This is a list of the brands of acrylic paints I currently own, my opinions of them, relative expense, what I generally use them for, what colors I find are best from their line(s), and some idea of where to get them.

I generally use craft paints for their opacity, their relatively matte finish, and their price (low :). Note that "craft" paints are generally considered to be inferior to "artists' quality paints", and that you generally can't find craft paints in "art stores"; you need to look in "craft stores" or "art and craft stores".

I use few brands of paint that are vended for use on miniatures; they tend to come in small quantities and be expensive. In fact, when I began it never occurred to me to use the specialty acrylics sold for working on miniatures, because I had no idea of their quality, availability, or properties. However, I knew something about commercial paints; so that's what I used. For the most part, I have not missed the specialized paint; and in some cases I have been glad to be buying general-purpose alternatives.

There are a few drawbacks to craft paints, though; sometimes it's hard to get really vivid colors, either because they're expensive pigments, or because they're translucent and craft paints are generally opaque (and adding stuff for the opacity dims the color of the pigment). I've occasionally had to work hard to find a color I wanted; but I've managed to find pretty much everything I was looking for and it's been worth it.

Delta Ceramcoats:
I use this brand more than any other. They're a general-purpose brand of craft paints which can be found in most craft stores (Michael's, AC Moore, etc.). They come in a large array of colors, some of which are very unusual and useful (there's one called chocolate cherry I'm enamored of that's a reddish-brown near to black). They have pretty good metallics as well, but their best are the red copper and pearl. I buy this brand by default and have never had a problem with them. They wash well, settling into the hollows where you expect paint to. In the city, at my favorite expensive art & craft store, they go for about $1.30/2oz; in the suburbs at Michael's they're about $.60/2oz.

Apple Barrel Colors:
Another general-purpose craft paint. I've had very mixed results from these. I have a pale pink (called Rose Bouquet) from them that's excellent for pinkening skin tones; and I have a few other colors (mostly browns and burgundies) which seem okay, though unspectacular. On the other hand, I have their black (a semi-gloss) which I *cannot* get to stay on a miniature. No matter how carefully I handle the mini, the black begins to peel off the primer as soon as it's dry. I have stopped using the black, from fear that it will even peel after topcoated and cause a real disaster. Apple Barrel colors are about the price of the Delta Ceramcoats, and can be found from about the same stores.

Accent:
Another general-purpose craft paint. I'm pretty unimpressed with their normal line of paints; not very interesting colors, and something about the finish just isn't as nice. Overall, mediocre, and I don't generally buy them. They have a line of "double-pigmented metallics" that looked very interesting on first glance, but in fact turned out to look like childrens' poster paints with glitter; sort of cheesy, bright colors. There were two exceptions; the Antique Gold and the Princely Pewter are colors I'm happy I have. The pewter really looks like pewter, and when you wash a bottom coat of it with silver you get a nice steel color. The Antique Gold is an extremely bright brassy gold that I haven't found the right place for yet, but which seems like a good color for bright, showy jewelry. The Crown Red Velvet is also tolerable (a glittery burgundy), but other than these I'd recommend against this line and against Accent paints in general.

Golden
These are a brand of artists' paints that were recommended to me by a helpful fellow in my local art&craft store when I was looking for a particularly bright color and while I was still under the illusion that artists' paints were what I wanted. He said they were his favorite brand of acrylic paints, and I would generally agree that they are the best brand of artists' acrylics I have used. They're pricey though, with the price varying by pigment from $3-8 per tube. Though I don't use their regular pigments for miniatures, I gravitate toward them when in the store because every tube has a stroke of the actual paint on it, painted across black and white stripes so that you can see how the color bahaves and how translucent it is. This saves you from opening to tubes and having a potentially embarrassing accident when the tube squeezed by another customer gushes over your hands.

I do however use their metallics for painting miniatures; their silver is particularly good; it's bright and luminous. They have two grades of metallic pigments, fine and coarse, and I recommend the fine for pretty much any application involving miniatures. I was able to get the metallics in 1oz sqeeze bottles from my local art store- much more convenient than a 2oz tube with a wide mouth and a tendency to gush.

The other Golden paints I use are their "interference colors"- arguably one of the most interesting paint innovations I've ever seen. The paints are a translucent white base in which you can see a colored metallic shimmer when looked at from some angles only. They're intended to be used as washes, or to mix with other colors. You can mix in a complementary interference color for a surprising sparkle, or you can add a contrasting color to get a color you can't quite describe. My art store had examples of various colors mixed with the interference colors to show you how they worked. I bought a tube of each color, and have gotten some great effects. I reccomend them for flashy mage robes and for opaque jewels (pthalo blue paint with violet interference made a good lapis cabachon for me). Every art store I've checked stocks these.

