Paints - P3 and Coat d'Arms, any experience?

[Powerslave]

Hey guys!

I know that some people wanted to hear my feedback on Formula P3 paints, so here we go.

While visiting back home in Kiev, Ukraine (correct spelling Kyiv) - I bought 15 P3 paints and 3 P3 inks to give them a good try. Let me tell you - I loved them so much that I ordered more from the UK now that I am back in France. The paints have the best coverage that I have seen from a miniature wargaming company - the white and the menoth white base cover anything in two good coats, while paints like Heartfire can cover most stuff in one good coat - simply amazing coverage (I guess the liquid pigment formula pays off). The colors are bright and dry satin - ideal for any fantasy / sci-fi modeller who is not after gritty realism (but of course you can always use matt varnish to solve the issue if you have that need). The inks are very rich, and you can achieve some impressive washes (I am waiting for the Flesh Wash by the way, since apparently it is very, very good from what I heard).

All right, let's see how my Fire Dragons Exarch turned out with P3 Paint...

[URL=http://img12.imageshack.us/i/img0598e.jpg/][/URL]

[URL=http://img12.imageshack.us/i/img0599ddv.jpg/][/URL]

[URL=http://img17.imageshack.us/i/img0600oqy.jpg/][/URL]

[URL=http://img8.imageshack.us/i/img0601r.jpg/][/URL]

So... How did I achieve the final result?

Here is the walkthrough:

1. Always use white primer - especially if you will be painting your miniature in a very colorfull paint scheme with light colors.
2. Basecoat the armour with P3 Heartfire, while the flame lance, the helmet, and some decorative elements are basecoated with P3 Thamar Black.
3. Mix P3 Brown Ink and P3 Yellow Ink with water in a 1 : 1 : 8 ratio. Wash the armour that was previously basecoated with Heartfire.
4. Once dry basecoat all the metallic areas with GW's Dwarven Bronze (only have Molten Bronze from P3 right now) and wash them with Devlan Mud. Highlight them with P3 Molten Bronze.
5. Highlight the armour with P3 Heartfire (since the previous layer was darkened by our wash) and then proceed to make extreme highlights with P3 Sulfuric Yellow.
6. Highlight the black elements with P3 Coal Black.
7. Gems are done in the classic technique - build up your colors from darkest to lightest, and then leave the white dot on top to indicate the light source (I am still working on this technique myself). I used green gems on the armour because Green has a very nice contrast with yellow and orange colors.
8. The base was done with MIG pigments and two VMC colors. I used German Grey to base the destroyed tank track and then highlighted it with Fieldblue. The concrete element was covered with MIG Concrete dry pigment, while the sand was colored by the Gulf War Sand Pigment and the Beach Sand Pigment. Some Light Dust Pigment was used to show light dusting on the boots.

In conclusion - I am very happy with Formula P3 paints, and I will gladly recommend them to anybody who is looking to throw away his or her GW paints or is just starting out. P3 is simply way better than GW in terms of paint - and one more thing - their pots are bigger, hold more paint, and do not dry out - because they are well sealed.

[Shadow Queen]

I find most of the GW paints are wartery so I tend to mostly use the P3 range.

[relasine]

I've been using P3 a lot this summer and have noticed a few things:

The paint starts to separate when they get too watered down. I'm often having trouble working with them when I want them at a milky consistency. This problem is compounded by the fact that will they dry on the brush very quickly, so you pretty much have to water them down, particularly when doing detail work. While I haven't yet tried the metallics, I've heard a lot of naysaying about them, but I have seen some excellent results from people using their Brass Balls. On the bright side, the coverage is spectacular and they have some excellent color choices. Before their Skorne, Khador Base, and Khador Highlight Reds came out, I hated painting anything in red. No more, my friends. While I do find the line lacking of specific colors that I end up having to buy from other companies (Reaper Dragon Gold, VMC Hull Red), they do have some unique selections like their Coal Black (almost a very dark blue/green), Heartfire, and Menoth White Highlight (a tad beneath white on the bone-side). There are a lot of good complements to the Citadel range as well for those patient enough to get in there and experiment, particularly the colors I just mentioned.

[AoM]

Whenever you're thinning your paints, matte medium and/or glaze medium are your friends. I hardly ever add water to paint anymore. It just doesn't give me the consistency I want, whether it's Reaper Master Series or P3.

P3 is very nice paint line. Great coverage, silky feel, and stands up to a bit of handling before sealing it. It's also great fro 2 brush blending and wet blending. It's the main paint line I use.

The other paints I use are the Reaper Master Series. I love these as well, but you're asking for P3 reviews.

I can't stand the citadel paint. It's thick, and dries too fast. and the bottles are not designed well at all. The metallics are the only thing I like in the regular citadel paints, and I much prefer the RMS metallics to them. I will say that P3 Pig Iron is a far superior dark silver compared to Boltgun Metal. Without a lot of ink and shading, Pig Iron ends up looking like metal at scale. Boltgun just looks like metallic paint.

Menoth White Base and Menoth White Highlight will replace Bleach Bone and it's oddly green undertones for you. And you'll find that adding Menoth White Highlight into almost any paint recipe is a great way to lighten up colors without going to pastel like white has a tendency to do.

[Servant]

From experience, I've found P3 and Reaper Master series as the reigning champions of all miniature paints I've tried. Having worked with Citadel for almost half a decade (not that Citadels are bad, mind you), they really made my paint jobs shine despite being armed with nothing but no-name synthetic brushes.

As stated before P3 is absolutely lovely to work with, silky smooth and blends like a dream at the expense of the slightly artificial-looking sheen that occurs when it dries. Particular standouts include Gun Corps Brown, Skorne Red (strong red that colors over black in 2 coats!), Frostbite (excellent basecoat for white) and Menoth White. Perhaps the weakest colors in the range are the greys and other browns in my opinion.

In the realm of greys and browns, Citadel does quite well.

Reaper Masters are all-around good, excellent coverage and perhaps the best metal colors around in Shadowed Steel and Aged Gold. Pure Black is what it says on the tin - the smoothest black I have had the pleasure to use. Haven't taken Pro Paints for a spin, but apparently they've got even better coverage but have a slight grainy texture.

[Mananarepublic]

I use almost exclusively P3 paints and a few Rackham/GW (especially the GW washes). They are great!

I loved the old GW paints so I have also been interested in CdA's paints. I don't know how different a formula they have to P3 though since I've heard (not through experience though - mind that) that there are problems with the same colors (yellow/red). I do feel like the P3 reds have better coverage than the old GW did. They have one shade on the website that looks just like Worm purple - which would be awesome!!

/M

[Siquid]

I love p3's armor wash. I use almost exclusively on all my dark colors. I find it helps create a much warmer grey tone, and it's decent n metallics too!