@@Belows682 - we don't refer to any of our acrylic color lines as "soft body", but if you're referring to our Fluid and SoFlat colors, you will find a lot of miniature painters recommend these colors - like this guy: ruclips.net/video/iLkSQjG9oLg/видео.html (there are others!)
My wife is a more traditional artist and we did some general color mixing palates with miniture paints versus artist acrylics. It basically converted me to using artist arcylics for miniture painting. She was stunned that miniture paints don't say what is in them usually and that the reason why I wasn't happy with the colors mixing was because there was too much white or black in the paints.
This is good to know - I was in the local arts/crafts store last night and saw that Golden has several different lines of their awesome acrylics now. I used to use them almost exclusively when I was painting canvases. Yesterday I saw their "new" high flow acrylics and wondered how good those would be for painting miniatures. I think I might have seen theses So Flats as well - I just didn't pay attention to them not knowing if they would be any good for miniatures, too. I am really new to the miniature painting hobby, so I didn't buy any of them yet - I wanted to stick with known miniature paints for a while before venturing out away from the norm. But I might be more inclined to venture out now based on this comment about mixing paints! Thanks!
Same here, I use Winsor and Newton artist grade acrylics, or any artist grade acrylic to be honest, and always the CMYKW palette with burnt amber/sienna
As someone who started doing miniatures recently I can't believe the costs of miniature paints compared to regular artistic acrylic paints especially compared to the quantity you get. So decided to say fuck it and stop using my friends citadel and army painters speed paint and just buy artists paint to try Instead.
I am a canvas painter as well as a mini painter, and I can tell you that Golden is the cream of the crop as far as acrylics go. Not surprised you enjoy these ones.
I have the same experience. I don't do canvas painting anymore, but when I did, I found that Golden Acrylics were the best of the best. I always used them as my primary brand of paints!
Your intros are absolute gold. I come for the hilarity and stay for the fun of watching you deal out knowledge in a way that feels like a conversation at a friend's table.
The bonus here is that Golden is a really awesome company if you look into how they're organized. It's great to support companies that support their employees.
There is tremendous satisfaction in mixing your own colors (when you are successful at it!). I started doing it because I was cheap… I kept doing it because I realized I was getting better and better at it.
I recently started experimenting with these paints, and they are awesome. The Pyrrole Red is probably the best red I ever tried, and the Payne's Grey is a very nice "universal" shadow color (doesn't work with everything, but almost).
Awesome break from the status quo. Golden brand has been a low key favorite of mine for a while. I need to check out the specific line you cover in this video. Their high flow airbrush paints are a go to for a satin/low gloss and super vibrant/pigmented paints that spray beautifully.
Love the HFA as well! They sell the HFA medium too, so if you want to modify your mini paints to behave as such, or thin the opacity it works well. It also helps it run smoother through an airbrush as an alternative to the Golden Airbrush Medium.
Golden Fluid acrylics are very intense and pure, great for mixing, maybe comparable to Kimera?. In their heavy body line, I've only tried Golden Artist Acrylic in titanium white, and WOW is it great.
After you stated mixing the colors to create your own paints, I got an idea. Bet. Use those same paints to mix your own and paint a Space Wolf, a Flesh Tearer, and a Salamander (Or another chapter of you choosing). I think that would be proof of concept and help solidify your argument for using these acrylics over the other brands of paints. CHALLENGE ISSUED! 🤙
Golden does a better job than most artist companies to communicate their paint qualities. They have a blog, Just Paint, where they deep dive into the science of acrylics. Worth a read even if you don't use their paint.
@@GoldenPaints my pleasure. I'm really glad you folk are getting some love in the mini-sphere with So Flat. Just too bad it didn't come out a few years earlier. I started down a limited-palette path with your 8-pack High Flow paints but they were too dang glossy for me. Then I tried to do limited palette with Vallejo but it was the worst: everything came out grey. When Kimera came out I never looked back. Even then they were so hard to source I would have switched to So Flat a couple of years ago. Now my FLGS stocks them. Still, don't tell Kimera but I am just waiting for an excuse to switch.
Hey Ninjon, awesome video! I love Golden acrylic paints, but just a heads-up, Cadmium and Cobalt pigments are toxic (they're heavy metal pigments) so should be handled with some care. Figured that would be worth mentioning. That paint job looks AWESOME btw!
As far as I know, the pigments in "cadmium" acrylic yellows and reds aren't actually the cadmium pigment. They just use the name to describe the hue they have created. For instance, Prussian Blue, the pigment the paint color is named after, is insoluble in acrylic medium, so any Prussian Blue acrylic paint you have is actually another, very similarly colored, pigment or combination of pigments.
@@Deager1975 - just a clarification, when we include the word "Hue" at the end of a color name it is an indication that the color is intended to replicate the color space of a particular pigment or color (ex. hazardous pigments and/or historical fugitive colors we are making with lightfast modern pigments). When you do not see "Hue" after a Cadmium or Cobalt color, the paint has actual Cadmium or Cobalt pigment. The common chemical name is usually on the label well to inform artists about what they're using. The Cadmium colors in SoFlat are all actual Concentrated Cadmium Zinc Sulfide pigments. The High Flow and Fluid color lines, by contrast, do not have any genuine Cadmium colors to discourage artist from spraying them. You should see "Hue" in the names within those color lines.
Congrats Jon, it seems like you’re starting to find your video identity. Your spliced up goofs and gags went from a bundle at the end to a tasteful sprinkle throughout. I enjoy this evolution greatly. From here on I’d encourage you to experiment with editorial evolutions, shots compositions, camera placement, light fixtures. You’ve shown how creative you can be with models video materials thus far…don’t stop experimenting.
Lord Of The Print is the Greatest of All Time! Their current subscription for Dec 2022 is incredible and it feels like they keep getting better. Normally i dont pay for 3D models cause there are good free ones online but I HIGHLY recommend them!
I've recently been interested in getting into mini painting, and I've been wondering if there were any artist paints that would work well as mini paints. (Because honestly a lot of the mini paints seem like a rip off compared to artist paints.) I'm glad to learn that there is!
I'm so happy you did this video. I've done a few tests with this line and I was amazed at how matte they were. I did have a bit of trouble getting them thin and smooth enough, though, so I didn't end up doing much. After watching this, I may just give them another shot!
