Andrea Miniatures white paint set

Andrea Miniatures white paint set

I decided to take up Harry the Elder’s suggestion to try Andrea Miniatures for my white palette. Specifically he suggested their set of six white paints. Originally, I had hoped to be able to buy them at Partizan last weekend but nobody was selling them (at least as far as I could see). So I did a bit of online research and ordered a set from Historex Agents.

I have to commend the customer service from Historex – an e-mail acknowledgement of receipt of my order was followed by another e-mail yesterday afternoon to tell me that the order had been dispatched. And the package arrived at my work address (much more convenient than delivery to my home address) this morning. Needless to say I spent the rest of the working day sniffing the paint bottles and itching to get home to try them.

The set comes in a neat little box and comprises six (did I say that already?) little 17ml dropper bottles (similar to the Vallejo ones) of paint. There’s a base colour (which I’d call a pale umber if I was confident I knew what umber looked like), two shadow colours that move towards grey and three highlight colours, the lightest of which is pure white. Five of these six colours, as far as I can tell, are not available as part of the Andrea range of paints sold individually (the exception being the pure white).

Now six layers of colour is overkill on a 28mm figure, even for me! So I lined them up on the table and tried to narrow it down to four while I made a cup of tea. The second shadow and the third highlight (i.e. the white) were obvious bookend choices and I settled on the first shadow and the second highlight to go in between them. Then it was down to painting, albeit just a tiny area of a Saxon coat. So these are very much first impressions and I’ll be able to provide more accurate comments once I’ve used the paints more extensively.

Firstly, I often have to give a new bottle of Vallejo paint a stern shake to reintegrate the pigment with the carrier. With these Andrea paints, there was little or no evidence of separation but I did give them a quick shake just in case. The consistency (and smell and taste) is very similar to Vallejo acrylics. Having said that, some Vallejos go chalky once you get them out on the palette, dilute them to painting consistency and begin brushwork. This is a problem that I often experience with Vallejo white so I was keen to assess reports I’d heard of the smoothness of the Andrea white. And, yes, it’s very good. Moreover, all four shades that I tried demonstrated consistency of consistency, if you see what I mean. That sort of thing is important to me because it means I can confidently predict how the paint will thin down and behave when I work with it.

Coverage seems to be good, though I did over-thin a couple of the colours tonight so I’ll have to check that more thoroughly in a lengthier painting session at the weekend. Drying time feels about the same as the Vallejos and all four shades dried nice and matt (one of the things I dislike about the Foundry paints is that they dry with a sheen and feel plasticky – almost like working with Dulux Vinyl Silk rather than a matt acrylic).

Overall, then, a very promising initial outing and, fingers crossed, I appear to have solved my white palette problem. Given that I made successful adjustments to my light blue and green palettes earlier this week, it’s about to be all systems go for painting my first Saxon battalion. And I know one figure scupltor / painter who’ll be smiling at the fact that this Andrea white paint set has more than a hint of umber to it.

I’ll post some photos of applied paint in due course but, in the meantime, it’s worth noting that Andrea do several other six-paint sets for black, flesh, red and blue.