I have a really silly question for the non-miniature artists among us:

I have started to try to paint paintings, I mean stuff on paper, not miniatures. Watercolours are OK, but since they are transparent, highlighting doesn't generally work. Instead I need to just shade from the lightest points towards the deepest shadows, which takes some time to learn. Can do that but then I heard about the more opaque alternative for wet media.

Goauche is opaque and should support both shading and highlighting but the stuff drives me crazy at this point of the hobby. I just can't mix anything sensible from the buttons and white is still very transparent. All the tutorials in the web seem to assume using paint from tubes but what I have is a set of paint buttons, similar to water colour sets.

I then ended up using my miniature acrylics with goauche since I can make them opaque or transparent and know how to mix any colour I need from them. Is there any reason why people don't use them for painting? Shouldn't I? I know I'm allowed to do whatever pleases me with my paints and brushes but why don't others use miniature paints?

-- Pasi

They don't get used due to price and coverage is my bet, why pay £3 or whatever it is nowdays for a pot of citadel paint when you can but a litre of paint at the local craft shop for the same price!

Makes sense. I didn't consider the price at all since I was shading and highlighting metallic armour on a smallish picture so the amount of paint I was using was really next to nothing.

-- Pasi