While I do understand that each person’s paint choice is personal, I have finally made the complete change to eyedropper paints, namely Vallejo colors at the moment.  It all happened about four years ago when I got into painting….

In the beginning we got into Games Workshop paints as we didn’t know any better about other paint companies being out there.  We kind of assumed that you had to go with GW paints to paint GW models as well as they were right there sitting next to the models, so it was convenient to pick some up.  Sadly, you’re also kind of at their beck and call.  If they cancel a specific color on you, you’re kind of S.O.L., especially the beginner painter that doesn’t feel comfortable in mixing big batches of their own paint or people like me who forget to write down the recipes and forget.  Or if you have the luck as my boyfriend, even if you do use the same recipes, the paint comes out looking differently.

Once we got into painting a bit more, we started researching different paint companies and asked other artists what types of paints they used, what they liked about certain companies and what they didn’t like.  And even then, some of our friends went with one company while we went with others.  Personally I have started to like Vallejo more as life gets the better of me and I have spurts of time (sometimes years) in between painting and the Vallejo paints have lasted.  As I said, we started about four years ago and I do realize that a lot of people go through paints like no other.  When I brought my paint set out to start painting, after a significant amount of time, around a year and a half, all of my GW paints had dried up to the point that I can’t water them down anymore to paint with.  However, with the Vallejo paints, all they needed were a vigorous shaking and they were completely fine!  I was actually very surprised and impressed that they kept their fluidity.  It was my bad that I didn’t check up on my GW paints while they were in storage in a dark, cool closet, as that might have prolonged their life, but that’s even more kudos to Vallejo in my book as they weren’t touched either.  Even with the newer, more airtight pots, I feel like you lose a lot of paint to the sides (see picture of “shadow grey”).

The other reason that my boyfriend likes the eyedropper paints is that he can recreate recipes for mixing paints a lot more easily and consistently than using paints in a paint pot.  You just never know how much paint you have on a paintbrush, so a “dip” of paint might be more or less than the last time you made the recipe.  With an eyedropper though, you can control how many drops are used (obviously).

There are other eyedropper paint companies out there, as during our research, one of our friends moved on to a company called Reaper Paints (I love their metal colors), normal color-wise they were on par with Vallejo and gave you the same mL for the price.  Though I went with Vallejo though at the time, since they had three different sets of color out, the model, game and air.  I just got in my model color set of 72 paints this week and have started to paint again!