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What style of paint pot do you prefer to use?  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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What style of paint pot do you prefer to use?
Flip-top paint pots
Eye-dropper squeeze bottles
I only care about the paint quality, not the pots
I don't paint/have no opinion

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Made in us
Fresh-Faced New User




I use a mix of both, like I'm sure many of us I grew up on GW paints and for a very long time was more comfortable with the flip tops.

However back when GW decided to revamp their entire paint range I started picking up a limited number of vallejo paints for armies where I needed matches to the old system....and slowly realized how absolutely and utterly superior droppers plus a wet palette are. Today I only use a limited number of GW paints and probably 70% of the time use vallejo or army painter paints. I definitely understand being more comfortable with what one is used to, and it took me some time to adjust, but I think a strong case can be made that droppers, in most situations, are the way to go.

I'm pretty sure GW knows their paint lids are crap -- I'd bet money they do it intentionally knowing itll drive people to buy more paint as the lids inevitably get gunked up and the paints dry out faster. Heck, I've literally had to replace ONE vallejo pot since I made the switch, whereas if a GW pot gets me anywhere near a year of good use I'm surprised.

Despite that there are plenty of cases where I prefer the GW paint, even despite the crappy lid!
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




North Carolina

Most of my painting time these days happens on weekends when the baby naps and I can sit at the craft table with our (slightly) older kids for a group painting session so I prefer the eye dropper bottles (mine are Reaper, Army Painter and Secret Weapon washes) because it much less stressful when I can control what paints they use and how much and avoid the threat of paint pot contamination. I grew up on GW paint pots from box sets with yellow demons on them so I'm comfortable using pots too just don't want one of the kids to contaminate one with a dirty brush.

Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur
 
   
Made in us
Sneaky Striking Scorpion





WA, USA

I generally just leave the paint in whatever it came in. I'm not that super picky, but I grew up with funky textured old acrylic paints.

~ Craftworlders ~ Harlequins ~ Coterie of the Last Breath Corsairs ~ 
   
Made in us
Bounding Assault Marine




running amok, against the reality of defeat

I fething HATE games workshop paint pots. Mean to say, the paint and washes dry out. I can't tell you how many pots of REIKLAND FRESHSHADE I go through.

My wife has a very busy painting service, and she also hates GW pots.But the PAINT itself is quite good. They need to change the pots. We use quite a few COAT D'ARMS paints. They are very good, and the pots are old style GW used to matket.

When are they coming out with something new?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 shabbadoo wrote:
Somebody forgot to include these...



..or these...



...or even these little guys...



I have 20 year old paint - in both glass bottles with metal caps and in plastic bottles with plastic caps - that is still pristine. That kinda means that these are pretty $#%?@&! good paint pots, and should be in the poll.


LOL! I'm with you, bud!

I have about 20 POLY S glass bottles and it took VERY HOT water and a VICEGRIP to get the lids off, but the paint, which was bought about 22 years ago, was in good shape. A bit of water and all do good service.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/10/12 13:09:14


come join us
greg graffin 
   
Made in us
Human Auxiliary to the Empire





I like the control I get from a flip top. plus... i dont have time for a palette

4000pts Tau
2500 pts Dwarfs
2000 pts Deathwolves
:1300 pts Orks
1000pts Harlequins
 
   
Made in kr
Inquisitorial Keeper of the Xenobanks






your mind

I must plug an up and coming new company called INSTAR paints. You can find them on the forum. I have tested their stuff. Dropper bottles. Different large sizes. Easy shipping. Match GW paint colors. Maybe half the price, less... A start up UK business. Worth checking out.

   
Made in us
Stubborn Prosecutor





Flip top, but the P3 style - not the citadel one. The cit ones are hard to keep open or navigate a brush into.

Bender wrote:* Realise that despite the way people talk, this is not a professional sport played by demi gods, but rather a game of toy soldiers played by tired, inebriated human beings.


