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Hello Dakka, long time lurker here, I have been getting better and more serious about painting but there a few continuous questions or thoughts nagging at me and I hoping dakka can help me out a bit?

First off, I like painting traditional colors for army's and its easy to mimic GW tutorials to get great effects and it cuts down on the intimidation of it all and I feel is teaching me good habits although I have been getting better at airbrushing (I have a badger patriot) and I'm getting really irritated transferring base paints from citadel pots, thinning it in a small cup, and then pouring it in my airbrush since it feels like I am losing a a lot of paint in the process (Check Image) I just base coated 12 fire warriors and 2 drones with XV88 and i feel like more than half my pots gone -_- It feels inefficient and I'm sure more skilled painters have been there done that and come up with a better system?

Also is it common practice to prime with a can (I use Krylon Ultra Flat Grey) when your going to be airbrushing a base coat anyways? I feel like its good practice but I am afraid my base coat wont grab as well without it and that I might get spiders

I really wish GW colors came with droppers I am already heavily invested in Citadel paints and don't really want to buy somewhat matching alternatives just for when I want to airbrush

Can anyone share similar experiences, Ideas etc? really looking to increase productivity

I highly suggest simply transferring half a pot of paint from the GW pot into an eyedropper. Any eyedropper will do, including dollar store, but Reaper makes empties if you want "name brand" ones (whatever that means in the context of an eye dropper!).

Then, add as much Vallejo airbrush thinner as you want (I do almost 1:1 on Citadel base paints, so half the bottle with paint, half with thinner). Then, just use it like any VMA

A couple things, though: you do go through paint quicker through an airbrush than with an old-fashioned brush. And, an easy alternative is to prime with a color similar to what you want (for example, desert tan) and then basecoat it with a big flat traditional brush.

I don't think it makes much sense to prime with a rattle can when you own an airbrush. Airbrush primer is cheap, and it goes on so evenly and thin that it just can't compete.

I did what Talys suggested - Moved 100 odd citadel pots into new droppers.

I bought a set of chinese droppers from ebay, some stainless steel bolts for agitators, some flow aid and drying retarder and then got transferring.

I didn't actually mix them thin enough to airbrush, just thin enough to move easy and paint with straight away.

The only time I prime with a can is when I am priming resin.

Thank's I kinda knew this is what I probably should do but bleh, will get started on this when my droppers get here!

Hip flask funnels from ebay is what I used.

I basically just did the following;

Put 2 bolts into each bottle (plastic beads would probably have been better)
Added ~10-16 drops of liquid* to each GW pot
Shook pots like hell (I recommend a redneck shaker**)
Poured through hipflask funnels
Used old brush to sweep out pot and funnel
Few more drops to clean pot + funnel + brush

Very minimal wastage, but such finger pain from the pots + bottles + funnels

* this was a mix of 1 part flow aid, 1 part retarder (which contains a lot of water)
** this is a jigsaw with a clamp attached instead of a blade, it is amazing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMmMls-GYOI

Tunnelvision42 wrote:
Also is it common practice to prime with a can (I use Krylon Ultra Flat Grey) when your going to be airbrushing a base coat anyways? I feel like its good practice but I am afraid my base coat wont grab as well without it and that I might get spiders

I would suggest getting the Vallejo primer. Since you already have and use an airbrush, might as well use a primer that you can airbrush on.

I prime with cans pretty often even though I use an airbrush as my workhorse. I also use Vallejo Surface Primer a lot too.

Tamiya Fine Surface Primer is, in my opinion, probably the best primer around. I've recently started to use it more and more, and I will often buy it from Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon so it ends up costing about $7. I use it exclusively for metal and resin models and on a lot of plastic too. The finish is just a good as Vallejo primer, it tends to be a little more robust, and it cures much faster.

Don't get me wrong, Vallejo Surface Primer is a great product and I still use it all the time, especially for priming things black (Tamiya only comes in grey and white).

So I used my grey Vallejo surface primer right from the dropper (seemed a perfect consistancy) I have also watched airbrush tutorials where it's used right out of the bottle as well and it sprayed great for them, when I tryed spraying it at 25 psi it was not atomized well at all, the coat was dotty, I usually airbrush at 35-40 psi because this happens but people say I am doing it wrong and that's why my coats come out looking wet or slightly shiny looking, another thing is I see people in videos hitting a model with the airbrush it's paint is dry in seconds, mine needs a very long time to dry, this is frustrating because I've always figured hey I'll get better at mixing that's probably the issue but even using ready to brush droppers I continue getting issues with consistancy, I'm really hungry to take my airbrushing further and understand my flaws and correct them but it feels all over the place and chaotic, but I feel doomed to forever only use my airbrush for a 40psi distant blast basecoat

Btw my gear is a badger patriot 105 using a Senco compressor with a pressure regulator

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0000AQK78/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1421708555&sr=8-1&dpPl=1&dpID=51XqhigmeuL&ref=plSrch&pi=AC_SY200_QL40