A small disquisition on mixing wall paints for hobby use

[Daeothar]

Way back in 2011 (I had to check the label for that) I purchased a liter pot of (acrylic wall)paint, especially mixed for me to match the old Citadel paint colour Graveyard Earth. I used that to paint the rims on all of my bases, and I wanted to use the exact same colour on all of my terrain, to better make them blend in with it.

And ever since, I've used this huge pot of paint whenever I had to base a miniature or terrain piece (because Graveyard Earth went the way of the dodo). In fact, I've so far painted two full 4x6 tables with it as well, and this practice has proven to be a perfect way to make my miniatures and terrain fit together on the tabletop.

But even though a liter might sound like a lot, with this much use, it will eventually run out, and when the pot had reached about a quarter of its original volume, I decided to have another batch made up before I ran out. This was somewhere late in 2023.

I painted a generous square of carboard with the paint, and gave it multiple layers to get good saturation and took this to the same DIY store I had bought the first pot. Obviously a lot will change in 12 years, and as I had suspected, their system had been updated since that time, and the formula/code still visible on the original pot was not usable anymore.

But they were able to colour match the square I had painted for this purpose, so away they went. This time, the paint was distributed in a metal can, as opposed to the previous plastic pot though. Also, the fine print does state that slight variations are to be expected and are not a basis for complaints or refunds. *ominous foreboding*

So when I came home, I decided to compare the two paints, just to be sure. I made another test piece with both paints touching in the middle, and to my dismay, the new paint was ever so slightly darker than the old one. Slightly but still very clearly visible! Luckily though, it was too dark, as it should be possible to add some white paint and make it lighter. But this came later.

After all; I still had about a quarter of a pot of the old stuff, and since I'm not a very prolific painter, this would still get me a lot of mileage while I figured out what to do with the new batch. I had started to decant some of the paint into dropper bottles in the meantime, for ease of use, so for a while I did not have to handle the big pot at all.

But when I started painting my most recent project, I noticed the dropper bottle was running low, so I decided on a refill. And to my horror, the old pot had completely dried out! Now this particular paint could be (sort of) reactivated with added water, but the big, shrunken lump at the bottom of the pot would never be revived to a useable state, so my only option was to bring the new pot up to spec.

And for this, I used kitchen scales, a disposeable pipette and several small plastic containers. I mixed paints to a certain ratio, painted a square on a scrap of cardboard and noted down the ratios. 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, 4:1, 5:1 and 6:1, then, when the mix had gone too dark, I went back to 5:2. And that proved to be the absolute perfect ratio!

So 5:2 was the sweet spot and I then mixed up a larger batch like that. I used a cheap wall paint from Action for this btw, of the same type as the coloured paint. I poured 1/2 a liter of the coloured paint into a preserving jar I liberated from the kitchen, and added 200 ml of white to it and started stirring. And kept stirring for a while.

And after 5 minutes, I made another test square, let it dry and compared it with the square of original paint.

Bingo! [borat]Great succes![/borat]

So now I have a new pot of 700 ml perfectly matched paint, which has a very small risk of drying out (because of the preserving jar), plus another 300 ml of slightly darker paint, to be mixed with more white when the time comes.

Has anyone else ever had to go through this kind of trouble to perfectly match a paint?

[mikedemana]

No, I haven't. And thank you for teaching me a new word...I had never heard of a "disquisition." And a perfect example of one it was...! 

Mike Demana

[Daeothar]

 

First time using it to be honest, but it fit the bill perfectly 

[Burgundavia]

I've never done this, but am paranoid about it. I recently bought a fairly large bottle of the linen colour I use for my cobblestones so as not to lose it.

[AndrewBeasley]

I found that the majority of sample pots did not match the larger pots if that counts...

Had a great brown sample and tried the 500ml but it was nothing like it - in the end I redid the terrain I had previously done...

Found this has not changed - the sample cards we got when we did the downstairs where nothing like the sample pots and nothing like the bigger ones. The closest we found was Johnstone here in the U.K.

[fred]

Great attention to detail!

Personally I just buy brown craft paints for basing, and don’t worry too much about the shade. I do have a big pot of brown emulsion paint which I picked up in a sale - perhaps I should decant some of this for basing instead.

Disquisition is a new word for me too - must admit I thought it was a made up word when I first saw it

[Cholmondely Percival IV]

As you’ve done all of the preliminary work I strongly recommend you put this paint into production. You will be in a unique market position in the model paint field, selling a single colour: Disquisition Drab, the only variety being in the size of pots. The challenge, of course, will be in trying to make each batch match the colour of the previous one, or in a few years’ time someone will post a query about how to replicate original Disquisition Drab.

It should go without saying that you will have to move very quickly - probably before finishing reading this post - before GW or GSW put out something broadly similar and trademark the name.

[Daeothar]

You might be on to something there 

Also, this might be the perfect way to promote the use of the word disquisition as well