Need a bit of help

[tyrantqueen]

Hi,
I bought a dinosaur toy a while back, and it has a really nice sculpt. It's only a chinasaur, but it looks to be a knock off of the Battat Styracosaurus.

I've decided this is probably the closest I'll ever get to owning such a figure. I would really like to give it a new lick of paint, because at the moment it's an ugly beige colour, and has those creepy googly eyes you see often on Chinasaurs.

I really don't think it would be worth sending off to get repainted by an artist, but I am thinking about giving it a nice, simple repaint.

The trouble is, when I am looking at reference pictures for colour schemes that I want to copy, I can never get the paint the colour I want it. I only have a set of 24 Reeves acrylics, should I look for something better?
To all the repainters of this forum....do you mix paints to get the colours you want, or do you buy the colours you need?
Also, any brand recommendations?

[Himmapaan]

Reeves sounds good to me. Twenty four also sounds like a large enough selection with which to mix colours. Of course, it does help if new colours can be found to better match what you're after, but if you didn't want to, mixing is plenty good. I think it probably isn't always practical trying to get an exact match for your reference; reaching a fairly close alternative is good in itself, plus it gives it the distinction of not being a 'carbon copy', which for me is always a good thing.

[0onarcissisto0]

Agree with Himmapaan. Obviously not claiming to be a pro, but when I started my kit, I had less than 10 colors (liquitex acrylics). Mind you, I already had a color scheme for my dinos in mind and so I was selective with my colors. I would think it almost impossible to find the exact colors you need premade and available commercially. I was watching Model Mania by David Fisher and even he uses certain base colors to get the exact shade of brown, red, etc.

[tyrantqueen]

Thanks you guys