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Hey all

Bit of a dumb question this but I'm wondering what is the best way to transfer some but not all of a pot of Citadel paint to a dropper bottle for thinning?

I've tried it recently, by using a pipette, that didn't work because the paint was too thick, even layer paint. Pouring is not a good way either as the paint comes off the lip inside the lid and goes all over the place.


Any ideas would be greatly welcomed?

Thanks in advance.

We're not going to plug here but we can give you some pointers

Before we started our company, we used to do this when we painted miniatures, but stopped because it was actually proving to be pretty expensive once you worked out how much you lost each time.

First off, accept that you're going to lose a bit of paint, whether you transfer it through a syringe (You'll need a gauge 8 syringe needle and you'll need to drill out the syringe aperture so the paint can go in easier) or use a funnel, you'll lose some paint in the process and considering the cost of GW paint right now, you'll probably lose around 5-7% of the pot which is quite a chunk of money.

Secondly, The syringe method will lose you the least amount of paint and is also the cleanest way of transferring the paint as to clean the syringe you would just need to suck up some water, a bit of air, finger over the nozzle and shake the syringe, empty and repeat one more time to clean out the barrel and syringe. Using the funnel method is faster but then it takes longer to clean and is faster to just dump the funnel, but then you're throwing away a further 2-3% of paint.

Washes you'll have no trouble with.

As much as I know people like using GW paint, transferring the paint is hassle and expensive, we just recommend either making sure the pots are sealed properly (You could line the edges with plumbers PTFE tape) or just buying products that are already in bottled formats.

 Supershandy wrote:
We're not going to plug here but we can give you some pointers

Before we started our company, we used to do this when we painted miniatures, but stopped because it was actually proving to be pretty expensive once you worked out how much you lost each time.

I don't think it's significant compared to how much you'll lose with a GW pot gumming up the lid, the build up in the upper tongue of the lid, or lost on the walls of the pot getting thicker over time - or the amount you waste on the pallete once you've finished painting. Also, if you're thinning the paint anyways, once you've poured out the paint you can add the thinner to the pot and recover much of what you've lost before you pour the thinner into the dropper bottle.

Also unless your pipette is really big, I suggest a glass eye dropper (usually available at the local pharmacist/chemist) for transferring paint.

 John Prins wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
We're not going to plug here but we can give you some pointers

Before we started our company, we used to do this when we painted miniatures, but stopped because it was actually proving to be pretty expensive once you worked out how much you lost each time.

I don't think it's significant compared to how much you'll lose with a GW pot gumming up the lid, the build up in the upper tongue of the lid, or lost on the walls of the pot getting thicker over time - or the amount you waste on the pallete once you've finished painting. Also, if you're thinning the paint anyways, once you've poured out the paint you can add the thinner to the pot and recover much of what you've lost before you pour the thinner into the dropper bottle.

Also unless your pipette is really big, I suggest a glass eye dropper (usually available at the local pharmacist/chemist) for transferring paint.

That's another way of doing it, they're probably easier to come across

3d printed widget.

https://www.baphominiatures.com/paintwidget-1

Does anybody have any idea why GW don't use dropper bottles? Maybe because they don't stack on top of each other like their traditional pots do?

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Does anybody have any idea why GW don't use dropper bottles? Maybe because they don't stack on top of each other like their traditional pots do?

Most cynics will say its because they designed it specifically to dry out.

Im pretty sure its a brand recognition nonsense.


you can get small funnels from the liquor store for putting booze in flasks if you some how cant get a pipette or eye dropper.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Does anybody have any idea why GW don't use dropper bottles? Maybe because they don't stack on top of each other like their traditional pots do?

This is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries surrounding GW. Conspiracy theorists suggest that the reasoning is to allow your paint to dry out quicker which forces you to buy more.

 oni wrote:

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
Does anybody have any idea why GW don't use dropper bottles? Maybe because they don't stack on top of each other like their traditional pots do?

This is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries surrounding GW. Conspiracy theorists suggest that the reasoning is to allow your paint to dry out quicker which forces you to buy more.

Considering that the painting element of the hobby is only one small part, the most obvious reason is that you can paint right out of the pot with GW's paints. Obviously that's not good practice, but a huge amount of GW's decisions (particularly recently) have been about accessibility; how can you make the hobby look as un-intimidating as possible to a new person, of any age? Get a model, get a paint brush, get a pot of paint, put paint on model. Making them dropper bottles adds another layer to that process (and there's more potential for mess...)

GW's products in general don't cater to people looking for the best possible way to create a quality final model; that's a much more niche market and not what GW is aiming for. I think the reason is simple enough; the kind of people who care enough to question what container GW's paints are in, are the kind of people who are proactive enough to be looking at other brands anyway.




