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So has anyone else had horrible times with the new Citadel paint range?

I paint yellow marines, and it is not exactly a quick or easy process. I seem to always be on the look out for a new and better process to get to the right yellow. I often try out a mix of compaines, Reaper, Citadel, Vallejo, P3, etc. for paint.

I was excited about the new Citadel paints since they were supposed to cover better and be brighter.

I had good luck with my first run of foundation, shade, layer, etc. and then bam! Flash Gitz yellow left a horrible, unfixable grit on the model after it dried. Several hours, just ruined.

All the other paints had been fine but Flash Gitz looked like it was going on smoothly, but even watered down dried like sand paper. I could rub the dry grit off of the model with my fingers,but there's nothing thatlooks like it in the paint when wet.

Next, my first bottle of Seraphim Shade I used up and painting a bunch of batches of squads. Came out beautiful. Got the second and third bottle since I had about fifty more marines and a few vehicles to batch paint. I made sure to mix well, I always water down slightly, but after drying, I had a ton of models covered in blotchy, red wash. It looks cakey like the pigments separated. It looks like I covered the figures in rust pigment. Some of it even dried pink in places. I'm like, WTH GW? The third bottle looks red and cakey as well. Of course I batch painted instead of testing, because I'm not smart.

Anyone else have any issues?

So far I have had three pots of paint out of ten that are just disastrous. I have to strip models again. Ugh.

I'm also curious about the new paint range. I haven't bought any yet. To be honest I'm wondering if theres a point anymore. If their just gunna keep changing there paint range and changing the tone of the colors, I don't know how they expect use to match our existing color scheme's on our army's.

The only time I used the Citadel Paints was when the local store had a painting event for a Realm of Battle Board (GW gave them) that they got and they wanted it painted.

Sadly, I was the only one to show up, but I did get to use the new paints and I loved them. I didn't have a single problem with them (other than cost).

I haven't had that problem with any paints yet, though I haven't used either of the paints you mentioned. I've bought, I dunno, maybe 15 of the new paints, mostly bases, textures, metallics and one or two layers and a couple of the glazes/washes and I haven't had any problems. I'm not a fan of the layer paints, they just don't cover well enough for my liking, but I love the new base paints. They're like the old foundation paints but much more vibrant colours, the foundations had good coverage but you had to deal with dull muted tones. The new bases aren't quite as good coverage, but make up for it by being much more vibrant and still cover better than most paints.

But yeah, I haven't had any of the problems you describe.

Sounds like the bottles have seal (eg, airtight seal) problems.

I'd hazard a guess that Flash Gitz yellow had some paint fully dry which will not turn back into liquid paint if mixed in, thus giving you grit. The other paints sounds like evaporation and drying issues.

Then again I bought a pot turned to sludge on purpose to see what would happen. It was the old pots that are 25% or so larger then the current ones and when mixed (I use a mini electric paint mixer) with water it was perfect.

So it could be A- Bad luck, B- Pots tampered with in store and dried, C- Bad paint, D- Bad pots, E- Bad pots & paint.

Problems? With GW paints?!? I'm shocked!


Oh....wait, no I'm not...

They have been nothing but a problem since they stopped being made by Coat D' Arms many moons ago...

Price, coverage, drying in pot, peeling, chalking... Does anyone OTHER than GW modelers go out of their way to buy them? Nope... Why?, cause there are much better and cheaper alternatives out there...

I liked the range immediately prior to the current range, don't get me wrong, the washes were great, but there is no way there was any value in the GW range.. And now it's even worse..

To the OP, if you are concerned about your paints, take them and the example to your local GW store, profess our disappointment and demand a replacement pot(s) or ring their customer service line with your problems and demand they send you a replacement.. They may ask for ou to email a photo of the problem, but the GW customer service team is there to help..l

I myself have made the switch to Vallejo and have never looked back. While I still ask question on here using GW colors as reference, you'll never hear me complain about reaper or Vallejo.

Yeah, I am going to send in some pics to GW and see if they'll replace it. I have no local GW store for hundreds of miles so I pick up my paints and supplies online. .

The first pot was awesome, although I didn't realize the new shades dried matte, which turned out to look good. I have used washes in the past for oil/mud effects, which these won't do.

I'm going to strip the ones that I can't repair, try out Army Painter Daemonic Yellow Spray, and see how that goes.

