Materials

Professional paints, brushes and airbrushes

Materials do not paint miniatures: people do. But the right materials let you work with less friction, achieve finer finishes and preserve a piece for decades.

Materials

Professional paints, brushes and airbrushes

Materials do not paint miniatures: people do. But the right materials let you work with less friction, achieve finer finishes and preserve a piece for decades.

At Bierzo Art Studio we have spent years testing brands, pigments, binders and brushes before deciding what enters our workflow. For every commission — Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, collector busts or board-game figures — we choose materials that meet three non-negotiable criteria: dense, consistent pigmentation across batches, predictable behaviour under brush or airbrush, and long-term durability on resin, plastic and metal.

This page summarises the brands that make up our working catalogue today. Each one occupies a specific place in the process: the main body of acrylic paint, fast contrast/speed techniques, airbrushing, kolinsky sable brushes for display level and everyday brushes. If you are curious about why we paint the way we paint, this is the place to start.

Selected brands

The brands we work with every day

A considered selection of European and Asian manufacturers that have proven sustained quality in paints, brushes and airbrushes.

Vallejo

Dropper-bottle acrylics and brushes, Barcelona — Spain

Vallejo, made by Acrylicos Vallejo in Barcelona, is probably the most recognised modelling acrylic brand in Europe. Their signature 17 ml dropper bottle set the storage standard decades ago: paint does not evaporate, it stays homogeneous, and you can dose drop by drop, which reduces waste and makes mixes reproducible.

We use several of their ranges daily: Model Color for fine brush mixes, Game Color for saturated fantasy and sci-fi tones, Model Air for airbrushing with pigment already milled for fine nozzles, and Mecha Color when we need especially robust matt finishes on larger pieces. Batch-to-batch consistency is one of Vallejo's strongest traits: when you start a Warhammer 40K army with a specific scheme, you know that six months later you can reproduce exactly the same colour.

—Model Color and Game Color for brushwork: fine pigment, good flow, stable mixes.
—Model Air and Mecha Color for airbrushing: clean spray with no clogs in 0.2 mm nozzles.
—Vallejo brushes in natural and synthetic hair for basecoating and drybrushing tasks.

Citadel Colour

Paints and the Contrast revolution, Nottingham — United Kingdom

Citadel Colour is the Games Workshop paint line and the brand many of us started with. Its ranges — Base, Layer, Shade, Contrast, Technical, Air and Dry — are designed around the Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar workflow, which makes it a very useful reference for official schemes and box painting guides.

In the studio we give a special role to the Contrast range. These paints combine pigment, binder and a flow-control medium in a single pot, so a single brushstroke over a light primer delivers base, shadow and tone in one move. For large hordes of Age of Sigmar, Skaven, Ogor Mawtribes, 40K Tyranids or any project where time per miniature is critical, Contrast keeps the quality up without sacrificing speed. Combined with later Layer passes and glazes, they are also the base of character and display finishes.

—Citadel Contrast: coverage, shadow and tone in a single controlled stroke.
—Citadel Base and Layer: high opacity and predictable coverage for official 40K and AoS schemes.
—Citadel Shade and Technical: pigmented washes and special effects (blood, rust, frost).

The Army Painter

Warpaints Fanatic and Speedpaints, Denmark

The Army Painter was born thinking about players who wanted to paint full armies without giving up a clean finish, and over the years it has become a key brand for the wargames painter. Their catalogue covers practically the entire workflow: spray primers, acrylic paints, Quickshade washes, tools and basing materials.

Their recent overhaul — Warpaints Fanatic in a dropper bottle with a triangular nozzle, and the Speedpaints 2.0 line — has raised the technical quality significantly. Fanatic offers a pigmentation competitive with Vallejo and Citadel at a tight price per millilitre, ideal for large Warhammer 40K, Age of Sigmar, Bolt Action or board-game projects. Speedpaints, conceptually close to Contrast, contribute unique colours with very different results depending on the primer.

—Warpaints Fanatic: new acrylic range with triangular nozzle, internal agitator and fine pigment.
—Speedpaints 2.0: fast contrast-style technique with a palette complementary to Citadel's.
—Quickshade Washes and Colour Primer sprays to prep full armies.

Gaahleri

Dual-action airbrushes for miniatures, Asia

The airbrush is a critical tool for even priming, zenithals and large gradients on helmets, capes and 40K vehicle hulls. After testing classic brands, we have adopted Gaahleri airbrushes as the main tool of our airbrushing bench. They are gravity-fed, dual-action airbrushes with very clean mechanical finishing: balanced body, smooth trigger and 0.2/0.3 mm nozzles that let you move from a full armour priming pass to a fine transition on a Stormcast Eternals cape without changing tools.

Their value proposition is excellent: they deliver mechanical tolerances we used to find only in much more expensive brands, with accessible spare parts and simple maintenance. In a commission painting studio where the airbrush is used several hours a day, that means fewer technical stops and more effective painting time.

—Dual-action, gravity-fed: independent control of air and paint.
—Fine nozzles (0.2–0.3 mm) ideal for thinned Vallejo Model Air and Mecha Color.
—Simple maintenance: accessible breakdown, long-life seals and available spares.

Artis Opus

Kolinsky sable brushes for display level, United Kingdom

When a commission reaches display or competition level, the most important tool stops being the paint and becomes the brush. Artis Opus brushes, made with pure kolinsky sable, are our reference for all fine work: faces, eyes, freehand, OSL and NMM. The tip recovers its shape after every stroke, the belly holds enough paint for long strokes without reloading, and the sizing is built specifically for 28 mm and bust scale.

We keep Series S for the finest detail (sizes 00, 0 and 1), Series M for controlled drybrushing and Series D for washes. A well-treated kolinsky brush lasts years; we clean ours after every session with brush soap and store them upright to preserve the tip. It is an investment, but it shows in every detail of the finished pieces.

—Series S: kolinsky sable for precision work on faces, eyes and freehand.
—Series M: controlled drybrush brushes for textures and weathering.
—Series D: high-capacity brushes for broad washes and glazes.

Why these brands and not others

We do not sell materials nor have commercial agreements with these brands. The selection answers a single question repeated for years: which tools let us deliver the agreed quality on the agreed deadline? Vallejo and Citadel cover the bulk of brush mixes, Army Painter brings volume and fast techniques, Gaahleri solves airbrushing and Artis Opus is the precision tool.

Every commissioned miniature that leaves the studio is painted with this combination, tuned to the contracted finish level (tabletop+, character or competition). If you have a specific project and want to share constraints — keeping an official Citadel scheme, replicating a specific painting guide or using Contrast for your own collection — we can adapt without issue.

Ready to commission your miniature or army?

Tell us what you want painted and we will prepare a tailored quote using the materials described on this page.

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