As an extra tip for working with acrylics: you can buy mediums and mix them with the paint you have. For example, I cannot do any realism without adding a slow dry medium to my paint. (I prefer oils but space and money restrictions mean I can't use them right now) You can probably buy any heavy body artist paint and then get a matte medium to mix with to get the same consistency as the Golden paint you have. Which is important since this line is less likely to have ALL pigments available but the standard line from them will. You might need to add a tad bit of water to get it flowing more or could also buy a flow medium to add in as well. Personally I just use water to get my acrylics to flow more though
Hello and thank you for the presentation of this color range! I have also treated myself to some of these colors and am thrilled. Especially Pyrolle Red is one of the most opaque and vibrant reds I have ever worked with.
I started out painting on canvas a couple of years ago. I found these paints back in November of last year and bought one because of the richness of the color. I fell in love with it for adding effects to terrain pieces but balked at buying more because of the costs. Meanwhile spending ungodly amounts on little dropper bottles without thinking about per oz costs. Thank you John, you've made me finally realize that I had found a great product months ago without realizing their potential for my minis!
One of my go to paints when I was very heavily active in Warmachine was Folk Art's metallic black paint for my warjacks, weapons, and armor. Gives depth AND helps establish the heavy metal amror used in the game.
Great suggestion, I'll definitely try these out! To be fair, mixing paint for an army project, especially if it's an ongoing one, may not be the most efficient thing. I myself remember dreading paint mixing back in the early 2000s when I started doing this hobby stuff - you usually had only one or two brushfulls of mixed paint before it dried on your tile or piece of cardboard or old china plate. However, much of the complexity and problems of paint mixing in general is massively lessend when using a wet palette. On that thing, mixing the paint you've already got on there comes entirely naturally.
Golden and Liquitex are great. I come from a fine art background so I have been aware of them for a long time but it always freaks me out seeing hobby folks get suckered into buying stuff like Lahmian Medium.
@@PaulKim-lw3sy it's just acrylic medium. You can get acrylic medium in a variety of finishes from Liquitex or Golden for a tiny fraction of the price.
I swear between you and Miniac, you're ticking all the boxes for me. Fun personalities, great videos, and metal and synthwave music lol Keep it up Jon 🤘
Picked up the Kimera range on your recommendation. So far have only used the red, still hesitant to dive fully into it because the desire to do anything but the basic color mixing has eluded me.
They now sell a secondary colors set. Thing is, that set comes with a fantastic booklet with tons of examples for each hue: different reds, blues, violets, golds, etc. I wish they put out that document as a PDF, I think people need those simple guides to see all the variations you can get with only a few pigments.
Crikey, mixing colours isn’t complicated. To lighten a colour add white, to darken it add black. Only thing you have to remember is that red with a dash of white doesn’t lighten the red - it turns it to pink. Put a few blobs of paint on your pallette and try mixing a little of them in various combinations. I find the most useful colours for slightly changing the shade of a paint are sand, flesh and grey.
Just know your colour wheel. Remember that your primaries are cyan, magenta, yellow. Any colour is a combination of those (red being magenta with yellow for example). Desaturate with the complimentary (opposite colour of your tone) and remember that white and black are tints that will both dull the vibrancy of your colour.
I have the same suggestion as the other James, but I suggest also picking up an actual color wheel. A lot of them have a color mixing wheel on the back.
I absolutely love these paints for my "artsy fartsy stretched canvases" lol. I'm a canvas painter first, minis came later. I haven't used the so flat on minis yet. I normally use the Citadel contrast paints as my base layer, and then add details with my other golden acrylic paints. The so flat series is new, but I already love them. The fluorescents are awesome 👌
I love the Golden SoFlat paints! I'm glad you got them :). When thinned with water though they tend to bead on my Vallejo primer, not so much on more matte primers like the Monument Hobbies one. The level of control you have on opacity is amazing, I can't decide whether I prefer the Monument paints or these on use on my minis.
Oh also if you guys want to try before you buy, my recommendation is to go with the split primary colors, and add a Cyan, Magenta. Black and White too. So expect like 8-10 colors.
The pop set he linked to (in the CAN store) has red, blue, yellow, black, white, and green (“Six 2 oz. jars: Cadmium Primrose, Naphthol Red Light, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Green, Black and Titanium White.”). I really only have a couple of bottles (red, blue, green, and yellow in Vallejo’s Model range), and have been wanting to have a set of colours to get going with. Looked at the other single-pigment range to consider getting a couple of those core colours and try mixing. This could be a possible starting point either. Hmmm…
I love your channel and appreciate the introduction to the So Flat Paint line. I've ordered a starter kit to try it out. I imagine I'll need to get a ton of dropper bottles so that I can mix my own. I didn't know about the color mixing issues with white or black but it makes sense. Normally I love your painting (far better than anything I could do, I'm not a fan of the way this model turned out. It's the face or the helmet, or whatever that is. Those yellow highlights make it look like, well, like a painted model. I love the green on purple in the lower half ... just something about those yellow highlights. But I'm new to painting so maybe it's just me.
Putting a main topic of the video on the side I need to thank you Jon again for spreading the motivation and actually believing in people. I struggle a lot with just pushing myself to paint, but once I’m at my desk with brush in my hand it just work. Keep going man!
Hello, very interesting video. A key point for miniature painting is also how the painting resists when you manipulate the figurines. Recenly I've discovered Acryl Gouache from Turner and it's very matte, has a high pigment concentration and the range of tones offered is wide. However I've noticed that it becomes easily bright if you scrub it just a little bit. So I'd like to ask you if the SoFlat remains matte when the miniatures are handled or scrubbed.
Thanks for the vid… I suggest you try Turner Acrilyc Gouaches. They’re matt finish and extremely intense… An absolutely excellent mix in miniature painting. In my view Turner acrylics gouaches are a little bit more intense than soflat Golden… In fact, I’m using they both since last year, and I love them.
Hi Jon! Loved this vid and the other content you do! I've learned a lot and enjoyed along the way! Sincerely top notch stuff. You might already know, but just in case and as a general PSA, I was looking at the Golden site earlier and saw that the SoFlat Titanium White was recently recalled for several failed batches in the 2 oz, 4 oz, and 16 oz. Looks like they were willing to replace product and or offer solutions from what I was reading, though that was back in December so I'm not sure what they are doing now. Maybe they got the batches off of the shelves before you got yours, and you may already know, but figured I'd mention it just in case. Also worth noting for anyone else who may have some and didn't know. The Golden site has more info in case anyone needs as a general PSA. Nice to see them willing to replace the product too. Good stuff. Really excited to try their stuff to try making my own paints, as well as their high flow acrylics. Anywho, have a good one and enjoy some tendies!
