Great Idea for Mixing Small Quantities of Custom Colors for Painting

[mondotrains]

Hi Folks,
I just finished painting a model and thought I'd share a great idea I've come up with. Usually, when I'm painting a model, I like to mix small amounts of paint to come up with a custom color to my liking. Generally, for real small amounts, I've found an artist palette with several indentations to be suitable. But, for larger amounts, up to an ounce, I've used "pill" cups available at pharmacies. You know, those little plastic cups that look like little shot glasses. They hold up to an ounce and the best thing is that they have demarcations on the side indicating fractions of an ounce and CC's. Thus, if you want to mix two colors in equal proportion, simply fill up the cup to the 1/4 ounce line with one color and add the other color up to the 1/2 ounce line. Obviously, other combinations can be calculated.

I use a toothpick to mix the colors in the cups and if I don't like what I've achieved, I just start over with a new cup. If I'm mixing two colors, I'll place around 4 drops of each, mix them together, and see if I like the result. If I do, I can then continue adding each color in correct proportion until I get enough for my project.

The cups cost around $2.00 per 100 cups or 2 cents each.... an inexpensive way to mix paints. I also use these cups to mix my paints with thinner for air brushing. I like Delta Ceramcoat acrylic paints available at Michael's Craft Stores and Joanne's Fabric because they have a great selection of colors and cost around 89 cents per 2 ounces (on sale). They are too thick for air brushing but Delta offers a wonderful thinner to use 50/50 with their paint, specifically for air brushing. I wasn't able to find the thinner at the stores I mentioned but found it on the Internet at a company called craftcatalog.com (note the spelling is catalog....not catalogue). The thinner costs $1.69 per 2 ounces...thus 4 ounces of airbrushable paint costs $1.69 (for the thinner) plus $.89 (for the paint)...a total of $2.58...a lot less than 2 ounces of the typical, ready-to-airbrush hobby paints. Craftcatalog.com also sells the paints for 99 cents, making it worthwhile to buy from them on-line rather than running around to stores.

I hope you'll find the pill cups helpful. I know I have.

Have a great day and enjoy those trains.

Mondo

[fec153]

why not use the small single serving desert cups? you know, the ones with applesauce or puddings. true , they don't have markings but they are, to a degree, free.
fla.phil

[Anonymous]

I've been using 35mm film containers for years to do the same thing, and being an active photographer, they are free!

My supply will no doubt run out eventually, as I've been shooting with digital cameras for a while now!

Bob Boudreau