Liquitex:
This is another brand of artists' acrylics; I have some tubes of Liquitex paint that my father bought when he was in college (around 1972) that are still usable, with the addition of a bit of water and a good bit of massaging. Today's Liquitex paints seem to generally be considered to be near the bottom of the quality range of artists' acrylics; they're chearper than the Golden, and have less generally less interesting metallic pigments (and no interference colors, which are made only by Golden, as far as I can tell). The sole exception is their Iridescent Stainless Steel/Metallic color, which really is a nice steel color. The bottle even clains the pigment is real stainless steel flakes. I got it in a 2oz bottle in a "concentrated" state for $4.50, which is an average price for this brand. I've never seen an art store that didn't stock these.

Folk Art:
This is another line of craft paints, and I feel about the same way about them as I do about the Accent paints; they come in somewhat less interesting colors, and they don't have as nice a finish. I don't have many of these, and I'm not likely to buy more. Note that they have a line of "gloss enamels", and that the label on these has little in the way of obvious visual differences from the normal colors, so it's easy to wind up with the gloss enamels (which are more like artists' acrylics) by accident. You can get these in most craft stores too, for prices comparable to the other craft paints.

Dragon Metal:
Along with the Armory paints, these were handed to me when I volunteered to start painting my DM's unpainted miniatures. They are possibly as old as I am; some of them had dried up without their original seals ever having been broken. The gold and silver died utterly; the copper, bronze, and chainmail are usable if you avoid the lumps, while somehow the gunmetal came out perfectly once some water had been added to it. (I retain a suspicion that if I were to get a ceramic lab-style mortar and pestle the lumpy paints would be fine afterward, as the lumps are still soft; or possibly if I invested the money in a bottle of acrylic medium.) I can say that the colors of the surviving paints are very nice, but I can't say much else about the quality because of their age. My DM doesn't remember where he got them anymore, and whatever company made them seems to do so no longer, as a Google search found nothing.

Armory:
These were sold for painting miniatures, and were geared particularly toward historical and war gaming. They are out of production now; I haven't heard anyone say why. I love their paints in general; good colors, nice consistency and finish. Something very strange happened to me with their Flat Black, though... I had just gotten a new job, and put the paints away. Two months later I took them back out and there was *mold* in the black. None of the others had this problem, and I've never seen mold eat acrylic paint before- but there it was; seven different types in almost a dozen colonies, if you're curious. I never figured out what happened.

I'm very sad to see Armory go; if you have some Armory paints you would be willing to sell, please email me and we can haggle or trade.

Citadel Colors:
I have exactly one color from Games Workshop; Chaos Black. After the debacle of the moldy paint (look at the Armory paints description for the story) I needed another black; particularly, I needed a black with no gloss whatsoever. We have a lot of characters in our campaign who paint their sword-hilts with non-reflective black paint, and the flatness of the color was excellent for suede, besides mixing with other colors without adding gloss. I wandered all over creation looking for a black that was matte enough, and in the process picked up the Chaos Black, which wasn't good enough either. I use it now when I need gloss black, for some reason; or I mix it with the flat black I eventually found when I need a semi-gloss. I don't find it to be spectacular, though it's better than the Folk Art or Accent.

Fres~Coat of Premium Paints:
Yep, believe it or not that's what the can says. (It seems to be some yuppie-friendly trademark of California Paints.) This is a quart of flat black acrylic latex wall paint from my local hardware store; it is the final result of the Great Black Paint Search. After running all over town to every art and gaming store I could find, I finally asked myself what I would paint a sword-hilt with if I needed it to be a non-reflective black. The answer was "wall paint", which, of course, *does* come in totally flat formulations. So off to the hardware store, in hopes that latex paint would be sufficiently compatible with acrylic that I could use it. My local hardware store (possibly because it's in a city) had something called arylic latex, which I'd never heard of; but it sounded even better, so I got a quart. It was about $8, hideously expensive for something going on your walls, exceedingly cheap for something going on your miniatures. I had to thin it a good bit with water, of course, and I have about 4oz. in a plastic air-tight bottle, which I use it from. It mixes nicely with the other paints, and is nearly indistinguishable from the Armory flat black it replaces, except that it needs stirring more often.