With the new Games Workshop paints out, I decided to go through and share a few resources I use when it comes to making sure my paints match up. To be honest, I'm starting a new Novamarine force and I'm tempted to go out and buy the specific paints I need for the army so that I'll have matches later on down the line.
I might do it for the main colors only and just use what I already have for the smaller spot colors. It would mean a bit of money on the front end, but I think it might save me some headaches later on if I go to add to the army or want to change something next year. Not that GW is going to change the paints again that soon, but I don't want to deal with the issue later if I can prevent it now.
That being said, I've got a few basic things here that might help folks out. These are not my resources, they been collected from others and I'm just sharing them here.
The Official GW paint conversion chart
This is the PDF that GW put out with little swatches of each color, the names of the old paint and the new paint next to each one. Nothing new here and easily found on their site I'm sure.
Download the PDF here
A multi-paint range conversion chart
This one comes from DakkaDakka and is a fairly in depth conversion chart for a number of paint lines. It includes the new GW colors, the old GW colors, Vallejo and a few other paint lines. Very helpful for someone like me who uses lots of different brands and wants an idea of what would be similar across a few different paint ranges.
I've saved it as a huge jpeg image you can download onto your computer and open up whenever you have the need to cross reference any color/paint range.
Download the JPEG image here
Go to the living paint chart document on DakkaDaka here.
How to make any "old" GW paint color with only 5 colors
While this one is cool, it may be a bit tougher to do now that the GW paint line has changed. If you do find yourself needing an older, obscure color and have access to the 5 basic colors outlined here, you "should" be able to make it or at least something very close to get by in a pinch.
I've saved it as a huge jpeg image you can download onto your computer and open up whenever you have the need to try and recreate an "old school" GW color. I found this information on Nesbet Miniatures and he's sharing it from elsewhere as well.
Download the JPEG image here
The new paints are here to stay
While I haven't had the chance to use the new paints yet myself, I suspect they'll have their good and bad aspects we'll all discover as time goes on. Just like the previous range, we'll have our "good" and "bad" colors, those that are problematic and those that make things a breeze.
I'm excited the range has increased and there are more colors to pick from, but then again, I already use lots of colors from any number of ranges so I don't have to mix anything. If there's anything I hate, it's having to mix colors to get the one shade or hue I really want.
Make sure to check out these posts as they might help:
The difference a wash can make
Why you need to use more than one cup of water
UPDATES TO THIS POST:
Lascannons and Lances did a little test to see how well they could replicate this and it didn't turn out that well using the formulas provided. I think the important thing here is to make sure you try these things out before you go repainting your prized unit.
A handy online paint line conversion program. Lots of different paint lines in here. Seems like most of the scale model paints are listed.
And last but not least, how I go about scouting around for color matches.