Worth mentioning Golden: High Flow Acrylics, been using their Titanium white for miniature painting for a while, because it is very close in function to an acrylic ink and in white that means good enough coverage for blending and edge highlighting, without chalky results, also works well through an airbrush.
Be careful with artist grade paints through an airbrush. They often (usually) contain heavy metals which can be fairly toxic, more so when aerosolized. Most miniature-specific paints are blended using cheaper pigments, so it is less of an issue with those.
@@fleetadmiralmatteo4123 Good advice but you can check these and they are marked: Health & Safety - There are currently no known health hazards with associated with anticipated use. Underneath is the recommendation for using a respirator when spraying : )
I like the matt paints but sometimes super matt paint leave the model feeling chalky even though its not. when I get low on my Pro Acryl I might give some of these a try.
@@necpwnz checked out these paints online after watching the video and Amazon sent me a lighting deal notice after. Not only was it the cheapest price I had found they said “last one left” so I pulled the trigger without much hesitation. To my surprise they arrived in a BLICK arts box with an invoice addressed to Amazon not me, and get this.. THEY PAID MORE FOR THE PAINTS THAN THEY SOLD THEM TO ME FOR!!! Lol get Rekt Amazon, get Rekt.
I started using Golden products back in art school and never looked back. In 1980, Golden started making paints in his family barn in NY, and as of 2021 his company is 100% employee owned. Their focus is on making affordable high quality artist paints with archival quality. This means that the pigments will not change or diminish over a set period of time. They are a fantastic company with great customer service and I’m happy you are finding ways to incorporate their products in our hobby! ♥️ (I do not work for them- I just love their paint!)
I ordered some of these after watching your vid and hands down these are the best paints I've used on minis. I've used Golden heavy body acrylics in the past but did not like the way they thinned out. These paints are amazeballz!!!
I've just started painting mini and i had a bunch of artist paint at home and that's what i started with. The result is pretty good, and same goes with the oil wash i just feel its better and nuln oil.
Hey @Ninjon, Thanks a lot for this review. I am a paint junkie, but also travelling a lot and am constantly searching for a paint line, that let's me get away with as little paint pots as possible to take with me when travelling, so I got very invested in mixing my own colours about two years ago. I settled for the Kimeras, but was not really convinced. The colours a great, but the consistency, as you rightly said, is touch and go, and to be frank, they are a paint to get into a consistency for a paint session. So when I saw you review, I got myself the starter set with the primaries + green and black and white of the Golden SoFlats a couple of weeks a go and decided to give them a go. And boy am I glad I did. They tick ALL my boxes, and I can get away with just six paint-pots to do everything I want to do, be it airbrushing (when at home) or on the road with just my number 0 and 1 Raphael 8404s and some water. Because of their ease of use, I have not touched any other paints during the last two months and I get a feeling, that my entire paint-collection (with a few exceptions) of more than 400 paints will go up on E-Bay soon.
I've been using golden paints for years, before I even got into miniature painting! They are absolutely beautiful paints and I would also suggest altier free flow. For reds/magentas I prefer QUINACRIDONE, for yellows go with ARYLIDE/HANSA/ARYLAMIDE, and blues go with PHTHALO. white and black are TITANIUM and CARBON respectively. PHTHALO blue is quite intense, meaning you only need a bit of it for it to go far. /* Thank you to @sushi for the information and correction! "Cadmium itself is a heavy metal and is toxic but cadmium pigments are not classified as dangerous for use in line with EC classification. The level of soluble cadmium in the pigments is so low that no hazard warnings are needed and they pose no greater risk after swallowing or breathing in than other pigment types. Cadmium pigments are restricted for certain applications but this restriction does not apply to artists’ colours." - Windsor and Newton */
Part of the reason I went with the Liquitex Soft Body acrylics. Very similar properties, single pigments for the most part, a little more satin though. Lots of cadmium free options.
@@xedniw23 hehe :D But seriously do not consume cadmium paint. In small doses it can cause cancer, skeletal defects and the obliteration of the liver and kidney, not to mention a swift, permanent death!
@@Lord_Godd Glad to see you're staying safe! I went through some of my old paints and found a ton of cadmium reds and yellows. I went and bought a new paint set after that!
This topic was impeccably timely. I was on my way out to buy a bunch of Vallejo paints at my local hobby shoppe and wanted to check a few things online first. I saw this video in my feed and watched it before I left. I scratched the miniature paints from my list and hoped for the best at a few art stores close by. I came home with Cad Red Light, Pyrrole Red, Phthalo Blue, Bismuth Vanadate Yellow and one that I would have absolutely passed over - Yellow Green. Hoping to do them justice. Thanks for this tip.
I’ve been looking for an artist grade acrylic to use for minis for awhile now… saw your video, ran out and bought their starter 6 pack and a Cobalt Teal. Very impressed, thanks for pointing them out!
Picked up the core set + burnt umber and I have to say that burnt umber is beautiful and will be my base coat for leather moving forward (formerly Rhinox Hide)
Just discovered this channel, really great stuff! Well presented and fun to watch, ended up watching way more videos than I intended. I think you have a really unique painting style, your color combinations are absolutely awesome, being able to come up with that stuff is a gift.
Likely gonna pick some of these up. Also ty for the motivation at the end. Will take any I can get. That paint job was really cool and interesting too.
I am currently loving golden's fluid acrylics and had wondered about the soflat range, so Thank You for reviewing it. I'll be getting some of these. The occasional gloss finish being one of the few gripes I've had with the fluid acrylics. Before I began using them I thought mixing colours would be a hassle but it has become one of my favourite parts of the process. I feel like I am exploring and playing instead of what feels sometimes like painting by numbers. Y'all's mileage may vary.
That's a great paint job. I was really surprised at how loose the initial wet blending was. Also, the high-energy marketing delivery of the information was fun.
