Tuesday 13 August 2013

Paints: The 'Hidden' Hobby Expense

News of newly purchased miniatures elicits a distinct type of displeasure from my wife. New paints on the other hand, are generally fine. This is odd though as paints are bloody expensive. I've not worked out how much this lot must've cost me, although it's easily over £150 - more, due to the price of the Daler Rowney inks:


It doesn't even look like a large collection to me (which is worrying...). How many paints do you have?

The simple truth is that I don't need to add to this money pit! I have a great selection of all the main colours I like to work with and what I really need is to be able to see them all when I'm painting to I can make the best selections.

I got them all out like this to sort through everything I had and to think of a better way of storing them - at the moment they sit in a rather messy huddle in a toolbox. I have to store them this way because I'm a nomadic painter without a permanent place to paint at home. A consequence of this is that I'm never entirely sure of what I've got. This is probably why I have 17 shades of green...

I'm determined to increase my productivity and quality of my painting so I'm on the look out for a neat solution... One that prevents me from adding to the 10 browns I already have...

How do you store and use your paints?

10 comments:

  1. I'm looking for a wall mount spice rack to store mine on. Right now I use little plastic drawers, which is less than ideal since I can't see where what is at a glance. I was considering a desktop caddy for them, but that would just eat more work space.

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    1. I would love to have them on the wall in a dedicated work space. I wonder if a printer's tray would be a good solution in your case?

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  2. Afraid I'm just like you, except I only seem to have 3-4 greens, none of which I'm that keen on...

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    1. Green actually needs a good few shades I've found. And some good strong yellows for highlighting.

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  3. Ah, a rough estimate suggests I have about 400 paints, washes, inks, etc. These come from the old Citadel, Vallejo Game Colour and Coat d'Arms ranges. Thankfully I didn't buy all of these - some of them were received as people were dumping their supplies. Some of the pots contain my own mixed colours (like 2 levels of purple highlight) but there are plenty of duplicates. Some due to the old cast-offs (5 Snakebite Leathers, anyone?) and some because I deliberately buy backups of colours I use heavily. There is nothing I hate more than to stall during a productive period due to running out of paint or glue.

    In terms of storage, I do have several dirt-cheap IKEA spice racks on the wall (the screws cost more than the shelves, I think). Unfortunately they are not within comfortable reach and the paints in there are double-stacked because the shelves are too deep, so it's not ideal. I also have 2 sets of plastic drawers next to my chair that contain most of the paints. One or two drawers contain most of my most commonly used colours.

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    1. That's a huge collection. I can't imagine how you navigate around all those! The Ikea wall solution would be ideal if I had the space - they do plenty of good storage solutions.

      I don't blend and save my own colours though, preferring to mix as and when I need them. I like different shades though rather than regimental colours.

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  4. Hah,

    it seem that wifes' have universal trait : "paints are OK but minies - give him good old Evil Eye -look". I bought year ago 140 Vallejo paints and wife just said "OK, your hobby". And last ebay mini purchase cost about 15 pounds / 20 euro and I got very bad Evil Eye look (=not again don't you have toys enough and what about our mortgage).

    Paint store = horrible mess on table, except those new paints which came in Vallejo's neat paintbriefcase. I should try to learn mix my own colors so I could get rid of some of the paints (approx. 200, I have no inks, washes just regular paints). And I think I use about 30 to 40 paints constantly so I have 160 paints collecting dust.

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    1. I know that evil eye oh so well!

      I could live with a mess all over a table - that's how I spend my professional life so it would work well for my hobby too. A tidy workspace usually means low productivity!

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  5. Just had a quick head count, I've got over 150 pots from a variety of manufacturers. I only use about 30 of them regularly, but it's nice to know that perfect colour is there when you need it! My WIFE is very understanding about the hobby and encourages it but that doesn't stop me sneaking purchases into the house, it wouldn't feel right otherwise.

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    1. I have my regular 30 or so too, but I'm trying to expand a little on what I use - that's why I need to be able to see them all.

      And there's nothing quite like sneaking a purchase past the wife. My brother is actually the master when it comes to these kinds of tactics!

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