Thank you Jakko for mentioning me and my use of the cheapest craft paint available. Over the many years I've been at this hobbyYou can use that kind of paint — if I'm not mistaken, @Grumpa does all the time, for example. However, are you sure you'll be saving if you do? Sure, they're cheaper in money, but are they also cheaper in time if you have to keep mixing the colours you need? Or if you have to go over something four times instead of once or twice to get them to cover? Or if they clog your airbrush because they have much coarser pigment than modelling paints do?
Tamiya paint is noticeably cheaper if you buy it in 23 ml bottles, BTW. Paints you know you use a lot, you probably don't want to be buying in 10 ml at a time.
I've used almost every "model paint" on the market at one time or another and the results were fine I guess. I even go back far enough
when the old Testors enamels which required thinners were the only game in town.
Then came out all the other stuff which I thought rather expensive, I mean "weathering powders" come on.
Get some dirt from the garden and some Elmers glue.
Mixing, yeah gotta do some mixing to get the tones right but what else have you got to do?
I use many, many layers and washes and am not gentle about it, after all what's 'gentle' about a tank or a wreck?
Jim.