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Plenty of people have made this same post about how to transfer Games Workshop paints into dropper bottles. But I wanted to bring it up to date and show what I have found in the process to recover as much paint from your original pot as possible. Follow this guide to make your own Citadel Dropper Bottle.

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We have set up a petition on 20/01/20 asking GW to replace all their paint pots with dropper bottles. After the video released today which embarrassingly shows GW trying to pour paint from a dropper bottle into an airbrush. It’s so obvious they need to change these pots.

I’ve set the petition up so that all milestones we hit will be emailed directly to Games Workshop’s current CEO. If we hit 500,000 signatures. I will deliver it to GW head office myself – in person.

Do you want to know how to transfer your Citadel Paints into dropper bottles?

I have received lots of great feedback since posting this article. So I have significantly updated it with the input of many great people in the community. Thank you all.

I’ve now included some notes on adding Citadel Contrast Paint to Dropper Bottles. (spoiler alert, just pour it)

Do you want to transfer Citadel Paints to Dropper Bottles or would you rather just buy another brand? Let us know in the comments.

If you have an idea of any improvement I could make to this guide, please share it in the comments below, or anywhere else (social media shares) I have linked this guide.

Why Transfer GW Paints into Dropper Bottles?

First of all, what are the reasons for Transferring Citadel Paints into Dropper Bottles?

Well, a lot of people will say, “there is no point” or “you waste paint doing this” (not quite true). And my personal favourite, “Don’t buy sucky Games Workshop paints in the first place, Buy Vallejo, Reaper, Scale 75 Army Painter or literally any other miniature paint brand.”. Sigh! Some people like the Games Workshop paints, I like the Games Workshop paints. But mostly, before I learned there even were other options I was heavily invested in the Games Workshop colours.

Oh no – I tipped over a bottle of Agrax Earthsahde!

I’d rather just buy Citadel Dropper bottles in the first place, but Games Workshop insists on using these pots.

Here are just some reasons you may want to do this,

The paints will last longer A dropper bottle is much more airtight than a Games Workshop pot. Also, when opening a Games Workshop pot, the paint runs into the lid crease. Over time this builds up to the point you are unable to close it. Or you need to messily scrape the excess out of the crease

You can easily control how much you put on a palette Sure, you can get some control with your small brushes, but the main thing is you can add paint drop-by-drop and you don’t need to wash off a brush afterwards, keeping you water pot a bit clearer.

You can measure mixes more accurately by drops How many times do you see 4:1 ratio of X paint to Y paint? Easy now, 4 drops of one and 1 drop of the other. You can even add water to a bottle to get accurate paint to water ratios.

You can save space Ok, so the volume of paint is pretty much the same, and the bottles are technically larger (15ml over 12ml). But the diameter of the base is much smaller on the bottles. If you have only one flat surface to store paints on you can get many many more bottles than Games Workshop pots.

You can replace the lid and spout These things aren’t perfect and may eventually get clogged. But you can easily pop off a spout and/or replace the lid if it is getting too thick with paint. Or, just try to remember to wipe the excess off the spout before you put the lid back on.

It’s cheap to do Doing all my paints cost less than £12 (that’s without agitators, however)

They look tidier Ok, so this point is more of an opinion than a fact. There’s something about the bottles that just make them look a whole lot tidier than the Games Workshop Pots.

You will save more paint Yes, you lose a bit in the transfer but a lot less than you would lose by it drying out in the pot. My paints have been in bottles for 3 years now and are still nice and fluid.

Adding an agitator to a bottle is better than the Games Workshop pots Sure you can add an agitator to the Games Workshop pots. But because the neck of the pot is a smaller diameter than the base, when you shake the pot your agitator will not get into the corners. With a bottle, the sides are parallel and the base is a smaller surface area, chances are your agitator will have more likelihood of striking settled paint and getting it to flow again.



The best example of the benefit to dropper bottles (other than the numerous pictures of spilled Agrax Erthshade Shade pots out there) is the below photo from one of my readers in the “40K Death Guard Players – Plague Marines Of Nurgle” Facebook Group.



Thanks to Jamie for taking this picture and letting us share it. This is a new GW pot (left) vs a used GW pot (right)

To follow this method, there are a few necessities you will need. There are some other things you should have to hand (such as water, although distilled water is better) but the main items are listed below.

Dropper Bottles,

With spouts and Lids (15ml for normal paints and 30ml for Shades)

Some people have reported the poor mould quality on some bottles they have bought. Which has meant they needed to trim some mould lines from the base of the bottle so they actually stood up. I’ve had no issue with these. The only parts that had any extra mould were the necks of the lids.

100 x 15ml bottles were £9.99. The only downside is that they took over a month to arrive (my fault for not checking shipping times before buying).

A note about Vallejo Bottles. Many people may want to match the Vallejo range with 17ml bottles and have a more uniform paint rack. But for some reason (probably because this is an odd size only Vallejo use en-masse) the 17ml bottles are about £1 per bottle! 15ml bottles will fit all of your Games Workshop Paint (a standard GW pot only contains 12ml (ish)) and as I said you can get 100 for about £10.

