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I transfer my paints into medical dropper bottles to control mixing. The last generation of citadels into flowed nicely into the new bottles with no clumping/clotting. Every bottle I've tried of the new paints has massive clumps inside. Even mixing them with a few drops of flow aid doesn't help- they are super thick. The metallics are basically impossible to transfer- and they separate in the bottle.

Does anyone else do this with their paints, and have you had this problem? Maybe problems with the paint in general?

Any solutions?

I've transferred more than 100 citadel paints of varying age (going back to the late 90s era) into 15ml dropper bottles. Some things I had to do:

1. Funnel + filter. I used a funnel with a small enough end to fit inside the dropper bottle. For a filter I used one half of a mesh screen tea ball. You really have to filter out all those bits. And wash the stuff between each paint.
2. Prep the paint prior to pouring if it's got chunks in it, it's likely that either the air seal sucked if it's new or the pot was open a lot. If you've got paint in there like mud, don't give up. Add a touch of water or flow aid and medium and start stirring. I found that if I worked it with the blade of one of my sculpting tools I could press the chunks up against the inside of the pot like I was trying to spread icing all over the inside or something and that would help smooth it out and reintegrate water into the pigment. Maybe the comparison to getting all the lumps out of batter or mashed potatoes is better here. Add slightly more fluid slowly, then work it some more... Just repeat till you've gotten as much of the pigment reconstituted as possible... You probably can't get it all.

3. Shake. And shake. And shake. And shake. One thing I've noticed with some of my more modern era citadel paints is that the dark part of the paint mix does tend to separate in my dropper bottles. And it gets all stuck up in the dropper. No amount of shaking seems to get it out, but even when a bit comes out with the first drop it tends to mix up on the palette alright.

4. Be prepared to lose some volume and some paints entirely. Now, I was working with such a wide and varied collection of paints that I lost some to age. But I also lost some to over thinning them prior to transfer. So, go slow with the thinning.

That's all the tips I can think of right now.

I fail to understand how having a dropper bottle actually does anything for the control of colour mixing. ... if anything it makes it worse;
Consider that you can only get a minimum of a 1 drop out of the bottle now. while before you wouldve use a brush and could get less than a single drop of a colour. So by going to a dropper you either just forced yourself to mix far more paint than is required for most work, or forced yourself to specific ratios in mixing only multiple of 1 drop of any colour can be used now.
So you wither need to make far too much of a colour to be able to go 10 to 1 of one colour to another (before even thinning), or just dont make that colour? how many minis would you use 11 drops of paint on?

Also mixing with thinner in the pot probably isnt so smart, if you dont use clean distilled water, you run the risk of mold or other stagnant water issues, and by thinning you totally kill any drybrushing use for that colour. By doing this your limiting your paints down massively. Thinning as required is the way to go tbh. It lets you get the most functions out of a single paint rather than tying it down to one before you even start... what if you wanted to airbrush the colour, but you poured loads of water into it? now the surface tensions is garbage, and the binder count is low, airbrushing medium wont help anymore, itle just give you really weak colours.

I honestly think the current line of pots are the best ones GW have used to date.
They all seal just fine, I find that the common mistake people make is holding them at an angle tipping the pot backwards as they open it; this makes paint run into the rim of the pot, it should be tipped forwards towards yourself as its opened, the problem is then a non-issue and you get to keep the finer control of colour mix ratios that is possible by not using droppers.

JWMarines said 'reintegrate water into the pigment.'
what? there wasnt any water there before? It should be acrylic polymer emulsion of whatever the desired viscosity is. Not actually a great deal of water in acrylic paint as it destroys the quality of the paint in so many ways; its only okay for thinning paints (for brush work only) as you use it up because theres no long term storage involved.
definitely go for distilled if you plan to store them thinned. But again I can't understand any good reasons to do that.

If you have a brand new pot of lumpy paint, take the bugger back and demand a refund (do not accept a replacement from the same batch on the same shelf that will have the same problem) ; youve paid for so many ml of paint... solid paint doesnt count

I could never get the hang of using brushes to mix the paint on the palette- how do you get the water there? Another brush?

Personally I like to use an old #2 synthetic brush thats seen better days.

Id shake the colours to be mixed (or just the one if not mixing)
Then open the pot (angled towards myself as I do)
Use the brush to move paint from pot to pallet, if you need 2 colours (or more) clean the brush (or use another) to get the next colour out, and lay it on the pallet next to the last one so you can gauge how much youve got there. add any mediums being used (ultra matte for base coating, matte for layering, glaze, or gloss for whatever you might need them for)
Fill an empty well with water / flow aid
clean the brush again (or use yet another)
and move water to the paints being mixed (next to them again, to judge the amounts)
When happy with everything there, clean, and dry the brush then mix them together.
Get to work with your colour.