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Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending






Age-old thread (: but, as an assembly-line painter, I've found painting directly from the GW pots useful for brush-on priming (their black Imperial Primer), undercoating, and some basecoating, followed by an Army Painter wash. After that, I'll use the Army Painter and other eye dropper paints from the wet palette for other basecoats, highlights, and other details. I was lucky to find a GW paint set at 1/2 price (it was all sludge, so I got a further credit from the game store), but I think it's worth picking up the GW Imperial Primer as a primer and undercoat for some metals, then trying out their brown as an undercoat for flesh and other colors. A few drops of airbrush medium helps (even if it's all brush-on), and I've used up all the GW primer but am refilling the pot with Stynylrez primer!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/11/07 08:27:02


Crimson Scales and Wildspire Miniatures thread on Reaper! : https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/103935-wildspire-miniatures-thread/ 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





United Kingdom



Personally I use a combination of dropper bottles and flip top ones. The paint inside the container is the only concern for me. I use mainly GW and Vallejo (although I do have quite a few from several other manufacturers) and switching to either one exclusively would leave me lacking some of my favourite paints.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/04/30 17:49:11


 
   
Made in us
Boosting Black Templar Biker






I prefer anything but the P3 style pots. So many ruined pieces of clothing or paint jobs due to splatter from closing the pots or leaky lids.
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User





Trowbridge

I use many brands of paints in both pots and bottles. Quality of the paint is very important to me as much as the shade of the paint itself. As long as the container does what it was designed to do then I am fine with it.
   
Made in be
Beast of Nurgle




Belgium

Flip-tops. The only times I ever use a palette is if there's too much paint on a small brush.

I don't like using a palette so flip-tops for me.

Outsmart what you can't beat, and beat what you can't outsmart. 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User




I'm a fan of flip tops but with GW paints I've developed a habit of "pre-thinning" with adding water to my brush before the paint. For drybrushing I use tissue and newspaper.
   
Made in nl
Raging Rat Ogre






I use a lot of dropper bottles and recently GW flip tops, especialy thier washes.
Before those I use to use a lot of screw cap pots. I stil use some of those for creating larger quantities of the same color.
I use a glass screw cap pot for "mixed" Flat black wich I mixed from differant brands of paint.
Over the years it aged to a nice flat finish which is also ideal for priming small parts by hand or as a nice black in general.
I also have a mix of gunmetal/dark to medium steel color wich thickend to a more smooth custard like substance somehow and is just ideal for dry brushing or when slightly thinned makes a good layer paint.
When it comes to paint I find quality the most important criteria over which container it is supplied in.

A hemophobic Khorne berzerker, a germophobic plague marine and a sexy Skaven walk in to a Games workshop.....
-------------------------------------------
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Made in pl
Fresh-Faced New User




Droppers, it's crazy that so many people don't care / use flip-top bottles / don't use pallets.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/08 10:54:46


 
   
Made in pl
Regular Dakkanaut





I like dropper, but it's all about the quality. You can always put the paint from jar to dropper.
   
Made in us
Storm Trooper with Maglight





Fredericksburg, VA

 ChargerIIC wrote:
Flip top, but the P3 style - not the citadel one. The cit ones are hard to keep open or navigate a brush into.


The GW ones do have a nasty habit of not staying open enough. I cut a small length of sprue (about 1.5"), and slide it between the lid and the pot to hold it open. As a bonus it catches any paint that would end up back there before you close it again. Just wipe it off before using on another pot, and don't close the pot lid on it and break the hinge!
   
Made in us
Stubborn Temple Guard






I miss the old Citadel paints of the late 90's. I just retired my first bottle of Shining Gold from that era. Not because it dried, but because it actually ran out. Those are the flip tops I miss.

27th Member of D.O.O.M.F.A.R.T.
Resident Battletech Guru. 
   
Made in nz
Longtime Dakkanaut





Near Jupiter.

Don't know really since iv only used GW, but i don't like the bottle i don't see why you wouldn't always make it like a eye dropper..

