I am fairly new to painting. I don’t let that keep me from wanting my models to come out good the very first time. One of my biggest obstacles is I have not found a way to keep my painting consistent between painting sessions. I started keeping a log of how I mixed things, but it still doesn't seem to come out the same every time.

I found an early workaround by simplifying the process as much as possible: My FW are just an under wash of Payne’s grey (1:10, Paint:flow release mix) and an a straight over brushing of ghost white. There was very little mixing involved. I could stop painting, then pick it up again days later without having any variation in results. It was simple. This technique will not work for my entire army…not to get the results I want anyway.

What habits have you found to maintain consistency across several painting sessions?

Do you fully paint each model perfecting the process by the 3-4th model? Or do you paint the whole unit/model type one step at a time?

How much paint do you mix at once? I typically don't have any more than 3-5 drops mixed on my palette at once. Any more and I I lose consistency from the paint drying on the palette. I will probably make a wet palette to remedy this. Retardent seems to dilute the paint at the quantities I use.

Squads-type units always get painted by the squad for me. Doing one colour at a time across the entire group. It speeds up the painting with less washing and mixing, and makes the mixes more consistant.

Typically I try to just use standard colours for the base colours of the models so that there isn't any mixing required, that means a year later I can buy the paint and match it perfectly. I mix colours for blood and such but if that's different tinged it doesn't matter, same with rust and other decay. However for armour which should be uniform across your army (I mean they're buying it in bulk at the tau factory) I'd do what you're doing, and stick with simple or non mixed colours.

You can also grab empty paint jars and mix an entire batch of it to use for the duration of your project. A full paint pot should last you tons and tons of minis provided they're not vehicles, especially if it is just a highlight colour.

Theambit has some very good suggestions. I agree with him 100%. In addition to the one's he's already suggested, I find that it's nice to have a dropper for adding water to my paints. It gets you much closer in consistantly matching ratios. Also, if I'm trying to match the paint job of a miniature that I've already finished, it always helps me to have the completed mini sitting next to me as I paint so I can check it as a reference point to make sure the others come out the same.

What i used to find hard to judge was the colour of my mixed wet paint on the palette, versus the dry finished product on a miniature.


What i started doing was custom mixes in empty paint pots. They keep the paints good to use for years, and they are always the same colour every time you go back to them, and they save time in the long run too. Its really handy for painting and entire army, but they are also handy for doing one offs once you build up a few of them. If you look at most of the citadel 'eavy metal guides, you will see so many custom colours used.

I have a friend who works at a hospital so i use syringes to mix my paint in exact quantities. This way i can get my mixes perfect 100% of the time.

Here are some example of 'how i roll'

Yeah, I have stuck to only reaper/vallejo/golden paints as they are all in dropper bottles. I especially love the reaper triads. Its only a rare occation I am able to find the exact color I want. So i tend to do a lot of of mixing & dilluting.

My kroot are what im thinking about in this post. I have a lot of them, and there's so much potential detail I'd love to do: freckles, tattoos, scars, etc, which will come from a lot of variations.

Question - how do you keep the syringes from clogging with paint? I assume they would. I myself moved all my citadel paints to dropper bottles long ago, mixed them with diluted Klear, and have since bought Vallejo. However, to make custom mixes I'd love to use a syringe, if they don't clog.

There is no paint left to clog. You take 5ml or one paint and 5ml of another, then you squirt both into a new pot. and mix. Then just draw some water with the syringe and squirt it out, after 4 times there is no paint left. As it goes in wet and comes out about a minute later, it never has time to dry and comes off extremely easy, the only paint left on it is on the outside, which doesnt effect anything.

Take a look at the pictures i included, the plastic holes on the syringes that the needles connect to are pretty wide.