Whatever bottles you buy, make sure they come with the spouts pictured in the main post image as some of them come with really thin spouts which are more commonly used by people who smoke/vape e-cigarettes. People have used these ones, however, in my experience, they clog easier and can lead to the whole spot popping out if you apply too much force.





Buy 15ml Dropper Bottles for normal Games Workshop paints and Citadel Air Paints using the links below

Buy 20ml Dropper Bottles for Citadel Contrast paints using the links below

Buy 30ml Dropper Bottles for Games Workshop Shade paints using the links below

100ml Dropper Bottles – For other fluids. I keep distilled water in one and an airbrush cleaner I made in another

Funnels

When you buy Dropper Bottles, many of them come with some plastic funnels If you buy a large enough quantity. Great! If they don’t, You could make your own Funnels out of paper.

I think these plastic ones are much sturdier and I’m glad I bought some. You can use water to rinse the final dregs of poured paint out of them into your bottle. They’re also very easy to wash or even strip the paint from them when you’re done. With paper ones, you have to make them, you’re more likely to spill and they start to break down when wet. 10 plastic funnels cost about £1, and for me, they arrived within 15 days (unlike the bottles themselves which took over a month to arrive, ooops).

Agitators

Either High-Grade 6mm Stainless Steel Ball Bearings, High-Grade Stainless Steel M3 hex nuts or glass beads.

If you don’t get “High-Grade Stainless Steel” Ball Bearings or Hex Nuts they will rust in the pot, ruining your paint. Nuts can often work out cheaper and because of the shape, they shouldn’t get stuck in the spout and restrict the flow of paint. The issue here is that if you buy from eBay, you are at the mercy of the seller’s honesty. I bought these exact ones from a reputable seller, and whilst they were quite expensive. At £10 for 100 they have been fine for over 3 years.

Richard made a great note about these in the comments – so goo I’ve copied it here;

I would suggest Googling ‘316’ or ‘A4’ grade bearings. This grade of austenitic stainless steel is often called marine grade and will not corrode in the presence of water, salt or any common contaminates (well it’s a bit more complex than that, but effectively they will be fine) and I have used them for years as agitators without issue. Other grades may also be suitable, but 316 is readily available and reliable.

You can actually buy Ball Bearings Made specifically for paint mixing from The Army Painter, Mig Jiminez & AK Interactive. All of which are reputable brands in the miniatures and modelling community.

The added benefit of getting ball bearings is that with a strong magnet you can ensure you can get paint out of those hard to reach places.

Ball Bearings

M3 Hex Nuts

An old paintbrush (or two)

Just something old for encouraging the paint out of the pot and down the funnel

Water

You may have this in your tap, however, if you use tap water it is filled with natural bacteria, over time this will grow inside your paint pots and eventually mould. You know you’re heading this way if your paint starts to smell. If it does, stop licking your brush immediately (don’t say you don’t).

To get around this, you should use Distilled Water which has been fully purified -Do not drink this!.

Tweezers

You’re gonna want to move those Agitators out of your pots without getting your fingers messy.

Kitchen Roll (aka Paper Towels)

At least a couple of rolls.

A Knife (or Scissors)

You have one/some anyway no doubt.

Blu-Tack (or putty)

Something to stop the funnel from sitting too far into the neck of the bottle and stopping airflow.

How to Transfer Games Workshop Paints into Dropper Bottles – Steps

Step 1

Create your own Citadel Paint Dropper Bottle, Prepare your work surface by laying down some kitchen roll. You aren’t going to accidentally pour paint on your desk anyway, are you? let’s hope not, but just in case.

Step 2

Get all your tools ready

Step 3

Prepare your bottle and funnel. These Funnels are the perfect size for the bottles, too perfect.

When placed in the bottle they pretty much create an airtight seal around the bottle neck. Meaning, as you pour paint in the funnel, the air in the bottle has nowhere to escape to, so the paint just sits in the funnel. This is why a small bead of Blu-Tack is placed on the edge (softly) to create enough of a gap for the air to escape.

Step 4

Shake your paint, well! (if you have a paint mixer, use it) Depending on the paint, I sometimes put an agitator in now to help mix it. This depends on the age of the paint, how long it has been sat unused and what type it is. Base, Layer, Edge, Contrast, Shade – (Technical & Texture paints do not transfer well) this can have an effect on how thick the paint is and how much of the really thick pigment has settled at the bottom of the pot. Either way, mix the paint as well as you possibly can.

Step 5

Pour. I’m not sure how much advice I can give you here. “Be steady”, pretty much sums it up. Shades pour straight in, Some Layer Paints pour very easily, but some are thick and clumpy (Damn You White Scar!), Base paints like Mephiston Red are very very thick. Just pour it nicely into the Funnel until the funnel is about 80% full. If the paint keeps flowing through the funnel, great, keep pouring. If it slows and you need to stop, then stop.

Sometimes paints are so thick that they need some encouragement. You can use a paperclip, thin screwdriver or an old brush to get the paint flowing. Paint sticks to the brush though, and you want it in the bottle.

