Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

And I find certain paints dry faster than others

AFAIK this is due to the pigments.
Some have a natural tendency to dry more quickly.
In artists' oils for example lead white and most of the earth pigments dry well. Others take ages - iirc alazirin crimson was guilty of this

You only have to look at a tin of enamal matt black and it dries up

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I still have the old, old space marine paint set from the early 1990's and the remaining 5 paints, which I have used are still in perfect working order.

So I say its a design flaw.

Also Vallejo paints haven't been drying up on me.

Yep I have the box still used most of the paint tho

Many people don't like change. They start with GW products and stick with it. Its a pity really as there are much better products to buy.

GW has a fancy logo but the hidden package is pretty low quality. Take a chance and try some other paint products and you will wonder why you even bothered with GW.

Listen to many of the pro painters. They don't seem to use GW paints or brush's. From the interviews I have read, many state that GW products seem low quality. The pro's that do use GW paints seem to work for GW.

The advertisement brought to you by OoieGooie.

Ooie
have tried other systems
not tried Vallejo yet but having Tamiya, humbrol and Citadel don't feel compelled to fork out yet again for a whole new range

they work for me and I ain't no apologist for GW

I can fix everyones problem.

Its called a vacuum box. Cost 25 bucks. made for paint, used for a long time to prevent air from messing up your paint.

also keeps the water in the paint. So no mixing or just a little mix due to settling.

I always painted models, Not always miniatures for gaming but cars, boats and such since i was about nine.
at ten my dad bought said box. I love my small 6x6x6 box from so long ago.

But i really love the monster I bought a 12x12x10 box with built in pump.

Im 29 now and have some 20 year old paint. Never once do i have to worry about drying paint.

Hope this helps

Interesting
not quite the same, but two ideas spring to mingd for those with not so much cash/space for such boxes.

Clingfilm wrapped around the bottle
or
Store bottles in those vacuum bags for clothes
not so elegant as the vac box but might work?

The vacuum box is a great idea , but there are ways the keep your paints flowing with some simple care .

Yes gw paints suck ass when it comes to there bottles and yes I do think they do know what they are doing . But I do like some of the colors what I do is make sure i never have any dried paint around the seals and i add a bit of Vaseline around said seals which fills in any gaps where air would get threw this seems too keep them pretty good for a long time .

I think yer all a bunch of conspiracy theorists, no better than the types that think 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush or that the US never went to the moon...

p3 paints are supposed to be good anyone used them?

I think its the specific paint mix that GW now use rather than anything sinister.

Putting various companies paints side by side on a pallette the GW stuff seems to dry much faster. I tried this but YMMV.

Like many here I have been into painting figures a looong time (pre Rogue Trader). From what I have seen GW have worked hard to improve their paints over the years. The current range are no better or worse than the previous paints. There are however a few things you need to understand about paint in general. As an artist I have always had to mix my own paints; you should never use oils, water colors, guache or acrylics straight out of the tube or bottle you always add a meduim to thin or thicken the paint. Recently GW have tried to make thier pigments stronger in their paints to provide better coverage, this means there is less water in them. This isn't a big deal becauue if you've ever read about painting minitaures you will know to thin down the paint.

One of the other things to ask yourself is; how much are you painting with the pot of paint you just bought? Are you painting tanks, infantry or adding a spot colour to a unit? Next time you sit down to paint a unit of figures check and see how much of the paint you use from your pot. I'm betting it's not even 20%. Often if im just adding a bit of detail I'll stir up the paint and still have plenty of paint on the stick to paint the bit I was doing. I use ice lolly sticks (Magnums are rather nice) or Starbucks' wooden stirers. You really have to be painting a lot of models to finish a pot within a month. Given that straight from the pot you ought to be mixing at least a 1:1 ratio of paint ot water it's no wonder the paint thickens quickly. Is this a flaw? Not really, it's always easier to thin than to thicken paint. I do sympathise with you though as my pot of bleached bone is constantly having to be revived and it's a colour that ends up on more than 50% of figures I paint. Added to this is the modern wonder of central heating and double glazing which is nice for sitting around in a t-shirt in winter, but horrible for paint.

The odd thing to me is that the new foundation paints are supposed to have better coverage and they always seperate in the bottle, so while I don't thin them much I do have to keep stirring the stuff. ^^ As for bottle design I like the pots with lids that I can unscrew because when I'm finished with them I use them as figure holders, unlike the new foundation/wash bottles that have annoying tops.

