Bottled up
May 30, 2019For a growing time I’ve been frustrated with Citadel’s paints – or paint pots, to be exact. While the paints are in general very nice, year after year Games Workshop seems to go for worse and worse lid designs. The result? Paints that I’ve used only a couple of times have dried into a sludge because the pot failed to close properly due to paint getting between the lid and the pot and drying there. After whining and moaning I decided to do something about it, went on eBay and got a bunch of cheap dropper bottles. I then simply followed this tutorial:
A couple of episodes of iZOMBIE and some elbow grease later, I have this:
Click for a larger version
As you can see, I didn’t have to work with all that many paints. There are a few reasons for this, the first one being that because of rubbish lid design, I have refrained from buying the newer Citadel pots. Also, because of said rubbish lid design, some of the ones I have bought have already gone in the trash. I also decided to keep Citadel’s washes (which are runny enough not to dry in the lid) in their original pots as I find them easier to use that way.
Suitably for this post you can see a bunch of older paint pots in the background, with a far, far superior lid design. I mean, I’ve literally had some of these pots since I started with miniatures back in 1996 or so, and they’re still usable. Now back in the day we…
How the new bottles hold up in regular use remains to be seen, but I’m very hopeful!
Dawn of the Lead 
Great idea! I’m lucky in that I’m 5 minutes walk from a GW shop and can afford to replace the odd pot in an emergency, but it is still bloody frustrating when they go…
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It really is, especially as it’s (obviously) always the ones you really like and need.
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I still have gw paints from the basic and expert boxes that I use. They are circa mid 80’s I imagine. The lids are starting to crack in many cases, but the paint plug that forms up there tends to hold things together. No doubt some clever engineering came up with the new pots that look cool and increase paint sales dramatically.
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Yeah, the new paint pots do look cool, don’t they! They’re also fine for washes, but thicker paints, eugh. Much prefer the Coat D’Arms style lid that’s on the older Citadel stuff.
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Huh, I feel like the only one in the world to have pretty much zero issues when it comes to paint drying on GW pots.. I mean, I too would prefer them to be in dropper bottles, which would make transferring the paint to my wet palette much simpler, but I’m fine with the current pots.
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I still have Polly S paints from the early 1980’s!
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Hex pots are the money!
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Haha Good on you for doing something about it. I’m still in the moaning zone haha. I was going to mention the older pots in the background but then you did hehe. I still have Mithril Silver from 1993/4. It’s still perfect. Now I’m off to investigate this izombie link.
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Oooh iZombie comes highly recommended, at least if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and things like that. Thanks for the comment!
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