"Organizing Paint?" Topic

I don't have much luck with this. I've tried storage wheels, specialized storage shelves with slots, regular shelves. I've tried organizing by colors and by manufacturers.

I still can't find the color I want, and half the time I buy paint I already have.

What do you suggest?

Buying duplicate paints isn't really a problem to me. I like having extras around.

I still cloud my paints into their colors, blues with blues, reds with reds, etc. If there are good triads in there, I'll further line them up accordingly.

To the side, I have a 3 tier wheel for specialty paints like inks, and metallics.

I built a two tier shelf for the back wall of my painting table. Paints are organized by color. Some are so old that I can only guess at their original color name. I toss out about one every month.

Also on that back wall are two magnetic tool holders (free from Harbor Freight) that keep all my hobby tools handy.

On the other side of the table in a plastic box filled with extra unopened paints.

I use one of these with each color family in a separate drawer.

I like that idea Extra Crispy. Easy to at least get the colors together and where to start the hunt for the paint you want.

Matthew

Plano boxes, sorted by spectrum. Another for grays and browns, and zip-lock bags for washes and metallics.

I do have small plastic boxes to sort the bottles out by color/type. But I'm not very good at putting them back in the boxes, so I fall, like Bill, into the "it's somewhere on the painting table" system.

I use primarily 2oz Ceramcoat bottles that I keep in a 160 jar spinner in part number order. I have a chart that converts the part number to color and color to part number so its very efficient. Any extra different sized bottles go in a small tall chest right next to the painting table.

I don't own so much paint that I have to organize it.

OK, maybe that's not strictly true. I have spray paint and its gear in one place, and other paint and its gear in another.

Doctor X you win

I use mostly Vallejo paints. I've picked up three of the Vallejo racks at Amazon. They aren't terrifically expensive, but I still have managed to acquired extra bottles of the paint I use a lot. The racks also hold most of the Ceramcoat bottles I have as well as the Vallejo washes I use. Not perfect, but not bad.

You mean you are supposed to organize them? Dang after 40+ years I find out! No organization here…just paint mayhem. That accounts for the multiple duplicates that I have.

I just throw everything into an old shoe box.

I use a couple of these link

not exactly the one in the picture, works great and I can see all the paint. I do line them up by color.

I would love to show photos of my paint setup, but it seems my Imgur account has been deleted …

Much like VC Carter, I built a 2x shelf "thing" at the back of my modelling desk. It was a case of building, populating with paints, growling, going to the local DIY market, building more, growling more … for about 4x days … then I was happy (as happy as I ever get …). Then I growled some more … :-) And then I moved to Japan and had to "make do" …

I did what Extra Crispy did with one drawer per colour/shade; I did have red and yellow in the same drawer as well as black/white and grey, but overall it works well

I paint the tops with the inside color, then sort by spectrum. Don't have dedicated painting space, so clean up after every session. Have lidded tote storage for paints and separate stackable hobby trays for projects. Result is all paints are always together and sorted.

Also I use artist paint so have manageable amount of paint bottles. Part of my decision to switch to artist paint was the intentional consideration that if I had fewer shades of each color, I would learn basic color mixing.

The bulk of my paint is either Cd'A or Foundry. Foundry lids are labelled with colour and code, I write colour and code on the Cd'A lids.

I store the pots by code order in Really Useful Boxes. Want a colour? After a while I know where the most used colours are in the boxes; less used or I need a specific shade – I consult the colour charts, which both Foundry and Cd'A have printed and distribute.

For the handful of Vallejo style bottles, there are only about 8 bottles so there isn't an issue with them.