Henners91 wrote:I think yer all a bunch of conspiracy theorists, no better than the types that think 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush or that the US never went to the moon...

Well, all I am saying is this - don't you think the guys at the GW Studios sit around saying, "Bullocks! I just started painting with this bottle of Chaos Black and Buggers, it is already dried out!" I mean, I would have to imagine that they know about the bottle problem.

At least, I'd think so.

Or maybe I really just don't know how to rehydrate paint. Or maybe I am just doing so too late. I mean, you add water, that I know. But it always seems like I get this standing water with a little color in it at the top of the jar and this unuseable glop at the bottom which is solid as a rock as often as not. If you stir it up, you get water with dirty clumps of paint in it.

For me, that vacuum box might be a good choice. Does anyone have a link to suggest? If it really is $25 AND if it really works, that pays itself back after just 10 bottles.

Yeah, I am sure I am actually using less than 20% of the paint out of any given jar - at best.

You make some good points Bloodwin
It is best the paints be stirred thoroughly rather than just shaking the bottle.
This is especially important if the jar has been sitting in the shop for a long time, or not been used in ages.

If the paint is not well mixed at the start of each session then you will be using a greater proportion of the medium meaning that the jar will dry out more quickly.

It also helps to take out some of the paint to put on a palette then close the lid, rather than leave the top open throughout a painting session.

This will be old news to old hands but hopefully will help any newbs

Granted, while they do dry out, its impossible to make a completely air tight seal on a $3.50 container. If it was 100% air tight, it would cost like $50/per pot. Anyway, I never have a problem because every time I use a pot of paint, I use an eye dropper with clean water and drop 1 or 2 drops in and mix it up to thin out my paint. This helps keep them from drying up.

ip vin snarller dehizvin wrote:I can fix everyones problem. Its called a vacuum box. Cost 25 bucks. made for paint, used for a long time to prevent air from messing up your paint.

Now if only I could pay double for one of these with a massive dorky imperial aquilla on it!

In all seriousness GW should have built a simple seal into it's mega set. Now that would have been proper customer service.

I buy cheap and cheerful clingfilm every week or so, and every time i finish painting i put all of paints in a box and seal it with cling film, makes em last for years at a time.

Eagle.

Solorg wrote:

Henners91 wrote:I think yer all a bunch of conspiracy theorists, no better than the types that think 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush or that the US never went to the moon...

Well, all I am saying is this - don't you think the guys at the GW Studios sit around saying, "Bullocks! I just started painting with this bottle of Chaos Black and Buggers, it is already dried out!" I mean, I would have to imagine that they know about the bottle problem.

At least, I'd think so.

Or maybe I really just don't know how to rehydrate paint. Or maybe I am just doing so too late. I mean, you add water, that I know. But it always seems like I get this standing water with a little color in it at the top of the jar and this unuseable glop at the bottom which is solid as a rock as often as not.

For me, that vacuum box might be a good choice. Does anyone have a link to suggest? If it really is $25 AND if it really works, that pays itself back after just 10 bottles.

Yeah, I am sure I am actually using less than 20% of the paint out of any given jar - at best.

Just shake up the pot o.O

I've never had a pot dry out on me, I've been in the hobby for 9 months now, maybe that's not long enough, but I am not seeing any signs of decay...

Oh, Henners, you'll see what I mean soon enough!

Re: put paint on a palette and close the lid on the paint

Well, I have to say this - the paint doesn't dry right before my eyes during a brief painting session. It is always liquid when I close the bottle after a session. It does all its drying when nobody's looking - probably while I am asleep dreaming about ORKS!

PinkTerror wrote:So it's your responsibility to go through your paints from time-to-time (depending on where you live) and re-hydrate them and mix them (shaken or stirred) so they do not fully separate.

Irregardless of what paint you use; feed and exercise your paints.

Really? That's an interesting concept, because I have had Vallejo and Reaper paints that I let sit there for months and don't have any problems, but most GW paints that I have had have dried out without ever being opened or after less than a month or two of use. I'm not going to take time out of my day to shake and hydrate my paints when other companies can do it in such a way that you don't have to. It's not my responsibility to work around the flaws of GW's design.

I cought on to the fact that GW paints were crap a long time ago. Since Reaper and Valljeo combined have almost 4x the paint selection, and are better quality (for around the same price) I abandoned GW paints with the exception of the washes, which are actually quite nice.

