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So I'm sure most of you know how to thin your paint. How do you thicken it? Earlier this year I bought paints off of a well respected retailer for Vallejo Paints. All of the paints were too runny (Pure Red in particular). I tossed this aside as a dud. Earlier this week, I bought paints from the same seller (Signal Red, Metallic Gold, both air paints). I squeezed them out of the bottle and lo and behold, both were runny and thin. I tried applying them by brush first and that didn't work out well. Any ideas how I can make them thicker without buying new ones?

You can add some sort of medium thats thicker than the paint itself, or even try adding some white glue to the paint (it dries clear, is pretty thick, and behaves similarly to medium).

Note that when experimenting with this, try it on a test subject first before applying to your models.

Keep in mind with Vallejo especially, you need to shake or stir the bejesus out of them. They tend to separate in the bottle. Chances are good that is what has happened to you.

Leave the lid off the bottle for a while.

Paint thickens as it dries, as you'll know from whenever you accidentally squirt too much on a palette (we've all done it!)

PossumCraft wrote:
Leave the lid off the bottle for a while.

Paint thickens as it dries, as you'll know from whenever you accidentally squirt too much on a palette (we've all done it!)

Dude, no. This works with gouache to some extent but not well with acrylics.

Acrylic paint generally contains a resin that cures on contact with air and doesn't dissolve in water again. You'll end up with lumpy, grainy paint that will go on rough and bugger your airbrush if you use one. This happens in addition to the water evaporating off if you leave the lid off a jar or bottle, and it's why sometimes you just can't recover paints that were left open.

The previous advice (shake the crap out of it, then shake it some more) was correct, as was the 'use a thick medium'. You can get acrylic gel pastes that you colour with paint and apply.

The second piece of advice is: if your paint runs everywhere - you have too much on your brush, wick some off onto some tissue or the back of your thumb and try again.

Model air paints are supposed to be thin, they're primarily for airbrushing, but they also work brilliantly for layering (and are almost perfect consistency for this out of the bottle). They are not a thick putty. Don't expect them to behave as one.

@Winterdyne has a good view. You can mix medium into and acrylics to give it body, but it dilutes the pigment/carrier ratio by basically adding more vehicle. Sure, it will be thicker, but you will have to paint 5 coats to get decent coverage and you will have obliterated your details. If you are adding color medium, you might as well just buy new paint at that point.

Stir the snot out of it to make sure you have thoroughly mixed all available pigment/vehicle/carrier together evenly. These are the three basic components of all paint. If it is still too thin, then it has too much carrier (water) and trying to restore a proper balance may not be possible at all. If after mixing you have clumps, then the pigment/vehicle has solidified and there is really no saving it.

Well sometimes that happens with Vallejodont know what is the reason but they separate a lot. Best advice would be to shake them well occasionally (my whole family is employed in shaking bottles department ) or you could try duct taping them to electric saw and let it do hard work for you.
P.S. Duct taping sounds strange but if you google it or look over youtube I ll believe you ll find better explanation then this small blurb of text.

i use the badger airbrush co. electronic paint stirrrer every now and then fairly often, especially metalics.never found a need to thicken them yet. the thin stuff floats on the top it might be that which is your issue.