need a ton of shaking to remix properly, or have inconsistent coverage. It's not a dealbreaker, but you'll find favorites and you'll find ones you avoid.

Monument Hobbies Pro Acryl

Pro Acryl is the newer kid on the block and has quickly become one of my favorite ranges. The coverage is excellent, the dropper bottles work well, and the paint has a nice consistency that thins smoothly with just water. Their bold colors are vibrant without being garish, and their metallics are very good. The range is still growing, so you won't find as many specialty colors as Citadel or Vallejo, but what's there is high quality.

If you're starting fresh and want a solid all-around range, Pro Acryl is a strong choice. And yes, I have a collaboration with Monument Hobbies on my Signature Paints line, so take that for what it's worth. But I genuinely use these paints every day, and that started before any partnership.

Army Painter

Army Painter gets a bad reputation from experienced painters, and some of it is deserved. The standard range has a thick binder that needs more than just water to get to an ideal consistency. Adding a medium (I use a flow improver) makes a huge difference. The paint also separates in the bottle during transport, so if you don't shake it thoroughly (a vortex mixer helps, but mixing balls in the bottle work too), it can feel like completely different paint than what it was designed to be.

But here's the thing. Army Painter is affordable and widely available. Those are the two most important factors for getting new painters into the hobby. And with proper thinning and mixing, you can absolutely paint to a high standard with it. I proved it to myself. The paint just asks a little more of you in the preparation stage.

Scale75

Scale75 makes beautiful paint with intense pigmentation. Their matte finish is distinctive and gorgeous for display painting. The paint is thick, which gives you excellent opacity but also means it requires careful thinning. Some painters love the consistency. Others find it too thick to work with comfortably. It's very much a "try it and see" brand. Their metallics are outstanding.

Dropper Bottles vs Pots

This is one of those debates that miniature painters love to argue about as if it actually matters. So let's settle it quickly.

Dropper bottles let you dispense a controlled amount of paint onto your palette. Less waste, cleaner process, the paint stays sealed when you're not actively dispensing. Pots require you to open the lid, dip a brush or spatula in, and transfer paint to your palette. More exposure to air, easier to spill, the rim gets crusty with dried paint over time.

Dropper bottles are better. There. I said it. The only advantage of pots is that Citadel uses them, and Citadel has colors you might want. But you can always transfer pot paints into empty dropper bottles if it bothers you enough. Or just use the pots and stop worrying about it. The paint inside is what matters, not the container it ships in.

So Which Paint Should You Buy?

Here's my honest advice. Buy whatever is available at your local store or cheapest to ship. If that's Citadel, great. If that's Vallejo, great. If that's Army Painter, also great. Learn that range. Figure out what it does well. Figure out what it struggles with. Lean into the strengths and work around the weaknesses.

As you grow as a painter, you'll naturally start picking up individual colors from other brands that fill specific gaps. Maybe you grab Vallejo Metal Color for your metallics. Maybe you pick up a few Pro Acryl bold colors for vibrancy. Maybe you start experimenting with oils for blending. Your collection will become a mix of brands over time, and that's completely normal.

The paint brand does not matter nearly as much as the time you spend practicing with whatever paint you already own. Trust me on this one.

Now get out there and slay the gray.

Some links below are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy something through them, NINJON earns a small commission at no extra cost to you — it helps keep the tutorials free.