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Hi all, starting my Necron army and thought about thinning the whole bottle of my base colors (Leadberlcher, Abbadon Black), but I don't know if its recommended for Leadbelcher, partially because it's a metallic color.

I did this with a half full pot of khorne red and added about a quarter of the amount of paint left, in water. This works quite well.

My experience is mainly with Vallejo, but it varies for each paint even inside the same range. It's best to err on the side of caution and don't thin it too much when you do it. You can always thin it more later, it's much harder to un-thin it. Trial and error for each colour would be my recommendation. Test (see how it flows probably just by dragging it up the wall of the tub), thin, test again etc.

I went through all my vallejo bottles and thinned most to a better consistency, including some flow aid in each bottle. Much less effort to paint now as everything is a more uniform consistency - though still often gets thinned more on the (wet) palette.

None.

Thin it with acrylic medium.

Use either flow aid, or acrylic medium or other compound which will preserve the qualities of the paint - too much water just separates the paint components - it does not actually dilute them.

Metallic pigments are a bit more tricky, so I would try actual paint additives (mediums) first.

I prefer the "golden" or "liquitex" brand mediums - but there are many on the market - check your local craft store.

best of luck!

I prefer water and medium/additives, in conjunction, for mass thinning, as infrequently as I do it. Medium alone will maintain the paint's working properties and drop the opacity, but I frequently want a thinner consistency than the medium, itself (which is usually thinner than the model paints, but much thicker than water - its ability to adjust paint thickness is therefore limited). In addition to the acrylic medium (matte, pretty much exclusively), I may add a touch of flow improver and some drying retarder (all Liquitex, by virtue of their availability).

As Yonan said, it's always best to err on the side of caution. You can always thin more, but overdoing it will make a mess of things and exact recipes are impractical, considering variations between colors, ages of pots, etc.

Don't thin with Tamiya x20A - it sets the paint!.
Also it not only depends on the colour within the range but also on the paint in the pot - 2 pots of the same colour can have different consistances especially if one is older than the other.
I use a syringe I got from my chemists to thin paints - great control.