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Made in gb
Dakka Veteran






I'm not overly keen on dropper bottles, unless I'm mixing/thinning paints.

I find that, from experience of using Vallejo Model Air paints, they tend to crust up around the nozzle, and you can get dried up build up inside the nozzle which then squeezes out with the paint - not good if you're using an airbrush. I've also had a few that have split on me at the nozzle, the paint goes everywhere but where you want it to...

As for flip tops. I'm equally as keen on them.

If we're talking about what pots GW should be using - they should go back to when they had their black screw top/clear pots. They were great I thought at the time.

And I guess I prefer similar type pots as I like Tamiya glass ones in their X and XF range - can't pour them properly? Then use a cocktail stick placed in your chosen receptacle (usually an airbrush colour cup for me) and run the paint down the side of it or use a pipette.


Sorry, just realised this is an old thread, it appeared on the Dakka blog page I come to first...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/05/12 12:26:22


 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





There's a neat little 3D printable widget out there for transferring your GW paints to dropper-bottles.
   
Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending






Hate both.

I get it that display-level painters prefer eye-droppers. But, as an advanced tabletop painter, I find it annoying that the droppers clog, or that I'm continuously re-dropping the wet palette with paint, or that I'm wasting paint, particularly when the eye droppers "explode". Painters enjoy this hobby, but I don't.

I don't mix colors because the time spent on mixing means I paint fewer models. If I need ten models next week for a game, I'm not going to paint only two.

BGG'ers have mentioned craft paints and I use them for terrain. I also picked up some non-terrain colors because they're cheap and I was up for experimenting. After I picked up some GW pots on sale, I tried using the paint pot lids as palettes for eye dropper paints, and found a convenient solution that works for me without paying GW prices.

Pick up some craft paints that are similar to your hobby paints. Shake up the craft paint and use its cap as your "wet palette" for your eye droppers. You'll find out that your craft paint works as well as your hobby paint, you won't be repeatedly adding eye dropper paint to your palette, you'll still mix paints, and you'll save desk space compared to a wet palette.

Not going to recommend this for display-level painters who have both time and motivation to spend time painting individual models to a high standard. But if you need to crank out a dozen models to advanced tabletop, need to do it now, and hate painting as much as I do, spend a few bucks and give it a shot.

Crimson Scales and Wildspire Miniatures thread on Reaper! : https://forum.reapermini.com/index.php?/topic/103935-wildspire-miniatures-thread/ 
   
Made in us
Wing Commander





TCS Midway

Not GW? I use craft acryllic (which you can squeeze out or remove the lid from the bottle) and vallejo's/army painters' eye droppers. I dislike GW's flip top as they don't stay open and don't pour out well.

For the money, Vallejo is my favorite. The paints are all excellent and the dropper is easy to control/use. Army Painter is very hit and miss, with some decent stuff but a lot of sub standard paints much like craft paint which is cheaper. Other than the inks, GW offers nothing frankly that I cannot get better elsewhere, and typically cheaper.

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Made in ca
Squishy Squig





Nurgle's belly button

Whatever you call the Humbrol pots where you pry it open.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/12/19 19:15:40


 
   
Made in gb
Incorporating Wet-Blending




U.k

I use what ever the paint I want comes in. Flip tops allow you get less out if you only need a tiny bit, droppers prolong the life of the paint but can get clogged and if you need a small amount more comes out than you need. So there is waste either way.

Not using a palette is just silly, which ever paint you use.
   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




squeeze bottles are baffling. they clog in seconds. they are subject to humidity changes for pouring. they waste paint and are uncontrollable.

they are the red-period, NMM, fad of their time and proof you can convince anyone something different from a smaller manufacturer is better because people love hating a big company.
   
Made in us
Regular Dakkanaut




Columbus, Ohio

Kind of a limited selection of choices, isn't it? What about the large number of us that paint from testors and similar, glass bottles?

First, all means to conciliate; failing that, all means to crush.

-Cardinal Richelieu 
   
 
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