Paint sets, starter kits & bundles
Miniature Paint Sets & Painting Starter Kits
Everything you need to start painting miniatures — or level up the collection you already have. Tested, high-quality paint sets from the brands hobbyists actually trust. No filler colours, no flimsy brushes, no gimmicks.
- 331 paint sets & kits
- 7 brands under one roof
- Real shop in Barry, South Wales
- Fast UK delivery
First things first — what are you painting?
The paints are not interchangeable. Fantasy and sci-fi miniatures want bold, high-pigment colours built for detail at 28mm. Scale models and historicals want accurate, authentic reference shades. Pick your lane and the whole range narrows to what actually suits you.
Shop by experience level
Buy for where you are now, not where you hope to be. A first set you finish beats a mega set you never open.
Shop by budget
Live prices, in-stock only. Sale reductions are already applied.
Shop paint sets by brand
Each brand is genuinely good at something different. Here is the honest one-line version.
Shop by range & finish
Jump straight to a specific paint system or effect.
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What to look out for in a miniature paint set
Five things worth knowing before you spend. We would rather sell you the right £26 set than the wrong £140 one.
Don't buy craft acrylics for miniatures
The cheap "all-in-one" kits on marketplaces are usually craft paint. Craft acrylics are coarsely ground and go on thick — they fill in exactly the panel lines, rivets and faces you paid for on the model. Miniature paints are finely pigmented and made to be thinned and layered. It is the whole reason this range exists.
Count the useful colours, not the total
A 30-paint set with eleven near-identical greens is a smaller set than a well-chosen 12. Look for a spread that covers black, white, a warm and a cool brown, a metal, a flesh tone, and one shade or wash. That combination will finish an entire squad.
Pots vs dropper bottles
Pots let you see the colour and dip straight in, but they dry out if you leave the lid up and you cannot control how much you take. Droppers give you an exact number of drops, waste far less and suit a wet palette — which is why most brands have moved to them.
Check whether a primer is included
Paint does not grip bare plastic or resin properly. If the set has no primer you need one before you can use it, so factor that in — a set at £26 with a brush-on primer inside can be better value than one at £22 without.
The included brush is a starter, not a keeper
Brushes bundled into starter sets are fine for basecoats and drybrushing, and they are meant to be. Once you are painting eyes and edges, one decent synthetic detail brush will improve your results more than another ten paints will.
Still not sure?
Answer four quick questions and we will point you at the set that actually fits — your models, your experience and your budget.
Citadel vs Army Painter vs Vallejo vs Pro Acryl — what a paint really costs
Set prices are hard to compare because bottle sizes differ. This is the number that actually matters: what one millilitre of paint costs you, worked out live from today's single-pot prices on this site.
| Range | Bottle | Single pot | Cost per ml | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic | 18ml | £2.88 | 16.0p per ml | Your first proper set. Broad 216-colour system, easy to thin and layer. |
| Vallejo Game Color | 18ml | £2.66 | 14.8p per ml | Fantasy and sci-fi minis. Huge range, superb value. |
| AK Interactive 3rd Gen | 17ml | £2.48 | 14.6p per ml | Scale models, historicals and mixing your own shades. |
| Green Stuff World | 17ml | £2.39 | 14.1p per ml | Effects and finishes other ranges simply do not offer. |
| Pro Acryl | 22ml | £3.99 | 18.1p per ml | Upgrading from a starter set. Exceptional coverage and flow. |
| Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 | 18ml | £3.49 | 19.4p per ml | Painting a whole army fast. One coat shades and highlights for you. |
| Citadel Layer (Games Workshop) | 12ml | £3.49 | 29.1p per ml | Official Warhammer schemes and Contrast. Pots, and priced like it. |
Prices update automatically and include any live discount. Cheapest per ml is not automatically best — pigment density, coverage and how a paint behaves when thinned all matter, and that is what the "best for" column is there for. But if two sets look equally good, this is the tie-breaker.
Start, expand, complete — the sensible order to buy in
You do not need everything on day one. This is the path most painters actually take.
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Step 1
A starter set and a primer
One box with a core palette, ideally a brush and something to practise on. Add a primer if the set does not include one — nothing sticks to bare plastic without it.
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Step 2
A shade, a metal and a better brush
The three upgrades that visibly change your results for the least money. A wash sinks into the recesses and does your shading; a proper metallic makes weapons and armour read; a decent detail brush does the rest.
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Step 3
Expansion sets in the colours you keep running out of
By now you know whether you are painting a lot of skin, a lot of green, or a lot of rust. Buy the expansion set that matches, rather than another general starter you half-duplicate.
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Step 4
A mega set, if the maths works
Only worth it once you know the range suits you. At that point it is comfortably the lowest cost per pot in the shop — and you stop stopping mid-model because you are missing a colour.
