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I like to use Lahmian medium, but I noticed that when I thin my paints with it the paint starts clinging very aggressively to recesses, like you can NOT paint a flat surface with any kind of recess next to it.

I tried using water, and it pooled/recessed a lot less aggressively, but the paint was really splotchy and uneven.

What should I do if I want a thinned paint that doesn't pool aggressively? I was thinking surfactants, or glaze medium, either Liquitex or Vallejo.

Maybe use alot less paint on the brush and do multiple coats of it. But i don't really know sorry. Or after you have painted it, dry your brush a little bit, and just obsorb some of the heavily pooled areas.

I paint from the pot, so to speak.

What I do, is dip my brush in water, and then mix on the lip of the lid. I add water until, when I wipe off paint on the ridge of the pot, the paint flows like milk.

If I get the mix too thin, I dip the brush in the pot for more paint, and stir it into my mix on the lip of the lid.

Adding medium will "thin" the colour, but not the consistency. That's good if you're going for a glaze-like effect, where you only add a little colour per layer. Adding more medium will make colour changes more gradual, but doesn't flow any easier. It will stay where you put it.

Adding water will thin the colour, but will ALSO thin the consistency. It is normal to have to apply 2 thinned coats to get good coverage on a "large" area. Depending on primer colour and whether or not you're using a "Base" paint... assuming you're using GW paint. "Layer" paint is less pigment dense, so may require 2-3 layers if you're going for opaque coverage. (so you can't see the primer through the paint).

That said, if you're asking these questions I'm going to take a chance and guess you're fairly new to painting? If so, before you invest heavily in a variety of experimental additives, you might want to wait and try the new Contrast paints GW is releasing. They're pre-thinned, by the look of things, and might be just what you're after, assuming you prime in white.

Sometimes you just have to paint multiple thin coats. There -is- a sweet spot where the amount of water/paint lets you lay down a smooth, single coat without it easily jumping into recesses, but it can be frustrating to find sometimes, and some paints are so transparent you end up doing multiple coats anyways. Reds, greens and yellows are generally the worst offenders in this regard, while blues and browns are almost always pretty opaque.

You could try high pigment paints (Citadel base, Vajello Game Color Extra Opaque, Reaper HD, etc), which retain more pigment even when watered down.

Another trick is to carefully choose your colors so you know what goes well over other paints. Always do a trial miniature of a scheme so you can figure out what works with the minimum amount of faffing about with multiple layers.

^^ That's a great suggestion. If you can work from lighter colours to darker colours, if your light colours wind up where you don't want them, it's easier to cover up with dark than it is to cover a dark colour with light. Lets you be a bit sloppier with the light colours before needing to be more careful with the darks.

You can reduce the pooling effect by adding a drop of dishwashing liquid to the paint. And, as said above, using multiple, thin layers.

It's also possible that you're just thinning the paint too much, which would exacerbate the problem.

Yeah I think you're over thinning. Ive only ever just used water, and over time have learned that sweet spot through trial and error and eventually it becomes muscle memory, and you can basically tell as you thin the paint when it's right. I recommend this method rather than trying to stringently follow mix ratios online. I wouldn't worry too much about a little pooling on your initial coats too, as you can always pin wash the recesses later.

From my experience, thinned down colours always pool up, IF you have too much paint on your brush. Try removing some of the paint on your palette or on some tissue. Techniques like feathering and wetblending only work with super thinned down paints but both require a low amount of paint in your brush.