Love this video. I have been using the same tubes of golden open (titanium white and carbon black) for years and I love it. The thick and creamy texture makes them wonderful for mixing colors. Open has longer dry times, giving more time to work with blending. So… safety lol. Do NOT lick your brush with artist colors. Mini companies try to use non toxic colors in their paint ranges however artist colors don’t care. I.E cadmium is a toxic metal. That being said cadmium red is such a beautiful color so it makes sense why they keep using it.
Great video man! You keep getting better and better, really enjoyable. So I have come to realize that that Army Painter set I bought for like $100 is kinda worthless to me. It reactivates constantly so laying is impossible, so is dry brushing. I guess it's more of a beginner paint. So that being said could you please recommend to me the best mini paint? Is it still the one you feature in this video? What about contrast paints, which do you prefer?
Any paint range I can pick up at my local art store instead of ordering it is really appreciated. Thanks for the video! Love the painted model too! Wild colors!
Absolutely love goldens from my time in art school and with all of my fine art projects I do, I’m glad they made this line to widen their breadth of users!! 🥳
Ninjon i havn't painted a mini in 30 years when i was your age actually. I just bought a 3d printer and a Airbrush for the 1st time and have been binge watching your vids. Thank you so much i have learn't so much and love the way you hand paint. I will be trying some of the shading and highlighting tricks i just watched you do. I really do not think i will use the Airbrush for much other then primer and larger base coats, i recon i will be falling back to the brush as i am comfortable with that. I havn't ever used a Airbrush its all there setup my paints arrived so i gotta bite the bullet and have a go.
Hmm well, I am always glad for tips and tricks as well as products. Just knowing the options are their helps you try new stuff. It's like your dry brushing vid, I tried it a little then but now I've seen it and for me it is tool I use for texturing things that I didn't think of before. Lots of the videos are like that, tools, tips and techniques. I like the format a lot.
Love your content, you seem like you’re always searching for different ways to paint. I’d love you see you do a comparison paint job of brushes, basic cheap starter brushes from a hobby shop/craft store to the more pro ones you are using. Might be interesting to see how a cheaper brush is actually costing more in the long run.🤷♂️
Golden High Flow and Fluids are my go to paints for brush and airbrush. These come in nice dropple bottles too, unlike the SoFlat line. Their mediums are awesome as well (airbrush, matt, ...).
Another paint I highly recommend is Liquitex Acrylic Gouache, I primarily paint with it (both canvas work and miniatures) and to me it ticks off the same boxes as mentioned in the video about the SoFlat's :)
I've used them. They are fantastic. THe only reason why I don't use them more often is because I'm going through my current vallejo model paints but once I get over with those I might just stick to acrylic gouache and maybe this golden soflat. ALso molotow markers have acrylic bottles that are really good and has a great range of colors.
Every time I see the intro clip - pick out a very particular paint, pick out one specific brush, but when you spin around, both hands are full of a bunch of different paints and brushes (plus that goofy look on your face) - it cracks me up every time! 🤣🤣🤣
I am just learning to paint the models that i am resin printing. I chose to actually go acrylic and oil mixed process. Would you still recommend so flatte? I do not want to have to order traditional mini paints, very limited locally
Have you tried the Scale Artist range of paints? I think you would really enjoy them. They come out of the tube super soft and thick and thin out really well. They are super matte and vibrant.
@@johnnytizz when he said there’s a line that already does this I wasn’t expecting Kimera. Lol Scalecolor Artist is my favorite range. As long as these will mix well I’ll probably add a few of these to my collection.
Hello Ninjon! Thanks for choosing GOLDEN. [Really, thanks!]
Thank you guys for making such an,amazing brand of paint from your high flow to your so flats we love your paints!!
Hey. I live in norwich and went to your main plant recently. I love the fluid acrylics. How do you think your soft body line would do for miniatures?
@@Belows682 - we don't refer to any of our acrylic color lines as "soft body", but if you're referring to our Fluid and SoFlat colors, you will find a lot of miniature painters recommend these colors - like this guy: ruclips.net/video/iLkSQjG9oLg/видео.html (there are others!)
@@GoldenPaints lmao been trying to figure out why this link isn't working, it's sending to the literal same video lol
My wife is a more traditional artist and we did some general color mixing palates with miniture paints versus artist acrylics. It basically converted me to using artist arcylics for miniture painting. She was stunned that miniture paints don't say what is in them usually and that the reason why I wasn't happy with the colors mixing was because there was too much white or black in the paints.
This is good to know - I was in the local arts/crafts store last night and saw that Golden has several different lines of their awesome acrylics now. I used to use them almost exclusively when I was painting canvases. Yesterday I saw their "new" high flow acrylics and wondered how good those would be for painting miniatures. I think I might have seen theses So Flats as well - I just didn't pay attention to them not knowing if they would be any good for miniatures, too. I am really new to the miniature painting hobby, so I didn't buy any of them yet - I wanted to stick with known miniature paints for a while before venturing out away from the norm. But I might be more inclined to venture out now based on this comment about mixing paints! Thanks!
Same here, I use Winsor and Newton artist grade acrylics, or any artist grade acrylic to be honest, and always the CMYKW palette with burnt amber/sienna
As someone who started doing miniatures recently I can't believe the costs of miniature paints compared to regular artistic acrylic paints especially compared to the quantity you get. So decided to say fuck it and stop using my friends citadel and army painters speed paint and just buy artists paint to try Instead.
I am a canvas painter as well as a mini painter, and I can tell you that Golden is the cream of the crop as far as acrylics go. Not surprised you enjoy these ones.
But the cream will rise to the top, ooh yeah.
I have the same experience. I don't do canvas painting anymore, but when I did, I found that Golden Acrylics were the best of the best. I always used them as my primary brand of paints!
@@Hizoll Ooooohhhhh Yeah it does !
Your intros are absolute gold.
I come for the hilarity and stay for the fun of watching you deal out knowledge in a way that feels like a conversation at a friend's table.
I spend a stupid amount of time admiring my paint bottles, their shape, colors, and names all placed in groups on the racks. It's just pleasing.
The bonus here is that Golden is a really awesome company if you look into how they're organized. It's great to support companies that support their employees.
When I learned that they're employee-owned, I decided that was a sign I had to buy all those pretty paints
Every mini RUclipsr - “Let me review ArmyPainter speed paints”
Jon - “Let me review an artist range that wet blends better”
There is tremendous satisfaction in mixing your own colors (when you are successful at it!). I started doing it because I was cheap… I kept doing it because I realized I was getting better and better at it.