Paints for figures & figurines
"Miniature", "model" and "figure" all end up meaning the same thing on the workbench, and the paint does not care what you call it. Every set on this page is figure paint in the sense that matters: finely pigmented acrylic, thin enough to layer, made to sit in the detail rather than bury it. If you are looking for paint for figurines — resin display pieces, D&D and board game figures, historical figures, anime and bust kits — you are in the right place.
A few pointers on picking paints for figures specifically:
- Board game and RPG figures — usually soft grey or coloured plastic and there are a lot of them. This is exactly what one-coat systems were built for. A Speedpaint 2.0 set will get a whole party or box of figures table-ready in an evening.
- Fantasy and sci-fi figures — bold, saturated colours built for 28–32mm. Warpaints Fanatic and Vallejo Game Color are the two standard answers.
- Historical figures and busts — you want reference-accurate uniform and flesh shades rather than heroic colour. Look at AK Real Colors and the AK figure sets.
- Display figures and larger scales — bigger surfaces show every transition, so blending matters more. Higher-pigment paints and oils come into their own here.
Whichever you are painting, the figurine painting kit you want is the one with a sensible core palette and a primer — not the one with the biggest number on the box. Browse miniature and figure paint sets →
Read before you buy
Free guides from our team — the people who actually sell and paint this stuff.
Miniature paint sets — your questions answered
What paints do I need to start painting miniatures?
Fewer than you think. A workable first palette is black, white, a warm brown, a cool grey, a silver, a gold, one flesh tone and a shade or wash, plus a primer. That is enough to finish an entire squad. Every starter set on this page is built around roughly that spread, so you are buying a considered palette rather than guessing.
Which is the best miniature paint set for beginners?
For most people starting out it is a mid-priced starter set with a primer and a brush included, around the 25 to 35 pound mark. The Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Starter Set and the Warhammer 40,000 Paints and Tools Set are the two we recommend most often. If you are painting a whole army rather than one model, start with Speedpaint instead.
What is the difference between Citadel, Army Painter and Vallejo paints?
Citadel is the official Warhammer range, sold in 12ml pots, with excellent coverage and the Contrast system that shades in one coat. Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic comes in 18ml droppers, covers a broader 216-colour system and costs noticeably less per ml. Vallejo Game Color is also a dropper range with a huge back catalogue and superb value. All three work on any miniature.
Are Speedpaints good for beginners?
Yes, with one caveat. Speedpaint 2.0 shades and highlights in a single coat over a white primer, so a beginner can get a genuinely good-looking model in minutes and a whole army in a weekend. It will not teach you layering or blending, so many painters run a Speedpaint army alongside a conventional set for characters.
Do I need to prime a miniature before painting it?
Yes. Acrylic paint does not grip bare plastic, resin or metal properly and will rub off at the edges you handle most. Primer gives the paint something to key into. White primer keeps colours bright and suits Contrast and Speedpaint. Black or grey primer makes shading easier and suits darker schemes.
Can I use craft acrylics or cheap paint sets on miniatures?
You can, but you will not enjoy it. Craft acrylics are coarsely ground and go on thick, filling the fine detail, panel lines and faces that make a miniature worth painting. Miniature paints are finely pigmented and formulated to be thinned and layered. It is the single biggest difference between a model that looks painted and one that looks gummed up.
How many paints do I actually need?
Around eight to twelve well-chosen colours will finish most models. Judge a set by the spread it covers rather than the number on the box: a 30-paint set with eleven similar greens is genuinely smaller than a thoughtfully picked 12. Add colours as you find yourself running out of them, not in advance.
Are pots or dropper bottles better?
Droppers, for most people. You get an exact number of drops, waste far less, and they work well with a wet palette. Pots let you see the colour and dip straight in, but they dry out if the lid is left open and you cannot control how much you take. Most brands have moved to droppers for these reasons.
Can you use acrylic paint on plastic model kits?
Yes, and acrylic is the standard choice for plastic kits. Wash the parts to remove mould release agent, prime them, then paint. For scale models and historicals use a reference-accurate range such as AK Interactive 3rd Gen or Vallejo Model Color rather than a fantasy miniature range, which is deliberately more saturated than real-world colours.
How do you remove paint from a miniature?
Soak the model in a plastic-safe stripper such as isopropyl alcohol or a dedicated stripping product, leave it for a few hours, then scrub gently with an old toothbrush. Never use acetone or cellulose thinners on plastic, which will melt it. Rinse thoroughly, let it dry completely and re-prime before repainting.
What brushes do I need and how do I clean them?
Three will cover almost everything: a medium brush for basecoats, a small detail brush, and an old or cheap brush for drybrushing. Rinse in clean water while you paint, never let paint dry in the ferrule, and reshape the tip before it dries. The brush included in a starter set is fine to learn on.
Do I need a wet palette?
Not on day one, but it is the cheapest upgrade that will visibly improve your painting. It keeps thinned paint workable for hours instead of minutes, which makes layering and blending far easier and wastes much less paint. Most painters who try one never go back to a dry palette.
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