Today we kick off a new series on Tale of Painters: ToP tips. Hobby hacks and advice from Garfy’s and Stahly’s combined hobby experience of over 45 years. In this post, I’m gonna talk about my favourite three green paints. I own over 400 paints from all miniature paint manufacturers out there, and over the years I must have tried 200 more. If you only own GW paints and want to branch out but are not sure what to buy, or if you’re looking for the perfect shade of green for your next project, find out more after the jump.
Having used a lot of different greens from all possible paint ranges, I realized that greens can often be hit or miss in terms of coverage, even within the same paint range. I like GW’s current range, but I feel apart from the base paints, all the greens are a bit on the weaker side in terms of pigment strength, so it’s definitely worthwhile to try other manufacturers. You can’t do anything wrong with these three paints:
1. Scaly Hide from The Army Painter Warpaints
This is a nice pale neutral green that’s not as olive as Straken Green, it’s perfect for highlighting Skarsnik Green and for such a light colour, it covers very well in only two or three thin coats over black. Highlight it further with Krieg Khaki or Ionrach Skin, or add a drop of white to lighten it up. I love to use with a wash of Biel-Tan Green or Green Ink from The Army Painter as a perfect base colour for light Orruk/Ork/Goblin skin as pointed out in my Blood Bowl Orc Team tutorial.
2. Sick Green from Vallejo Game Color
This is basically Warpstone Glow but without the lousy coverage – Sick green covers black in one or two coats. A great medium vibrant green with a lot of versatility, that can be highlighted with Moot Green to make it more vibrant or Skarsnik Green to make it paler. The Game Color range was designed to be matches for the old Citadel paint range, and while Sick Green is not as vibrant as old Snot Green, it’s still my go-to medium green paint.
3. Jade Green from Vallejo Game Color
Similar to Kabalite Green, but more intense and almost neon in direct comparison, and with much better coverage with only one or two coats needed over black. There is also a darker and a lighter shade that matches Jade Green in the Game Color range, Foul Green and Scurvy Green. Foul Green has excellent coverage as well, while Scurvy Green is more on Kabalite Green level of coverage, so a few more coats will be needed. All three together form a great paint triad that I used on a lot of models, for example, the baleful jade green glow of my Dark Eldar models.
Hope you enjoyed our first ToP Tips post and found some helpful advice in how to expand your paint collection. Leave a comment or reaction below, and if you got any ideas for what topics you would like to see in future ToP tips, drop them in the comments section below!
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I'm sorry, I never owned Emerald Green, but judging from pictures I found online, Emerald Green is a medium green with a cool hue. Warpstone Glow is a bit cooler than VGC Sick Green, but the coverage is pretty poor, so how about using Sick Green as a base and then mix in some Kabalite Green or Wizards Orb from The Army Painter until you get as close as possible?
Very cool insight into your choices of paint. Thanks for sharing.
my emerald green from 1995 is on it's last legs and i realised i don't have any other normal green colour. it's difficult to tell but it looks like sick green would be the right one?