I recently started experimenting with these paints, and they are awesome. The Pyrrole Red is probably the best red I ever tried, and the Payne's Grey is a very nice "universal" shadow color (doesn't work with everything, but almost).
Awesome break from the status quo. Golden brand has been a low key favorite of mine for a while. I need to check out the specific line you cover in this video. Their high flow airbrush paints are a go to for a satin/low gloss and super vibrant/pigmented paints that spray beautifully.
Love the HFA as well! They sell the HFA medium too, so if you want to modify your mini paints to behave as such, or thin the opacity it works well. It also helps it run smoother through an airbrush as an alternative to the Golden Airbrush Medium.
Love artist's paints. I use a lot of golden, myself.
Golden Fluid acrylics are very intense and pure, great for mixing, maybe comparable to Kimera?. In their heavy body line, I've only tried Golden Artist Acrylic in titanium white, and WOW is it great.
"These are artists paints, they don't count" ended myself on this one! I use those kinds of excuses all the time to justify what I'm doing haha
After you stated mixing the colors to create your own paints, I got an idea. Bet. Use those same paints to mix your own and paint a Space Wolf, a Flesh Tearer, and a Salamander (Or another chapter of you choosing). I think that would be proof of concept and help solidify your argument for using these acrylics over the other brands of paints. CHALLENGE ISSUED! 🤙
Do a 3 color challenge! Tons of fun to work from primary colors and white/black. (They're not colors). So much fun to mix all your colors.
Golden does a better job than most artist companies to communicate their paint qualities. They have a blog, Just Paint, where they deep dive into the science of acrylics. Worth a read even if you don't use their paint.
@@GoldenPaints my pleasure. I'm really glad you folk are getting some love in the mini-sphere with So Flat. Just too bad it didn't come out a few years earlier. I started down a limited-palette path with your 8-pack High Flow paints but they were too dang glossy for me. Then I tried to do limited palette with Vallejo but it was the worst: everything came out grey. When Kimera came out I never looked back. Even then they were so hard to source I would have switched to So Flat a couple of years ago. Now my FLGS stocks them.
Still, don't tell Kimera but I am just waiting for an excuse to switch.
@@TylerProvick We won't tell if you don't ;)
Golden also sells some paints in dropper bottles designed for airbrushing. I bought a few of the fluorescent paints and they blew me away.
Hey Ninjon, awesome video! I love Golden acrylic paints, but just a heads-up, Cadmium and Cobalt pigments are toxic (they're heavy metal pigments) so should be handled with some care. Figured that would be worth mentioning. That paint job looks AWESOME btw!
As far as I know, the pigments in "cadmium" acrylic yellows and reds aren't actually the cadmium pigment. They just use the name to describe the hue they have created. For instance, Prussian Blue, the pigment the paint color is named after, is insoluble in acrylic medium, so any Prussian Blue acrylic paint you have is actually another, very similarly colored, pigment or combination of pigments.
@@Deager1975 - just a clarification, when we include the word "Hue" at the end of a color name it is an indication that the color is intended to replicate the color space of a particular pigment or color (ex. hazardous pigments and/or historical fugitive colors we are making with lightfast modern pigments). When you do not see "Hue" after a Cadmium or Cobalt color, the paint has actual Cadmium or Cobalt pigment. The common chemical name is usually on the label well to inform artists about what they're using. The Cadmium colors in SoFlat are all actual Concentrated Cadmium Zinc Sulfide pigments. The High Flow and Fluid color lines, by contrast, do not have any genuine Cadmium colors to discourage artist from spraying them. You should see "Hue" in the names within those color lines.
True heavy metal colors, for true heavy metal fans
@@GoldenPaints hi, we model painters would love if you use other lids like copper bottles... would be easier to get the colors on the pallets...
@@GoldenPaints so no more licking on the brush
Your words are so Inspirational to stay motivated and to keep painting. Thank you!
Congrats Jon, it seems like you’re starting to find your video identity. Your spliced up goofs and gags went from a bundle at the end to a tasteful sprinkle throughout. I enjoy this evolution greatly. From here on I’d encourage you to experiment with editorial evolutions, shots compositions, camera placement, light fixtures. You’ve shown how creative you can be with models video materials thus far…don’t stop experimenting.
Lord Of The Print is the Greatest of All Time! Their current subscription for Dec 2022 is incredible and it feels like they keep getting better. Normally i dont pay for 3D models cause there are good free ones online but I HIGHLY recommend them!
Incredible! Painting this character as an orchid-like mantid was brilliant. It is a tribute to your skill you pulled it off so masterfully.
I must say there is something about your voice talking about your process that is very relaxing. Keep up the work my man.
I've recently been interested in getting into mini painting, and I've been wondering if there were any artist paints that would work well as mini paints. (Because honestly a lot of the mini paints seem like a rip off compared to artist paints.) I'm glad to learn that there is!
I'm so happy you did this video. I've done a few tests with this line and I was amazed at how matte they were. I did have a bit of trouble getting them thin and smooth enough, though, so I didn't end up doing much. After watching this, I may just give them another shot!
I've got easily 250 paints, full range of Kimera, pro acryl, majority of scale 75 and more. I need these.
As an extra tip for working with acrylics: you can buy mediums and mix them with the paint you have. For example, I cannot do any realism without adding a slow dry medium to my paint. (I prefer oils but space and money restrictions mean I can't use them right now)
You can probably buy any heavy body artist paint and then get a matte medium to mix with to get the same consistency as the Golden paint you have. Which is important since this line is less likely to have ALL pigments available but the standard line from them will. You might need to add a tad bit of water to get it flowing more or could also buy a flow medium to add in as well. Personally I just use water to get my acrylics to flow more though
Hello and thank you for the presentation of this color range! I have also treated myself to some of these colors and am thrilled. Especially Pyrolle Red is one of the most opaque and vibrant reds I have ever worked with.
Just picked these up today to try out and you were 100% right they are so good! Knowing that I have so much paint to use makes it even better!