So, if it is a seal problem, etc. Anyone know of a way to fix 'em? I'm not put out by the three bucks, but I have to order things which takes days or even a week.


Thanks,

I think the only fix for GW pots not sealing is to keep them clean, and even then I am not convinced that the wont dry up.. Or switch completely, never had an issue with Vallejo myself.. And coat d'arms have proven they will last years and years after first use.. If you are ordering online anyway, make the switch.. You won't regret it.. Vallejo is a paint company built on solely on its ability to supply quality paints and artist mediums, I'm not saying they are THE best, every brand has its pros and cons, but they don't let me down, I think the only complaint I have is their metallic black has some large flake in it for an airbrush ready paint, but that is being nit-picky...

I've had several pots of the new citadel paints pop open and get dried out. The clerk at my local store who sold them to me once told me not to leave them in a hot car, because they would explode. The colors are fine, but their behavior is not.

wowsmash wrote:I'm also curious about the new paint range. I haven't bought any yet. To be honest I'm wondering if theres a point anymore. If their just gunna keep changing there paint range and changing the tone of the colors, I don't know how they expect use to match our existing color scheme's on our army's.

Keep changing it? How? This is the first Paint rage change in a very long time.

Not sure on the paint problem, I have some of the new paints, I haven't used them enough for a proper opinion, but my friends have used them and absolutely love them. The new range seems to have a sort of Marmite effect.

Keep the lid clean and when not in use for a while shake the pot so the paint will clog any gaps and slow evaporation.

blood lance wrote:

wowsmash wrote:I'm also curious about the new paint range. I haven't bought any yet. To be honest I'm wondering if theres a point anymore. If their just gunna keep changing there paint range and changing the tone of the colors, I don't know how they expect use to match our existing color scheme's on our army's.

Keep changing it? How? This is the first Paint rage change in a very long time.

Not sure on the paint problem, I have some of the new paints, I haven't used them enough for a proper opinion, but my friends have used them and absolutely love them. The new range seems to have a sort of Marmite effect.

Have to chime in here, as someone who's been painting GW models since before I was playing the game. They had a massive shift in the '90's, when it was still called Citadel paints to being directly from GW (they were sister/parent companies way back when, think there was even another division too). The old pots contained significantly more paint, covered better, and they last FOREVER. No kidding, I still have some of the pots from 1991, and they still work great. Except the enchanted blue. That one seperated pretty badly, and just doesn't look the same, but whatever. The metallics were the best I've seen out of GW ever.

Then they halved the size of the pots, and gave them a screw top. Still decent, but would dry out after about a year or so. Didn't cover quite as well, but no real complaints. My biggest problem was that I don't paint often, and many would dry out after I used them once and didn't open them again for months. Most were incapable of being resurrected, though I tried. Those stuck around for quite some time.

Then they introduced the screw top with a pop-up lid. Handier for painting, just about the exact same formula as the last round, but guess what? Tended to dry out even faster than the last run. They just did NOT seal properly, and led to many half-used pots getting tossed in the trash on your way out to replace it with another pot, whose price had again been increased.

Then they did the current style pots. I hate them. The formula seemed even weaker than before, the metallics didn't cover anything without ten coats, and they dried out after about two months (if I was lucky.) Foundations covered great, but I have gone through 3 pots of Adeptus Battlegrey painting my SM, and not a one of them stayed viable for more than two months.

I have no knowledge of the current range of paint formula, as I too have begun the switch to Reaper and Vallejo. I just didn't really know about them before. Dropper tops for the win!

So I think it's not that they've changed the entire range around all the time, but rather they've changed the formula a couple of times, changed the pot design numerous times, and removed many colors over the years (though I understand they're back, now). Frankly, I'm convinced the pot style change was to purposely cause more paint to dry up, forcing us to come back in for yet another tiny pot of paint, just chunking away at our income. But that may be cynical of me. In any case, I am nostalgic for the good old days of paint lasting long enough to get an army finished; forget the different colors offered or textured paint (seriously, do it yourself. It'll be cheaper to dump some flock in a bottle of paint, and you aren't limited to a handful of colors), I want my paint to last long enough for me to use it.

Well ChaplainRobb, I think you have some valid points. Not necessarily cynical, valid.

My experience with Citadel paints is only a few years going since I didn't care/know about decent painting until the last few years and would slap on any cheap paint onto the models just to get them onto the board. I've changed as I have gotten older and still enjoy the hobby but don't play as much. Plus the biggest thing, and it has been said before, fifteen, twenty years ago, most gamers I knew just didn't paint like the average gamer nowadays. The bar is significantly raised as to what counts as tabletop quality.