The only GW paint I still use is Space Wolves gray, and that's only because I haven't found another company's equivelent.

I have 4 year old GW paint and they've been in my holiday house, that means LOTS of HEAT and COLD. By all descriptions they should be just about totally dead.

Well, they did look a bit dry but 3 drops of water fixed the worse cases.

Talking about the new ones, of course.

I also have a pot of sunburst yellow with a screw on top. God damn was that a lot of work. The paint feels hideous and I think I overdid it on the water, screwing it off once in a while just to check is nearly impossible due to the lid getting stuck.

filbert wrote:Built in obsolescence - it's a model that has served the home computer industry well for years now. The cynic in me thinks the same applies to GW paints too - if they dry out quicker, you have to buy more of them. To be fair to GW, the best paint pots in the world are never going to be completely airtight and I think their new design is light years better than the old designs were.

While no container will be airtight, I've old ral partha paints or such that have lasted decades.

So Reaper and Valljeo are alright then? Anyone else have this experience? Because seriously, I'm not married to the purchase of an inferior paint.

My paints must be magical or something, because I've had them for what has to be a year now, and they don't show any signs of drying up. o-o

Granted, they are transported to my boyfriend's house in a gallon size plastic bag every other week or so. Maybe that alone is enough to mix up the pots so they don't dry out.

Here's the Enchanted Blue that I still use. I think these pots sealed better than the ones they have now.

Ive had a more then a couple that are around the 10 year mark now, and all I had to do is add a little water to thin it back up. They were getting gloppy. I honestly think it has more to do with what the color is then anything. Ive got 2 10year old pots of boltgun metal, a bronze color, gold and yellow and they all came right back to life and were gloppy. But Ive had (same age of course) blacks,browns and I think a red that were just shot. They were better chalk then paint. Personally I dont think they need to make bad paint pots to make a huge profit off their paints. They come in exspensive, small pots anyways. And since they seem to of pulled off the "everyone needs a HUGE wonkin army to play" scheme, they are just raping anyone who needs their paint.

I love how people think it is a great GW plot to rule the world with dried out paint pots. OMFG it's Jarvis Johnson on the grassy knoll with a hunting rifle.

I use GW and Vallejo. I store both dropper bottles and paint pots in plastic schoolbox type containers you get for .97 at Wal-mart After 3 years, I noticed my GW paints starting to get thick, so I added anywhere from 5 to 8 drops of distilled water and a glass bead for an agitator and shook the hell out of them. They loosened right up and work great.

When I paint, I put two or three drops of paint from the pot to my palette, close the lid, then add a flow-retarder from liquitex to keep the paint from drying too quickly on my palette. I've had no problems to date.

I agree with the person who posted that one must "feed and exercise" your paints. I do not see it as a GW conspiracy. Besides, it's business too. If their design of a new bottle was cost effective for them, kept the paint from drying out too quickly, then there you go. They're not going to design a 100% airtight bottle that will increase production costs to non-profitable amounts when something less expensive will suffice. This is something most businesses do and appears to be the nature of the beast.

So do my 3 year old paints dry out a bit, getting a little thick? IMHO yes they did. I remedied it and they're working just fine now.

And yes, it was Jervis Johnson the the grassy knoll with a hunting rifle!

Ok I just had to create an account to post this as I can not believe no one else does this. Store your paints upside down. The paint seeps into the cracks and only the paint touching the edge hardens and dries up. The down side is you get paint in the lid and a ring of plastic paint to scrape off but it keeps the bottle useable.

A couple drops of water and stirring should help keep them alive for additional years, I think I'll try storing them upside down additionally. Florida humidity can help keep it from drying up really fast but the heat doesnt help typically

Alright Ive done my research and found like all paints.
GW ships in lots and the quality of paint you get is based on the way it comes to the us from start to finish.

Its hard to do but with a little prying you can find when the paint is produced, shipped, and how long it was stored.

Knowing these things will help you figure out if you'll have a solid pot of paint or paint that last ten years.

Checking the lot number tells the life history of the paint your getting as well as the mix that was used.

Come to find out that the blend of paint and its shelf life is closely related to what was done to the paint before you got it.

Now I know what alot of you are thinking as you read this. Everyone knows these things why voice what we already know.

Well come to find out even my local GW employee didn't know what was up with the paints he sold.

So I thought their might be others and there you go.
for those that didn't know, now you do.

And those that did sorry for the recap.