What type of paint to use on scenery?

[sw1]

I'm going to be working on some scenery soon and don't really fancy using GWS's tiny pots of paint to paint them up with.  So the question is what type of paint should one use when doing scenery?

I want something that won't flake off really easily and is CHEAP.  Can you use normal decorating paints (e.g. - the ones you paint walls with)?  Would you use the Matt Emulsion type of paint or maybe textured masonry paint?

[The Irontooth]

Yes. Wall paints are excellent for painting scenery.

I buy 'Levis testers'. They are €2.00 a bottle (vs €3.20 for GW paints) and include 40ml (instead of 12 ml GW paints come in). So it is more than 5 times as cheap. Next the paint is a bit thicker so I will cover in one layer. So easily 10 times as cheap in practise than GW paints.

You can of course go cheaper by buying larger pots from cheaper brands, but these 'Levis testers' give me the opportunity to buy a lot different ones and so I never need to mix paints. Also you don't need large amounts of paint. Only a small bit of wall paint can cover a lot of area, and except for the first layer, most layers will be washes or drybrushes anyway. €16.00-20.00 should be more than enough to paint an entire table worth of scenery.

[Farseer Kyladras]

Textured paint= cheap white emulsion paint (B&Q budget brand or similar) mixed with sand/ grit for texture and whatever colour you want (thinking of cheap artists acrylic paint which you can buy in giant sized tubes from cheapo book stores (like `the works` assuming you have them near you? If not I can get you some from Chester. Obviously, depending on the size of white emulsion tin you have you will need varying amounts of coloured acrylic to `stain` it the colour you want but easier yet would be to just colour half of the tin of white emulsion and use the rest to add to the coloured mix for drybrushed highlights...

Or as an alternative, instead of white emulsion+ coloured acrylic, see if you can buy cheap emulsion in the correct colour (a bit more of a long shot really but you never know!)

FK

[sw1]

Cheers ... Will pop into the works tomorrow and have a look what's on offer. I'm wanting something grey for plenty of rocky terrain.  I've located some white emulsion paint left over under the stairs from the last round of decorating.  So just need to add something to it to get a dark grey.

[Farseer Kyladras]

If you already have white emulsion just get some cheap black acrylic paint to mix for your grey colour...

FK