Paint bottles, part 2

I have been very happy with the switch to bottles, but some of them have pretty bad clogging. So I did what I always do - browsed eBay! These nail polish mixing balls are a top tip for solving that little issue. Just make sure they are smaller than the diameter of the bottlenecks.

How to: dropper bottles

This might strike you as a somewhat obvious tutorial, but maybe I can inspire you to get it done even if you have thought of it yourself. Buy bottles off eBay. I bought these, because they take slightly more paint than a standard GW pot (so I can put one full and one half empty in the same bottle). Also, the diameter of this bottle fits my paint rack.

Water down and stir your paint thoroughly. Use clean water and make sure you stir up the often dried up paint in the bottom of the pot.

Pour paint into bottle carefully. Use a funnel if you have one small enough. But with a steady hand you can avoid having to clean a funnel, it is not very hard to pour since it is thick and slow.

Clean up any paint that got on the sides of the bottle and put on the dropper top and cap, then remove the label from the old pot. This should be very easy, it just comes right off. Don't touch the sticky part if you can avoid it.

Fasten the label on the bottle as high up as you can, so it is not obscured when sitting in a paint rack.

Profit!

Essentials

I just have to tell you about a couple of products I have grown to love over the last few months. They are by no means obligatory for successful miniature painting, but they sure do make life a whole lot easier.

From left to right:

• Tamiya Clear Red (X-27). This is a glossy acrylic paint that flows very nicely from the brush and looks just like fresh blood when it dries. Perfect for splattering on a sword or dripping from a wound!
• Citadel Lahman Medium. Mix in a drop of any acrylic colour in this stuff and you get a glaze of that colour. Extremely handy for when your washes doesn't quite match up with the basecoat and layers you are working on.
• Vallejo Matt Varnish. Wow. Take a big brush and paint this over your mini once it's done, and you have a piece that will not chip or wear down when gaming and transporting it.
• Vallejo Surface Primer. Get rid of your expensive primer spray cans! Well, if you don't own an airbrush, keep them. But this stuff is really good since it can be painted on with a brush. I'm guessing here but I think you use 1/10th of the primer compared to spraying with spray cans. Also, it does not leave streaks on the model when painted on.
• Vallejo Gloss Varnish. Simply perfect anytime you want a wet look. Gore, slime, water, wet mud, etc. Also protects the paint underneath really well of course.

State of painting

So what's up, you say? Well I'll tell you!

The Malifaux project is churning along nicely and I now have three models painted from my crew of seven. More on that further down. In the hobby gear department I purchased a paint rack from the good polish people at HobbyZone. Great quality and construction, at a reasonable price. I could almost fit all my paints in it... so here is my current painting setup:

The big thing about this setup is that I can take it out, paint, and then stow the whole thing away. I am blessed with a very understanding and patient wife, but still, the place has to look nice.

Below is my Copycat Killer totem, a fun little fellow who is quite high up in my want-to-paint queue at the moment.

And next to him you can see another new purchase - grey primer in a bottle. This stuff can either be airbrushed on or painted on with a brush. I did the latter on the Copycat Killer, and I think the results are stunning. The paint goes in everywhere and does not leave any streaks that I could see. So if I'm just going to prime one little model, I will not waste spray can primer on it anymore. Love it!

The next pic is my current WIP gang, excluding the Copycat Killer. The Big Mek is also something I really look forward to painting, but I promised myself to finish the boyz before painting another ork unit. So he will have to wait. I took a break from the orks and now I am actually starting to feel quite inspired to paint them. That's a good thing!

Madame Sybelle was in the WIP shot above, but by the time I started writing text to these pictures I had actually finished her. So here is a group shot of the painted half of the Redchapel gang. I have stopped using spray varnish to protect minis since it usually leaves a nasty frosting. These are instead varnished with vallejo matte varnish on dropper bottle, a product I can't believe I could work without. It dries totally clear and matte, without disturbing the colours at all.