Making do with what "paint" you have

My roommates and I have invested in quite a few pots of citadel paints, but not nearly enough to cover any color we could possibly want, so I'm going to explain how I got some of these colors and effects.

For the one above, I made my own custom washes! The zombies use a wash of 1:1 Guilliman Blue Glaze & Seraphim Sepia Wash over Fenrisian Grey layer. The Skeletons are a homemade wash using Karak Stone layer with a tiny bit of Sepia wash, a few drops of water and a few drops of Flow-Aid paint additive (Liquidtex), over a white primer. (All paints Citadel brand; miniatures are Dungeons & Dragons: Nolzur's Marvelous Unpainted Miniatures - about $4 for a pack of 2 medium creatures)

For this magic effect I used a combination of blues and purples for the base coat and washes, using wet blending techniques, but then finished it off with a glitter nail polish from the dollar store! Get creative! The dollar store also sometimes sells acrylic paints which you can use on minis, just make sure to water them down appropriately so you don't lose detail.