I think that is a good thing, as frustrated as I get from time to time, I really do enjoy painting and being proud of the results.

That aside, I DO use a mix of Valllejo, P# Citadel and some others. I like to experiment. Painting yellow marines has turned out to be a huge challenge and my last decent model took hours and about seven layers. I've got work/family/college to deal with so I need to get a faster method.

I used a mix, but one thing was that I have always liked the Citadel washes, the foundations were ok, the layers, meh. I wanted to test out the new Citadel yellow line since it was supposed to be all about coverage and yada yada.

The new foundations - great
New layers - good/garbage. The golden yellow covers better than before, the brighter gritty mess when dry. Ruined model at the final stages. Crap. Superclean.
washes- well, shade. Sepia doesn't flow as well, but dried matte which was unexpected, but I liked to an extent.
Painted up some test models over a yellow spray primer to try and save some time. They looked great, but the shade was used up after about a dozen. Ordered two more pots. Didn't pay attention one night batch painting a shade coat over fifty models. Dried red godawful, thick, patchy mess before I realized it was doing it. Superclean. A bucket of Superclean.

It is my own fault for not testing the new pot I guess or paying attention. I like the new line for the most, but now I am really skiddish about buying any more of it. That's three pots that are messed up.

I guess, where's the consistency? If you can't trust Sepia to be Sepia, it's hard to paint an army. Didn't have the issue with Gryphonne Sepia, and I have used many pots of that.

One good thing, I get to start completely over having a system for my SM company. I still have two Tac squads that are different tones due to me learning how to paint yellow. I'm hoping to have a full company all painted the same out of this.

I think it must be bad luck with GW paints. I've probably gone through hundreds of the buggers by now and have only really had 1 or maybe 2 bad pots of paint in the past 15 or so years. I mostly just use GW paint because there's at least 2 stores close to me which sell it at a discount and I don't want to travel or order online to get other brands. I don't find the coverage of the current paints any worse than the really old ones (talking mid 90s) in the tall hex flip tops, of which I still own a few. In fact I remember some of those old paints had some pretty mediocre coverage themselves.

But yeah, their pots suck balls extremely hard and have since those really old hex pop tops.

I can only think of 1 time I bought paint that was bad from the shop, it was a silver that had separated before I even bought it and no amount of stirring and shaking would get it to mix back together. But a lot of my paints have dried out over time (often not a lot of time) because of the crappy pots.

One time I bought a wash that I thought was a different tone to the one I had bought previously, but in the end I think it was because the old wash had dried out slightly over time so the new one just had a weaker tone.

New citadel paints are BULLCRAP!
BTW have you tried army painters yellow spray paint for your yellow colors?

I had the exact same problem with yellow, Its very gritty and super thick. IDK if it was just the bottle i got or the first shipment of the paint was just not good, but i also have some issues with troll slayer orange. it was little watered down so.

I think some of the 'layer' range is way too watery.

I've never used the yellow, but ive used the sephia and i thought it was great. I've had alot of luck with the new GW paints. The dark red is my favorite color i use right now. I love the nuin oil, i think its alot better than bandab black. I also use testors paints for detail work. those arent too bad at all.

timthehierodule wrote:New citadel paints are BULLCRAP!
BTW have you tried army painters yellow spray paint for your yellow colors?

I just got a can in the mail. My next attempt at finishing yellow marines.

So here's the difference between the two Seraphim Sepia paint pots. The SM on the left is my test marine for using yellow spray. It has a primer yellow, wash coat and then I did the bleached bone. It came out well. The wash did its job.

The SM on the right has a primer yellow, then wash coat with the new pot of Seraphim Sepia, and then I stopped and went WTH?








Well, so far Averland and Yriel are working fine, but they don't seem to do any better than Vallejo Heavy GoldBrown and Goldbrown. I've had good luck with Vallejo, P3, Secret Weapon, and GW in the past. This is just recent.

That being said, I also have Agrax Earth Shade, Casandora Yellow, Nuln Oil, and Reikland Flesh. So far no problems. I'm trying out some other washes. I have so many, GW, Vallejo, and Secret Weapon.

If Army Painter spray works out, I know I'm gonna want to try out their washes. I can't stop trying new paints. :(