I started out painting on canvas a couple of years ago. I found these paints back in November of last year and bought one because of the richness of the color. I fell in love with it for adding effects to terrain pieces but balked at buying more because of the costs. Meanwhile spending ungodly amounts on little dropper bottles without thinking about per oz costs. Thank you John, you've made me finally realize that I had found a great product months ago without realizing their potential for my minis!
One of my go to paints when I was very heavily active in Warmachine was Folk Art's metallic black paint for my warjacks, weapons, and armor. Gives depth AND helps establish the heavy metal amror used in the game.
Great suggestion, I'll definitely try these out! To be fair, mixing paint for an army project, especially if it's an ongoing one, may not be the most efficient thing. I myself remember dreading paint mixing back in the early 2000s when I started doing this hobby stuff - you usually had only one or two brushfulls of mixed paint before it dried on your tile or piece of cardboard or old china plate. However, much of the complexity and problems of paint mixing in general is massively lessend when using a wet palette. On that thing, mixing the paint you've already got on there comes entirely naturally.
Golden and Liquitex are great. I come from a fine art background so I have been aware of them for a long time but it always freaks me out seeing hobby folks get suckered into buying stuff like Lahmian Medium.
Is there a better alternative for the Lahaina Medium?
@@PaulKim-lw3sy it's just acrylic medium. You can get acrylic medium in a variety of finishes from Liquitex or Golden for a tiny fraction of the price.
legit! thanks! I'll chekc them out. I too find most miniature paints needlessly complex in color makeup and consistency. awesome find.
I swear between you and Miniac, you're ticking all the boxes for me. Fun personalities, great videos, and metal and synthwave music lol
Keep it up Jon 🤘
Picked up the Kimera range on your recommendation. So far have only used the red, still hesitant to dive fully into it because the desire to do anything but the basic color mixing has eluded me.
They now sell a secondary colors set. Thing is, that set comes with a fantastic booklet with tons of examples for each hue: different reds, blues, violets, golds, etc. I wish they put out that document as a PDF, I think people need those simple guides to see all the variations you can get with only a few pigments.
Just go into them, paint pure, randomly mix stuff etc. They are great, and really do great work with zenithal primes.
Crikey, mixing colours isn’t complicated. To lighten a colour add white, to darken it add black.
Only thing you have to remember is that red with a dash of white doesn’t lighten the red - it turns it to pink.
Put a few blobs of paint on your pallette and try mixing a little of them in various combinations. I find the most useful colours for slightly changing the shade of a paint are sand, flesh and grey.
Just know your colour wheel. Remember that your primaries are cyan, magenta, yellow. Any colour is a combination of those (red being magenta with yellow for example). Desaturate with the complimentary (opposite colour of your tone) and remember that white and black are tints that will both dull the vibrancy of your colour.
I have the same suggestion as the other James, but I suggest also picking up an actual color wheel. A lot of them have a color mixing wheel on the back.
I absolutely love these paints for my "artsy fartsy stretched canvases" lol. I'm a canvas painter first, minis came later. I haven't used the so flat on minis yet. I normally use the Citadel contrast paints as my base layer, and then add details with my other golden acrylic paints. The so flat series is new, but I already love them. The fluorescents are awesome 👌
I love the Golden SoFlat paints! I'm glad you got them :). When thinned with water though they tend to bead on my Vallejo primer, not so much on more matte primers like the Monument Hobbies one. The level of control you have on opacity is amazing, I can't decide whether I prefer the Monument paints or these on use on my minis.
Oh also if you guys want to try before you buy, my recommendation is to go with the split primary colors, and add a Cyan, Magenta. Black and White too. So expect like 8-10 colors.
The pop set he linked to (in the CAN store) has red, blue, yellow, black, white, and green (“Six 2 oz. jars: Cadmium Primrose, Naphthol Red Light, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Green, Black and Titanium White.”). I really only have a couple of bottles (red, blue, green, and yellow in Vallejo’s Model range), and have been wanting to have a set of colours to get going with. Looked at the other single-pigment range to consider getting a couple of those core colours and try mixing. This could be a possible starting point either. Hmmm…
Try Golden high flow too. Airbrush ready.
@@jasonarce5169 yeah, I have a few of them as well as the medium, they are good, but tend to leave a surface that makes thinned paints bead
watched this last night and went and purchased the black....Fantastic. Thanks for the research.
I love your channel and appreciate the introduction to the So Flat Paint line. I've ordered a starter kit to try it out. I imagine I'll need to get a ton of dropper bottles so that I can mix my own. I didn't know about the color mixing issues with white or black but it makes sense.
Normally I love your painting (far better than anything I could do, I'm not a fan of the way this model turned out. It's the face or the helmet, or whatever that is. Those yellow highlights make it look like, well, like a painted model. I love the green on purple in the lower half ... just something about those yellow highlights. But I'm new to painting so maybe it's just me.
Thank you for helping me step up my painting game still a noob but it’s getting much better
Putting a main topic of the video on the side I need to thank you Jon again for spreading the motivation and actually believing in people. I struggle a lot with just pushing myself to paint, but once I’m at my desk with brush in my hand it just work. Keep going man!
Hello, very interesting video. A key point for miniature painting is also how the painting resists when you manipulate the figurines. Recenly I've discovered Acryl Gouache from Turner and it's very matte, has a high pigment concentration and the range of tones offered is wide. However I've noticed that it becomes easily bright if you scrub it just a little bit. So I'd like to ask you if the SoFlat remains matte when the miniatures are handled or scrubbed.
I think this was one of your best videos yet. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for the vid… I suggest you try Turner Acrilyc Gouaches. They’re matt finish and extremely intense… An absolutely excellent mix in miniature painting. In my view Turner acrylics gouaches are a little bit more intense than soflat Golden… In fact, I’m using they both since last year, and I love them.
Hi Jon! Loved this vid and the other content you do! I've learned a lot and enjoyed along the way! Sincerely top notch stuff.
You might already know, but just in case and as a general PSA, I was looking at the Golden site earlier and saw that the SoFlat Titanium White was recently recalled for several failed batches in the 2 oz, 4 oz, and 16 oz. Looks like they were willing to replace product and or offer solutions from what I was reading, though that was back in December so I'm not sure what they are doing now.
Maybe they got the batches off of the shelves before you got yours, and you may already know, but figured I'd mention it just in case. Also worth noting for anyone else who may have some and didn't know. The Golden site has more info in case anyone needs as a general PSA.