To answer the actual question lol: I use a small funnel, and wash the pot out into the dropper bottle with a little water. Remembering what I learnt in Chemistry class; multiple rinses with a tiny amount of water will do a better job at emptying the container of paint than a single wash with more water.

OK thanks gentlemen. I'll give one or more of those ideas a go.

Personally I prefer the time they used the screw top pots, similar to Tamiya/Gunze paints. They were the best pots GW have ever used.

Yerg, I think I liked the screw tops the least. Far too easy for them to get gummed up and the thread was really hard to clean properly. I still like the original post, and have many in my paint collection that are.still working fine after 30 years. The only problem with the oroginal pots.was that the top has a propensity to perish and crack into pieces.

I suspect the paint pot issue might also be because they've got the equipment (or their hired factory has though I think GW makes their own paint now?) for larger bottles not dropper bottles. So changing over might actually be quite a significant cost in retooling the machinery and might even require a totally new machine - those are potentially huge costs that are unlikely to actually generate increased revenue.


I found that using a nail polish shaker helped a lot in loosening up the paint and mixing it before pouring it out. If the paint has gone thick/claggy then that plus a little water can be essential to getting any out. If you're only doing a bit that should be easy and the shaker just saves your arm a lot of ache.
If you're doing the whole pot then some cheap wooden lollypop sticks are also grand for scraping paint out (though if you're using the syringe I'd wager you'd get a lot of it out).


Note I also use glass beads in the bottle to help with the agitation when mixing.

The best pots I used were black tops "made in France" labeled. Recently I added some water to them and when opened months later it turned into workable paint.

I still use a pot of Boltgun Metal like that. Some of the twist pots (came with starter with Bretonnia archers) I used until few years ago, sure the pots are not comfortable to use, but paint was good and they were, due to their lids, airtight. I only stopped using them when paint literally turned into resin like goo substance, and that was because I just ignored them for years.

The current GW pots dry out in months, which is why I thrown out most of them and replaced everything with VMC.

Some of GW paint got transfered into droppler bottles, I used simple piece of laminated paper or something as a funnel. Of course you're going to lose some paint, but if you use Citadel pots, you already lost more during years of this stuff drying up all the time. Paint dries on contact with air => pots are dumb.

If I may, I suggest the following:

1. Thin top half of the paint sitting in the pot using flow improver.
2. Transfer thinned paint into the bottle.

This way, you have half of your pot leftover as your non-thinned paint and you have a dropper bottle of thinned paint!

This was a bit of a happy accident for me because I purchased 10ml dropper bottles, which ended up a bit shy of filling up a pot of thinned citadel paint. What I had left over at the bottom of the pot became my non-thinned paint when I find the dropper bottle to be too thinned out.

Speaking of GW Paints, anyone notice that they are slowly lowering the grade of their pigment and/or pigment clumping (forming larger grains) is a thing?

Was noticing it in regards to how the paints felt on the brush. Paints with larger pigment grains will actually feel "gritty" and will tend to leave paint/pigment in the brush.

As for transferring I move them over but I also use a small flexible silicon sculpting tool to scrape the walls of the pot. A brand new pot of GW paint will have a lot of it's pigment lost to the walls. Noted you can build static with their pots so the pigment is being pulled out of solution and on to the walls of the pot. An issue I don't see on other brands of paint containers. Over time this is the layer that "builds up" that people are talking about. Your paint loses a significant portion of it's pigment to the walls.

Compared to say a P3 paint, if I turn a brand new bottle upside down and let it sit for a month the citadel paint will have a permanent layer of pigment on the bottom and lower walls. My P3 paints will start out like that but over the month or with a little shaking it will fall out and down.
This also means the paint will separate more easily but one should be shaking their paints before use.

This is also why they recommend having your paint upside down before use as that will ensure more pigment will be available after moderate agitation (the concentration of high pigment will be towards the top rather than the bottom.

I still desire to try Instar's line just have not had a chance to go forth and order a batch from them to see.

Vallejo is also pretty good about paint pigment not bonding to the bottle. Same with AK interaction and pretty much everyone other than GW. If you scrape a brand new bottle after transferring the paint you will be amazed at how strong the pigment content is of that scraped material vs the actual paint.

It could just be that GW paints sit for much of their total shelf life.. or... it could be intentional. The guys in GB can tell better because there is likely more fresh stock there than in the US or EU even. Even more when shipping the paints can be exposed to excessive cold (bad for paints) or excessive heat (also bad for paint).
So who knows. Reaper paints get a thumbs up too but their paint is so pigment rich that their agitator can dry in such a way as to block off the dropper. Knocking it on the desk will usually free it and then you are back in service. Have not pulled one of their agitator balls so I don't know if metal or glass.

Why not stick the nozzle of the dropper bottle in the paint pot and suck up some using it as a makeshift pipette?

Or just use a small measuring spoon if it’s too thick.