Let’s start this from the top.
I use to buy endless paints for projects and never really ended up using them. I started enjoy watching Squidmar’s Video and how versatile their paint sets seemed so I thought I would challenge my self going forward to use them as my baseline. This review isn’t really a review of the box but rather the idea of a limited palette. I’m not going to break down each paint mainly because Squidmar did an excellent video themselves. What I am going to do is discuss my thoughts.
Is this an influencer scam?
I have been using the Squidmar paint sets for a while now, or more accurately, I have been using the paints that come in them. Unfortunately, I was not able to get hold of the full boxes locally, so rather than buying the sets as intended, I ended up manually buying the individual paints from my local hobby store.
That probably makes this review a little different, because I am not looking at the box as a sealed product in the way most reviews do. I have not had the full “open the set, paint the included miniature, follow the QR code tutorial” experience, although some Squidmar Vallejo boxes do include 12 hobby colours, an exclusive 32 mm miniature, and a QR code tutorial so there is some extra value there. There are now four Squidmar x Vallejo sets in the larger bundle, including the newer FX paint set.
What I have been doing instead is using the paints inside those sets as part of my normal painting session for my own recipes, and my paint guides. That is probably the more useful angle anyway, because for most beginner level painters the real question is not whether the box looks nice on a shelf. It is whether the paint selection is actually useful once you start painting regularly. The basic answers is yes..but there’s more to it.
Why I was sceptical at first
At first, I was quite sceptical of the Squidmar paint sets because there are a lot of “starter sets” in miniature painting, and not all of them are especially helpful once you get beyond the first few models. Especially when you add in a YouTube lead project….when has that never been cash grab or a scam.
The problem with a lot of starter paint sets is that they try to give you one of everything. One red, one blue, one yellow, one green, one brown, one metal, one flesh tone, and so on. That sounds useful on paper, but in practice it often leaves you with a colour wheel rather than a working palette. You have colours, but not necessarily the tones you need to build shadows, highlights, transitions, atmosphere, or a consistent painting style. I found myself always needing a second shade of red or green to make use of it. I think its mainly to make use of their whole colour wheel and possibly to get you to buy more…..cleverly thought out in a way so the colour are almost what you need.
A starter set is also a bigger decision than people sometimes admit unless you’re like me and started buying random paints. Once you buy one set, you are financially and mentally locked into it for a while, because otherwise it feels like a waste of money. That is especially true if you are newer to painting and still working out what kind of painter you are. A bad set can teach you to chase missing colours instead of learning how to use the ones you already have. To be honest is 12 colours really a good size for a starter paint set? I’ll leave that question to you.
The more I have used the Squidmar paint choices, the more I have come to appreciate that there is clearly some thought behind them. They are not random colours thrown into a box to cover every basic category. They feel more like colours chosen by people who actually paint in a particular way, with strong contrast, punchy saturation, and dramatic results in mind….the squirmer style.
That does not mean they are perfect, and I have definitely made additions myself, but I do think the sets make more sense the longer you use them.
Why I use the same paints in my guides
For my own paint guides, I try to use the same paints consistently. Partly this is for my wallet and sanity, but more importantly, it gives people a baseline.
When creators use completely different paints every time, it can become difficult to follow along without constantly buying more. One guide needs a specific orange, the next one needs a different shadow colour, then suddenly you are at the hobby store trying to justify another six bottles because someone online used them once on a cloak. I painted this Grick by Jandro Marquez using just Squidmar Colours. Equally with the pasty chap below which was me just messing around with paints…so be nice. I did happen to add basalt grey though.
There is a lot of value in creators using similar tools, because it gives people more mileage from the paints they already own and I wish creators would band together to make this happen. I know army painter tends to work quite a bit with creators. It also encourages you to explore a palette properly rather than constantly asking what you are missing.
I wrote in another blog about writing down your paint recipes, and I still think that is one of the best ways to improve. It forces you to test what your paints can do instead of immediately running to buy a new bottle whenever you hit a problem.
A good example of that is an orange recipe I found recently. I used Parasite Brown as the base, Hot Orange over the top, and Ice Yellow as the highlight. If I had not been trying to work within a familiar paint range, I probably would have just gone looking for a very specific orange from the rack and missed the fact that I could build something more interesting from colours I already had.
That is where a limited but thoughtful paint selection becomes useful. It makes you mix, test, and understand the paint rather than treating every colour as a separate solution.