Sounds like a lot of steps... but it takes seconds tbh.

HairySticks wrote:I fail to understand how having a dropper bottle actually does anything for the control of colour mixing. ... if anything it makes it worse;
Consider that you can only get a minimum of a 1 drop out of the bottle now. while before you wouldve use a brush and could get less than a single drop of a colour. So by going to a dropper you either just forced yourself to mix far more paint than is required for most work, or forced yourself to specific ratios in mixing only multiple of 1 drop of any colour can be used now.
So you wither need to make far too much of a colour to be able to go 10 to 1 of one colour to another (before even thinning), or just dont make that colour? how many minis would you use 11 drops of paint on?

Also mixing with thinner in the pot probably isnt so smart, if you dont use clean distilled water, you run the risk of mold or other stagnant water issues, and by thinning you totally kill any drybrushing use for that colour. By doing this your limiting your paints down massively. Thinning as required is the way to go tbh. It lets you get the most functions out of a single paint rather than tying it down to one before you even start... what if you wanted to airbrush the colour, but you poured loads of water into it? now the surface tensions is garbage, and the binder count is low, airbrushing medium wont help anymore, itle just give you really weak colours.


JWMarines said 'reintegrate water into the pigment.'
what? there wasnt any water there before? It should be acrylic polymer emulsion of whatever the desired viscosity is. Not actually a great deal of water in acrylic paint as it destroys the quality of the paint in so many ways; its only okay for thinning paints (for brush work only) as you use it up because theres no long term storage involved.
definitely go for distilled if you plan to store them thinned. But again I can't understand any good reasons to do that.

on point one, the beauty thing about ratio's is that it is impossible to not find A ratio that will work, true if you wanted to do 10:1 you would need 10 drops, however you could always cut your single drop into a half drop on the pallet or a quarter, it's really not that tough and gives you a very precise amount of paint every time.

Point two and 3 regarding water: Water evaporates, it is temporary, it lets you break up or dilute chunks of pigment, even if this wasnt the case an airbrush would not have any troubles shooting slightly thinned paint, as you have to thin it 50/50 anyway just to get a decent shot through the airbrush, this again is done with something that evaporates.

3orangewhips wrote:I could never get the hang of using brushes to mix the paint on the palette- how do you get the water there? Another brush?

The same brush...



The main question I have is why are you even bothering to use GW paints if you have to transfer them and lose paint in the process when you could buy a better quality cheaper paint that already comes in dropper bottles in the vallejo line

I work better with fixed ratios. I'm not much of an artist. Even if I waste some paint occasionally, it's OK because I'm a much happier painter.

And if you truly need only a tiny bit of paint, stick the brush through the top of a shaken dropper. It gives you enough to do, say, two eyes.

You can get less than a drop out of a dropper bottle if you squeeze it and allow a small drop to form on the nozzle, then use a small brush to pick up the desired amount of paint.

CtMolloy wrote:
You can get less than a drop out of a dropper bottle if you squeeze it and allow a small drop to form on the nozzle, then use a small brush to pick up the desired amount of paint.

Doesnt using a brush eliminate the point?

Another point against them is that the nozzle gets full of dried paint and eventually clogs. I use dropper bottles to keep my mediums in, but thats all. Everytime I want to use one i have to scrape dried medium out of the nozzle, Its less than desirable compared tot he flip top pots from GW.

The wastage in paint from transferring is enough to make it totally not worth while.

...just my few cents on the matter.

HairySticks wrote:

CtMolloy wrote:
You can get less than a drop out of a dropper bottle if you squeeze it and allow a small drop to form on the nozzle, then use a small brush to pick up the desired amount of paint.

Doesnt using a brush eliminate the point?

Another point against them is that the nozzle gets full of dried paint and eventually clogs. I use dropper bottles to keep my mediums in, but thats all. Everytime I want to use one i have to scrape dried medium out of the nozzle, Its less than desirable compared tot he flip top pots from GW.

The wastage in paint from transferring is enough to make it totally not worth while.

...just my few cents on the matter.

I don't see how it eliminates the point, it just allows you to get less than a whole drop if you want. I seldom do.
I've not encountered blocked nozzles myself, though some colours get a bit of build up along the outside of the nozzle.

I don't care for the GW pots myself, but I agree that the wastage from transferring the paints, along with the effort required, wouldn't be worth it.

I am with CtMolloy.

I have easily 60+ dropper bottles between vallejo and reaper.

Mostly I have never had a dried up clogged nozzle that wasn't paint on the outside that was easily removed with a finger and thumb. I say mostly because once, on one bottle, I had to use a pin to unclog it.

The other big point with the dropper bottles is they are far more air tight. I have never had a dropper bottle dry up on me, even when I left the cap off for 3 days once.