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MY PAINTS ARE DEAD!!!

So, as it turns out, not using your paints for anywhere from 3-5 years causes them to kinda die. Worse, try as I might, I could not resurrect them with water and furious stirring. Just ended up creating an Ice Blue mess. And so a full box of old Citadel Foundation Paints dies, along with a choice selection of other classic colours - Bolt Gun Metal, Ice Blue, Blood Red, and so on.

So now I need some help!

I need to know, out of Citadel's vast and stupidly named Raenge™ of Paeints™, what will get me the best results for:

Bright Yellow (presuming a base and then something to put over it).

Orange (as above)

Red (as above)

Deep Blue (as above)

Ultramarines (as above)

Light Blue (as above)

Brown (for leather and straps and stuff)

Bone

Human flesh

Any combination of colours + shade is fine.

To avoid repetition this is what I currently own:

Kantor™ Blue™

Sotek™ Green™

Warboss™ Green™

Waaagh!™ Flesh™

Rebtributor™ Armour™

Auric™ Armour™ Gold™

Stormhost™ Silver™

Abaddon™ Black™

Ceramite™ White™

Coelia™ Greenshade™

Nuln™ Oil™

Agrax™ Earthshade™

Reikland™ Fleshshade™

Please help!

In other news, despite the above problems, it appears that shaking Duncan's hand the other day (yes, that Duncan) transferred some his powers over to me as I have painted most of my Lizardmen blood bowl team. I have to stop now, lacking any light blue to drybrush scales makes it impossible to go on, but so far the thinned paints/two thin coats thing is working. I've followed this to the letter so far and it looks great. I'm also using the Ork tutorial to make some of the Lizardmen green.

And before anyone suggests it, please no Tamiya paints or Army Painted or whatever. I hate painting, I'm sticking to Lord Duncan's tutorials, so I'm sticking with Citadel colours no matter how stupid and obnoxious the names (although I refuse to buy XV-88 or Necron Compound, so don't suggest that!).

XV-88 is an amazing colour. It's like the old Snakebite Leather.
I use it for most of my base rims and couldn't do without it.

There's a very useful paint chart available from GW. Just look at the finished colour on each side and it shows you what paints in what order. Being old and unskilled this approach and range has helped me allot.

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Downloads/CitadelPaintingSystem.pdf

Excellent! Most appreciated.

Bright Yellow - Averland Sunset, Yriel Yellow, Flash Gitz Yellow (Palid Wych Flesh highlight)

Orange - Jokaero Orange, Troll Slayer Orange (Fire Dragon Bright highlight)

Red - Mephiston Red (you can leave this here and highlight with Evil Sunz Scarlet, really depends on the red you want though)

Deep Blue - Kantor Blue (Hoeth Blue highlight)

Ultramarine - Macragge Blue (Calgar Blue highlight)

Light Blue - Caledor Sky, Lothern Blue (Baharroth Blue highlight)

Brown - Rhinox Hide (Gorthor Brown highlight)

Bone - Zandri Dust, Ushabti Bone (Screaming Skull highlight)

Human Flesh - Bugman's Glow, Cadian Fleshtone (Kislev Flesh highlight)


That is all without shades, since shade choices are usually obvious, and can be entirely up to you based on how you want certain things to look. Shade after the base colour then apply any layers (or the base colour again).

Hope that was helpful. The chart that notprop provided probably has the same patterns anyway

G.A

I just ordered 80 paints myself. 75 Vallejo and 5 GW.

Cant get it from the post office till next week when my SO is gone. Package is to big to sneak it in, and I am not supposed to spend Thailand money on this *crap*.

A few thoughts.

1) Don't give up on what you have - which is pure pigment. It can be actually better than premixed paints.

I recently restored a complete set of Citadel paints purchased in 2008. The ones that were never opened were fine, many of the ones that were opened were dried out, either to the point of being very thick or being a clump of plastic.

I needed to mix the paints again with a medium and water to achieve some level of consistency. I used Liquitex Matte Medium and distilled water in a 70 / 30 mix and crushed the pigment in the pot by pressing and stirring each one for a few minutes. Every paint in the set was able to be restored.

2) There is a Vallejo boxed set that covers most / all of the colors you mention, and has a comparison chart with the old Citadel paints. I was about to buy it before I spent the $8 on the Liquitex. Can't find the link right now, but it's worth looking for the comparison chart. You may be able to get everything you need in one shot.

You might still be able to revive the old paints if instead of using water you use something like Vallejo airbrush thinner to loosen them up (it's a stronger solvent so can break down the big blobs and chunks) and then a medium to thin it out to a more paint-like consistency.

I'd use the opportunity to get away from GW paints myself, GW's strength is their "base" range, outside of that I stick to other brands. The dakka compatibility chart might help you find the colours you need whether it's from GW or someone else...

https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart

For paint recovery, first off: if it is the old screw cap GW paints they must go into a new container.

I did use a bit of airbrush thinner or water in the past to refresh paint, found out that is a big no-no.
Get acrylic "matt-medium" it helps refresh the "carrier" that holds the pigment and allows it to harden when painted on.
I promise if it is bordering on a paste it should come back to life, you might need a mixer / agitator as well.

Now for getting new paints, wow, that really depends on the look and flow you prefer and possibly the application method.
I like the dropper bottles for mixing and dispensing by not wasting paint.
GW has some really good looking paints so I just put them in dropper bottles if it is really important to me.

Badger miniature paints I am looking at really hard: good price, great colours and they lay on really smooth... hard choice.

When I am painting large projects I use Liquitex since it is a high-end artist paint and you can get vats of the stuff for far less plus they invented acrylic paints.
Their rattle-can colours alone are an occasional thought for those without an airbrush, they have different nozzles as well.