Note, if you used an agitator, try not to let this fall into the funnel, it will block the flow and then you need to fish it out blind with some tweezers. If this happens, get a paperclip down the side of it and swirl the paint a round until it all goes through and you can see the bearing. The only other way is to messily transfer the paint to another funnel.

Step 6

Add some “drops” of water to the remaining pot and swirl it around with your paintbrush. It can be very thick at the bottom if it’s been sat a long time. so use the back of your paintbrush to swirl it around to get a nice flowing consistency. Don’t add too much water or you could end up thinning your whole paint too much

One interesting thing I noticed, Games Workshop pots are advertised as 12ml, and these bottles hold 15ml. I’ve had some paints where I’ve added at least 1ml of water, there’s almost nothing left in the pot and I still only have what looks like 8ml-10ml in the bottle. But other times I’ve simply poured the paint without any additional water , still had some left in the pot and have got clearly over 12ml. My Khorne red actually overflowed the dropper bottle??? I don’t know if somehow the paint molecules have expanded/contracted with time/temperature. But it’s certainly not an even 12 ml in each pot.

Also, do not do what I thought was clever on my first go an pour 12ml of paint and assume 3ml of water will be a good mix. I killed my brand new Thousand Sons Blue, less than a week after Games Workshop released it!

Step 7

See Step 5 – Pour again, but this time, use your brush to encourage every last drop out of the pot, don’t forget to scoop paint of the lip of the lid into your watered down mix. This can be a touch (a drop of water or two) thinner than the paint you originally poured as you want it “all” out. Then, to clean the funnel, dip the tip of your brush in some water and rinse around the funnel, getting as much as you can to pour into the bottle.

Take the funnel out and dump it in a bowl of water. You can immediately go wash it out, but this whole process takes a while, I do it in batches of 10 (because I only have 10 Funnels). leave them in water to stop the paint drying and wash them at the end of that batch.

I will be rinsing my brush during this process too, but I use my normal water pot for that.

Step 7.5

If you used your agitator in the pot, use your tweezers to pull it out and drop it into the bottle, if you didn’t use one earlier, pop a fresh one into your dropper bottle now.

I tend to add 2 agitators to each pot. 2 agitators tend to mix much better than just one, adding 3 doesn’t make much of a difference over 2.

Step 8

Pop the spout and lid on then marvel at your beautiful work.

The question now is what to do with your old pot? Well, you have a few options;

Wash them out. This is what I did and it works much better with washes, one problem with these pots is that the pot itself is quite hard plastic and you can easily scrape paint from out of the inside. except for under the lip. But the lid is really soft and I think a bit porous. When the paint sticks to it and gets pretty embedded. So removing it completely from the lid would require you to use something similar to what you would use to strip minis, but I don’t know what it will do to this plastic. I know what boiling water does, it shrinks it and makes it brittle.

Washed out empty pots can actually be sold on eBay! (some people like these things).

You could use washed out pots to store mixes.

I like to use the washed pots to hold some Airbrush mixes of these colours. Basically the same paint, but thinned with car screenwash or distilled water.

You could continue using the pot until the paint fully runs out.

You could put other modelling materials in like glue, flock sand or stones.

If you have a lot of them, you could throw them in the bin.

As advised by Paul Morris in the comments, use them as stands for your in-progress models instead of getting your fingers all over them. (Cheers Paul). Unless you want a propper hobby handle?

Step 9

Move the label, I like to peel the whole label off the pot then get it into position on the bottle. By doing this I’m not getting my fingers all over the sticky part of the label I’m keeping.

Step 10

Simply trim the edges of the label with your knife or scissors and use your fingers to smooth it out.

Transferring Games Workshop Paints into Dropper Bottles – The Result

Now give it a shake and test it out.



I trapped my thumbs in a vice when I was a kid and destroyed the nail bed. That’s why.

All done, after your test drop, wipe the spout with your tissue so your lid doesn’t get clogged like the Games Workshop paint pots used to. Otherwise, what was the point in all this?

Transferring Games Workshop Paints into Dropper Bottles – The Extra Mile

If you really want to make it easy – check out this awesome gothic style funnel holder made by Patrick Fenner. (Paint Job by me)

Sure, it’s overkill – but it’s cool and if you have access to a 3D printer it makes the whole process super simple – barely an inconvenience.

This is made to work with the 15ml bottles, Which is why the 20ml bottle above is raised out of the recess, I was transferring P3 Paint. I easily adapted this to work with a larger bottle by just putting some blue-tack on the base.

You can get the 3D file for this here. If you download, please leave a like and a comment on the page to thank the creator.

Click this link & buy your hobby stuff from Element Games for the UK & Europe to support FauxHammer.com – Use Code “FAUX2768” at the checkout for double reward points.

Our Affiliates / Hobby Stores

Support FauxHammer.com on Patreon

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Author FauxHammer Self-appointed Editor in chief of FauxHammer.com - But I need to thank the team for existing and therefore enabling me to give myself role - without them, I'm just a nerd with a computer and a plastic addiction.

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