Nice to see them willing to replace the product too. Good stuff. Really excited to try their stuff to try making my own paints, as well as their high flow acrylics.
Anywho, have a good one and enjoy some tendies!
Worth mentioning Golden: High Flow Acrylics, been using their Titanium white for miniature painting for a while, because it is very close in function to an acrylic ink and in white that means good enough coverage for blending and edge highlighting, without chalky results, also works well through an airbrush.
Be careful with artist grade paints through an airbrush. They often (usually) contain heavy metals which can be fairly toxic, more so when aerosolized. Most miniature-specific paints are blended using cheaper pigments, so it is less of an issue with those.
Their other HIGH FLOW colors are great too. I have red, black, dark green , yellow and blue.
@@fleetadmiralmatteo4123 Good advice but you can check these and they are marked: Health & Safety - There are currently no known health hazards with associated with anticipated use. Underneath is the recommendation for using a respirator when spraying : )
I like the matt paints but sometimes super matt paint leave the model feeling chalky even though its not. when I get low on my Pro Acryl I might give some of these a try.
You can always go back over it with a semi-satin finish to soften the chalkiness
I just got into mini painting and your videos are an incredible resource! Thank you sir!
Shoot, why does Jon always make me want to buy things.
Gladly. hours after video release amazon has 0 stock :D
😂 Misery loves company, I guess. Jon doesn't want to suffer alone.
@@necpwnz checked out these paints online after watching the video and Amazon sent me a lighting deal notice after. Not only was it the cheapest price I had found they said “last one left” so I pulled the trigger without much hesitation. To my surprise they arrived in a BLICK arts box with an invoice addressed to Amazon not me, and get this.. THEY PAID MORE FOR THE PAINTS THAN THEY SOLD THEM TO ME FOR!!! Lol get Rekt Amazon, get Rekt.
Insane knowledge just effortlessly distributed. My hat off to you, sir!
I've been curious about this line for a while. Thanks for doing all the hard work.
I started using Golden products back in art school and never looked back. In 1980, Golden started making paints in his family barn in NY, and as of 2021 his company is 100% employee owned. Their focus is on making affordable high quality artist paints with archival quality. This means that the pigments will not change or diminish over a set period of time. They are a fantastic company with great customer service and I’m happy you are finding ways to incorporate their products in our hobby! ♥️ (I do not work for them- I just love their paint!)
Golden is great, and good people. They sponsored our paint and take at the Michigan GT a couple years ago. Sent us paints, wet pallets and brushes.
I ordered some of these after watching your vid and hands down these are the best paints I've used on minis. I've used Golden heavy body acrylics in the past but did not like the way they thinned out. These paints are amazeballz!!!
That paint job is magical! It was a joy to watch.
I've been using some of my Golden Fluids that I've just had around and they work great for my minis.
I've just started painting mini and i had a bunch of artist paint at home and that's what i started with. The result is pretty good, and same goes with the oil wash i just feel its better and nuln oil.
Hey @Ninjon,
Thanks a lot for this review. I am a paint junkie, but also travelling a lot and am constantly searching for a paint line, that let's me get away with as little paint pots as possible to take with me when travelling, so I got very invested in mixing my own colours about two years ago. I settled for the Kimeras, but was not really convinced. The colours a great, but the consistency, as you rightly said, is touch and go, and to be frank, they are a paint to get into a consistency for a paint session.
So when I saw you review, I got myself the starter set with the primaries + green and black and white of the Golden SoFlats a couple of weeks a go and decided to give them a go. And boy am I glad I did. They tick ALL my boxes, and I can get away with just six paint-pots to do everything I want to do, be it airbrushing (when at home) or on the road with just my number 0 and 1 Raphael 8404s and some water.
Because of their ease of use, I have not touched any other paints during the last two months and I get a feeling, that my entire paint-collection (with a few exceptions) of more than 400 paints will go up on E-Bay soon.
I've been using golden paints for years, before I even got into miniature painting! They are absolutely beautiful paints and I would also suggest altier free flow.
For reds/magentas I prefer QUINACRIDONE, for yellows go with ARYLIDE/HANSA/ARYLAMIDE, and blues go with PHTHALO. white and black are TITANIUM and CARBON respectively. PHTHALO blue is quite intense, meaning you only need a bit of it for it to go far.
/*
Thank you to @sushi for the information and correction!
"Cadmium itself is a heavy metal and is toxic but cadmium pigments are not classified as dangerous for use in line with EC classification. The level of soluble cadmium in the pigments is so low that no hazard warnings are needed and they pose no greater risk after swallowing or breathing in than other pigment types. Cadmium pigments are restricted for certain applications but this restriction does not apply to artists’ colours." - Windsor and Newton
*/
Mmmm, lick the PHTHALO blue mmm
mmmmmmm thanks for the hot tip on some forbidden delicious deadly treat!
Part of the reason I went with the Liquitex Soft Body acrylics. Very similar properties, single pigments for the most part, a little more satin though. Lots of cadmium free options.
@@xedniw23 hehe :D But seriously do not consume cadmium paint. In small doses it can cause cancer, skeletal defects and the obliteration of the liver and kidney, not to mention a swift, permanent death!
@@Lord_Godd Glad to see you're staying safe! I went through some of my old paints and found a ton of cadmium reds and yellows. I went and bought a new paint set after that!
The chair swivel in the intro gets me every time. Never change it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your setup inspired me to put them all out on my shelf neatly.
14:05 you said my name lol 😆 😂 it's the small things in life that give us the most joy.
This topic was impeccably timely. I was on my way out to buy a bunch of Vallejo paints at my local hobby shoppe and wanted to check a few things online first. I saw this video in my feed and watched it before I left. I scratched the miniature paints from my list and hoped for the best at a few art stores close by. I came home with Cad Red Light, Pyrrole Red, Phthalo Blue, Bismuth Vanadate Yellow and one that I would have absolutely passed over - Yellow Green. Hoping to do them justice. Thanks for this tip.
Unskippable RUclips ads kept killing this video but I persevered because the quality of content is just so good. Great vid
I’ve been looking for an artist grade acrylic to use for minis for awhile now… saw your video, ran out and bought their starter 6 pack and a Cobalt Teal. Very impressed, thanks for pointing them out!