What I like about the Squidmar paint selection
The thing I like most about the Squidmar Vallejo paint choices is that they are vibrant and expressive although a departure from the classic modern paints it reminds me of 1990s GW sets. Unfortunately I missed out on the account of not being around yet, but I did recently do a guide for retro space marines. They are not timid colours, and that makes them useful for pushing contrast, building saturated shadows, and creating miniatures that read strongly from a distance. Something where you stop and look instead of an army of 2000 points of grim dark blue and washes. It’s cool but it blends together.
The reds, greens, blues, oranges, and yellows have a lot of punch, and that can be a very good thing if you want a miniature to feel alive rather than muddy. The colours can work well against each other as contrasts, but they can also complement each other if you are willing to experiment a bit. Dark green shadows with scarlet blood highlights type of thing.
That vibrancy is probably also the thing some people will struggle with. The paints can be bright, and sometimes very bright. If you are painting in a more muted, Grimdark, dusty, or historical style, you may find yourself knocking them back quite often. Personally, I think that is fine, because it is usually easier to desaturate a strong colour than it is to make a weak colour more exciting. I will say washes such as Nuln Oil will ruin the vibe of them in not properly thinned as a wash.
The sets feel very much connected to the Squidmar painting style…seems silly to say, which is generally high contrast, saturated, dramatic, and very readable on camera. How do it translate to real life? I am a fan of that style, although sometimes I do think it can tip a little too far into oversaturation depending on the subject. Their grimdark work, for example, can still feel quite colourful compared with the really dirty, miserable, trench coat and rust end of miniature painting.
That is not necessarily a criticism of the paints themselves, it’s more of a limitation. It is more about understanding what the sets are trying to help you do. I think that point does illustrate the problem though as it lacks the subtle colours. How do paint dull items with vibrant colours kind of problem.
Where I think the sets are weaker
The main thing I miss from the selection is a better range of quieter base colours, especially greys and less saturated tones.
The paints are great at the extremes. You get vibrant reds, strong greens, blues that pop, and colours that make shadows and highlights feel more deliberate. What you get less of are the boring, useful, slightly dull colours that often do a lot of heavy lifting in a paint job. Like a cream for cloths although If you have experimented before you can sort of use deck tan and make a wash to tint it or Squidmar’s way of sepia ink for shading.
That might sound odd, but boring colours are important. Greys, off-whites, cold neutrals, muted browns, desaturated blues, and soft green-greys are often what make the brighter colours work. Without them, everything can start competing for attention.
I would have liked a grey or two in the core selection, because grey is one of those colours that quietly solves problems. It can cool a highlight, mute a colour, help with non-metallic metal, soften transitions, and make saturated paints feel more controlled. Maybe it’s me and I haven’t mastered mixing the perfect grey. Pre made greys often contain a blue or red to swing it’s temperature so there is benefits to them.
I have also read reviews from others that the box is missing a genuine blue but to be honest I haven’t really noticed. I will agree the set is very much catered to warm tones of blue.
This is why I do not think one box on its own is necessarily enough for everyone. The sets make more sense together, because the broader range gives you more flexibility. Squidmar themselves describe the sets as versatile on their own but more complete when used in combination, and that does line up with my experience.
Are they good value?
This is where the review gets a bit awkward, because I think the paints are good, but the value depends heavily on how you buy them.
If you buy one box and expect it to function as your complete beginner paint collection, I am not convinced it is the best value, and probably far from it. You will probably find gaps quite quickly, especially if you want more neutral tones or a less saturated base palette.
If you own all four boxes, or if you are deliberately building your collection around these colours, then I think the value becomes much stronger. The official full bundle contains all four Squidmar x Vallejo sets, and the idea seems to be that the range works best as a broader studio-style palette rather than a single isolated starter box.
For me, the best approach was not buying the full sets blindly, but buying individual paints as and when I needed them. That let me use the selection as a guide rather than treating it like a rulebook. It’s a sort of meet a few friends first and get to know them instead of the whole group at one time.
The alternative: buy the key paints individually
If you are unsure about buying the Squidmar paint sets, I think there is a strong case for starting with individual colours from across the boxes rather than buying everything at once.
The paints I would personally start with are Dark Rust, Burnt Red, Parasite Brown, Ice Yellow, Black, White, Dark Green, Scorpy Green, Sunny Skin Tone, Deck Tan, Scarlet Blood, and Dark Sea Blue. Those types of colours, have look at what you’re painting and see what you need, not what someone tells you.
