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Okay, so I bought some terrain, but now I need to paint it. For painting earth and rock colors (browns and grays) what kind of paints do you use? It seems I could use Vallejos and Citadels, but it seems kind of an expansive use of paint. Does anyone have an alternative brand of paint they use?

For really big areas (tabletop size) I use paint from the hardware store (like you would paint a wall with). Look around for water based acrylics, and avoid nasty oil based ones. (look for the kanji for water : 水).
I used バリューコート　but I daresay there are other brands.

For terrain pieces like buildings n whatnot, I use Liquitex water based acrylic. It comes in tubes like giant toothpaste tybes, costs about 600-800yen each, and will happily cover a whole table's worth of buildings. Its also water soluble, and (if needed) can mix with your citadel paints. I bought it in the local art store.

Finally, for base coating buildings and similar, spray cans are your friend. Tamiya do a whole load of colours, so you can do stuff like undercoat black, then zenithal spray in dark grey, then again in a mid brown, then again in a pale grey. This provides a nice earth/stone/dirt tone you can then wash over with coloured washes and a big brush (made with either regular mini paints or Liquitex paints, depending on volume.) Obviously airbrushing works well for this, too, if you have access to one.

Finally, for detail work, just treat it as a regular mini.

*edit* I have in the past used 100yen shop paint. Sometimes it works, sometimes it dont. tis up to you

I agree with MIJ that water-based acrylic exterior paint from the hardware store is your best bet for larger projects - being water-based, you can easily thin it down for a non-globby coat for buildings and so on too. You can usually get those more-or-less half-pint cans for like 500 yen or so, and they always have a nice wide selection of greys and browns anyway. Heck, you can mix cheap sand into the can for textured paint if you want to go that way as well.

Well, I completely skipped the idea of just getting Tamiya paints to spray large sections of the model. It is the GW hill that is sold for scenery. I think I'll go the Tamiya route and finish with paints I have.

As for the advice on the hardware and art store stuff, I'll definitely use the advice when I move onto to larger structures. Thanks.