Picked up the core set + burnt umber and I have to say that burnt umber is beautiful and will be my base coat for leather moving forward (formerly Rhinox Hide)
A model only has "awesome potential" it's the result of the labor of the painter that brings it out. Well done good Sir, beautiful execution.
Just discovered this channel, really great stuff! Well presented and fun to watch, ended up watching way more videos than I intended. I think you have a really unique painting style, your color combinations are absolutely awesome, being able to come up with that stuff is a gift.
I use Golden all the time for painting my Dwarven Forge terrain, they're absolutely great!
Likely gonna pick some of these up. Also ty for the motivation at the end. Will take any I can get. That paint job was really cool and interesting too.
I am currently loving golden's fluid acrylics and had wondered about the soflat range, so Thank You for reviewing it. I'll be getting some of these. The occasional gloss finish being one of the few gripes I've had with the fluid acrylics. Before I began using them I thought mixing colours would be a hassle but it has become one of my favourite parts of the process. I feel like I am exploring and playing instead of what feels sometimes like painting by numbers. Y'all's mileage may vary.
15:59 "Get to your painting desk...." I'm bookmarking this for inspiration.
You can see how good this paint is when you feathered the sword blends.
Great review - I’ll be buying them.
That's a great paint job. I was really surprised at how loose the initial wet blending was. Also, the high-energy marketing delivery of the information was fun.
Great video, even better message at the end. Really good work!
I got my artist opus drybrush set last night, and those are gorgeous af. Can't wait to use them
The paints are awesome, thank you for this Video, i have now the two starter Sets Pop and Zing and burnt Umber + burnt Siena.
Love this video. I have been using the same tubes of golden open (titanium white and carbon black) for years and I love it. The thick and creamy texture makes them wonderful for mixing colors. Open has longer dry times, giving more time to work with blending. So… safety lol. Do NOT lick your brush with artist colors. Mini companies try to use non toxic colors in their paint ranges however artist colors don’t care. I.E cadmium is a toxic metal. That being said cadmium red is such a beautiful color so it makes sense why they keep using it.
Great video man! You keep getting better and better, really enjoyable. So I have come to realize that that Army Painter set I bought for like $100 is kinda worthless to me. It reactivates constantly so laying is impossible, so is dry brushing. I guess it's more of a beginner paint. So that being said could you please recommend to me the best mini paint? Is it still the one you feature in this video? What about contrast paints, which do you prefer?
First time I've heard of these! Glad I caught this video. Thanks!
Any paint range I can pick up at my local art store instead of ordering it is really appreciated. Thanks for the video! Love the painted model too! Wild colors!
I've been interested in these.
I have also been using a lot of Liquitex Heavy Bodies and holy crap. Amazing.
Wow, great review of this paint range……I’m going to have to try some of them soon. Thanks again!
Absolutely love goldens from my time in art school and with all of my fine art projects I do, I’m glad they made this line to widen their breadth of users!! 🥳
Ninjon i havn't painted a mini in 30 years when i was your age actually. I just bought a 3d printer and a Airbrush for the 1st time and have been binge watching your vids. Thank you so much i have learn't so much and love the way you hand paint. I will be trying some of the shading and highlighting tricks i just watched you do. I really do not think i will use the Airbrush for much other then primer and larger base coats, i recon i will be falling back to the brush as i am comfortable with that. I havn't ever used a Airbrush its all there setup my paints arrived so i gotta bite the bullet and have a go.
Hmm well, I am always glad for tips and tricks as well as products. Just knowing the options are their helps you try new stuff. It's like your dry brushing vid, I tried it a little then but now I've seen it and for me it is tool I use for texturing things that I didn't think of before.
Lots of the videos are like that, tools, tips and techniques. I like the format a lot.
16:03 A simple but very helpful talk that I needed to hear. Thanks Jon!
The color scheme is amazing! Great work
Love your content, you seem like you’re always searching for different ways to paint.
I’d love you see you do a comparison paint job of brushes, basic cheap starter brushes from a hobby shop/craft store to the more pro ones you are using. Might be interesting to see how a cheaper brush is actually costing more in the long run.🤷♂️
Quite possibly my favorite paint job you've done
Golden High Flow and Fluids are my go to paints for brush and airbrush. These come in nice dropple bottles too, unlike the SoFlat line. Their mediums are awesome as well (airbrush, matt, ...).
Another paint I highly recommend is Liquitex Acrylic Gouache, I primarily paint with it (both canvas work and miniatures) and to me it ticks off the same boxes as mentioned in the video about the SoFlat's :)
Plus you don't need to worry about whether you're giving yourself or others lead or cadmium poisoning!
I've used them. They are fantastic. THe only reason why I don't use them more often is because I'm going through my current vallejo model paints but once I get over with those I might just stick to acrylic gouache and maybe this golden soflat. ALso molotow markers have acrylic bottles that are really good and has a great range of colors.
Jeeeezuz, that's the best quick NMM I've EVER seen.
Absolutely beautiful job.
I love trying new paints on minis that are not made for that.
Like Schmincke I really like the artist paints and inks.
Every time I see the intro clip - pick out a very particular paint, pick out one specific brush, but when you spin around, both hands are full of a bunch of different paints and brushes (plus that goofy look on your face) - it cracks me up every time! 🤣🤣🤣
LOL @ your inflection - I like to have a good starting point FORE SKIN. 😂
Took your advice and. Very happy I did.
So tempted by these…. Love using artists acrylics so these will be fun to get a hold of and usw
These look class, always good to see some new products in use. Great video dude
I love mixing colours (yes it’s spelt correctly) looking forward to seeing how they work with Kimera, thanks for the recommendation.
the Golden Artist Colors high flow acrylics are nice too. great consistency straight from the bottle.
I am just learning to paint the models that i am resin printing. I chose to actually go acrylic and oil mixed process. Would you still recommend so flatte? I do not want to have to order traditional mini paints, very limited locally
Have you tried the Scale Artist range of paints? I think you would really enjoy them. They come out of the tube super soft and thick and thin out really well. They are super matte and vibrant.
I do have them and like them!
@@Ninjon have tried mixing them with the so-flat line?
Came to the comments to ask this question as well! I love my Scale Artist range.
@@johnnytizz when he said there’s a line that already does this I wasn’t expecting Kimera. Lol Scalecolor Artist is my favorite range. As long as these will mix well I’ll probably add a few of these to my collection.