That selection gives you a really useful starting point because it covers warmth, shadow, skin, green tones, strong contrast, and highlight potential without throwing you straight into a full wall of paint bottles. It also encourages you to start mixing and developing recipes rather than constantly shopping for the exact colour you think you are missing.
As you develop, you can then add more specialist paints like fluorescents and inks, which are useful, but probably not the first thing I would tell someone to buy if they are still building confidence. Plus those paints really need an airbrush to work properly.
The paints I added myself
Even though I like the Squidmar selection, I have added quite a few paints around it to make it work better for the way I paint. I think that’s ok, and it shows grow and development when painting.
Field Blue is one I find very useful for cold armour, cooler highlights, and adding a bit of restraint when the rest of the palette gets too warm or too saturated. Natural Grey or Stonewall Grey are also helpful because they give you those slightly greenish, neutral tones that are very useful for muting colours and building more grounded surfaces.
Vermilion is another good addition because it gives you a flatter red that still has punch, which makes it useful when Scarlet Blood or the more saturated reds feel a bit too intense.
My slightly strange top suggestion would be Basalt Grey. It does not sound exciting, but it is one of those colours that becomes incredibly useful once you start using it. Black, Basalt Grey, and White together create one of the best simple recipes I have found for non-metallic metal steel. It gives you a strong value range without the steel becoming too blue, too warm, or too chalky.
In amongst them are a selection of dull purples, greens and army ish colours to help with trench crusade.
That is exactly the kind of paint I think the sets need more of. Not flashy, but extremely useful.
Who I think these sets are for
I think the Squidmar paint sets are best for painters who already like high contrast, saturated colour, and dramatic miniature painting, or for beginners who specifically want to learn that style. Basically the Squidmar way of painting which is a strong departure from GW’s base, shade highlight method. Specific colours for specific roles where as the Squidmar is more experimental painting.
They are also useful if you follow a lot of Squidmar content or other creators using similar Vallejo colours, because you will get more out of your paints when multiple guides and recipes overlap. That is a real benefit, especially if you are trying to avoid buying a completely new colour every time you watch a tutorial. Again check out the blog for paint recipes and why you should note it down, that has more of my thoughts on paint compatibility. As proven with my own guides I can paint models in a different way but using the same paints so in my mind it has ticked the box. In comparison I believe Hersey has his own Army Painter set for very vibrant colours but it’s only caters for his style.
I would be more cautious if you want a very traditional starter set, a muted grimdark palette, or a one-box solution that covers every basic painting need. There are no washes in these sets unless you count inks. You can absolutely use these paints for darker and more atmospheric work, but I think you will need to add some quieter colours to make that easier. I’ve made it work with my paint guides just selecting a few paints here and there to bring easy paint guides together, but I do love colourful designs. A lot of One Page Rules artwork I would describe as the grim dark colour universe. Bright orcs, vibrant HDF or high elves. Lots of glowing things. So it’s up to you.
Final thoughts: are the Squidmar paint sets worth it?
Overall, I think the Squidmar Vallejo paint selection is good it’s certainly not a scam and a well thought out product. I would not describe each individual box as an automatic must-buy for everyone. One box is literally skin tones, white, black and purples. I think if your miniature was lacking clothes and waving a purple sword you would be golden.
The colours are strong, vibrant, and clearly chosen with a particular painting style in mind that work with each colour. They reward experimentation, and they have helped me build recipes rather than constantly searching for the exact paint I think I need. That alone makes them useful. As an exercise it teaches control and limited palette.
Where I think the sets become less straightforward is value. If you only buy one box, you may find it incomplete depending on what you paint and how you paint. If you own all the boxes, or build your collection around the colours gradually, they start to make much more sense.
The included miniatures seem like a nice addition, although I cannot really comment on them properly because I have not had one in hand. In the grand scheme of things, they are a bonus rather than the reason I would buy the paints. If you are buying paints then you already have miniatures in mind for them.
So my honest answer is this: yes, the paint selection is good, but I think the smartest way to approach it is either to commit to the broader range or buy the key colours individually as you need them.
For me, the real value has not been in owning a branded set. It has been in learning how far a consistent, slightly limited palette can take you once you stop asking “what paint am I missing?” and start asking “what can I make with what I already have?”
A little edit:
so I saw their latest video regarding them making a custom paint line, It does make me more sceptical about that as I think them crafting sets around existing lines is very strong. Are these going to be exclusive to online or in stores? How far of a departure will these be from the current paint line. I know some people had expressed frustration that’s some recipes had been quietly changed. It remains to be seen….