Green Stuff World sets group the shades that get used together when you paint. Instead of single dropper bottles you get a coordinated group straight away: bone, wood and bark, warm or cool opaque tones, chrome shades, starter basics, ink and wash sets, and chameleon colours that shift tone with the angle of the light.
The range also includes kits for finishing bases. How to choose between them is set out below. The notes below also cover why one bottle in a set always empties first and what to compare before you order.
Painting almost never uses a single shade. Bone needs a highlight, a mid-tone and a shadow; wood is the same idea on a different base. A set solves that by having the shades mixed in relation to one another, so the transition between them comes out smoothly with nothing to blend on the palette. The second advantage is completeness: a base kit includes tones you would not have picked yourself, yet they are what finish the scene.
The drawback is that one colour in a set runs out before the others, and you then top it up separately. Before buying it is worth going through the contents bottle by bottle and weighing up how many you will genuinely use.
Themed sets for bone, wood and bark make sense if you return to that material repeatedly. For a single figure, two or three shades on their own usually make more sense.
Ink and wash sets are a way of learning a technique: one box holds several intensities and the difference is immediately visible. Chameleon colours are a chapter of their own, since they change tone with the light and behave unusually on a model.
Compare the contents against what you have left at home before buying. Basic opaque tones tend to be similar from set to set. Single shades from the same maker are listed in the Green Stuff World acrylic paints category.
Sets from other makers, from military camouflage to themed air force groups, are in the model paint sets category.
