Pouring the paint into new bottles
This next article was written by our long time member who now lives in far away Germany, Berislav Tušek.
Introduction
Dear hobby friends, it was my turn to give in under Marko's relentless pressure and to dare to write an article. I hope you won’t be overly sorry for wasting time after reading it.
I decided to write my own review of the issue I have been dealing with lately, and that is the transfer of Citadel paints from their Copyright bottles into some more meaningful ones, i.e. into dropper bottles (i.e. nozzles).
First a little introduction. I started working on hobbies in parallel with the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I used Citadel colors almost exclusively. After a few years break, I returned to the hobby and started buying Citadel paints again, probably because I knew them best. Over time, ie after watching a bunch of videos on wet blending and other techniques, I started to get some Scale 75 because I probably expected the colors to achieve wet blending on their own, which I haven't mastered yet. However, I realized that there are other ways to put paint on a wet palette and that dropper bottles are much easier to use. In addition, I have seen that almost everyone who posts something on the internet uses Citadel paints in dropper bottles. This prompted me to take a step called color pouring.
In preparation, I watched a lot of videos on youtube, not all of which make sense. In the end, I took something from everyone. Here I did streaming only Citadel Base and Layer paints.
Materials Needed
Figure 1 shows everything we need to transfer color.
Figure 1: Required material
Description according to the numbers in the picture:
1. Stainless steel balls - not needed for pouring, but help to mix the color in future use
2. Vallejo Airbrush Flow Improver 71,562
3. Vallejo Airbrush Thinner 71,161
4. Large funnel
5. Small funnel
6. Citadel color
7. 15 ml bottle
8. Bottle cap
9. Nozzle / dropper
10. "Disposable" pipettes
11. Glass container with water
12. Another vessel with water
13. Hobby pliers
14. Paper towel
I used Vallejo Flow improver and Thinner, but the same products from other hobby brands will definitely be fine.
As for items 7, 8 and 9, they usually come together, and I ordered it all through Amazon.
I didn't pay attention to the funnels being made in three sizes, the small size is quite enough.
Steps
Step 1
Remove the sticker from the Citadel bottle and stick it on the new bottle. In doing so, we can cut off the excess sticker with scissors, but it is not absolutely necessary. In this step, we insert one (or two) balls into a new bottle. (Figure 2)
Figure 2: Switching the label
Step 2
Cut the plastic joints of the Citadel bottle cap. This will make it easier for us to prepare the color with Flow enhancer and Thinner. (Figure 3)
Figure 3: Cutting the plastic joints of the bottle cap
Step 3
Pipette about 1 ml of Flow Improver and up to 1 ml of Thinner into the Citadel bottle with color. After that, it is obligatory to close the bottle and mix well. Here it is necessary to adjust the amount of paint viscosity additive. The paint should flow through the funnel without the paint level in the funnel increasing due to the viscosity of the paint, which will lead to increased paint loss on the funnel. This will make it easier for us to prepare the color with Flow enhancer and Thinner. (Figure 4)
Figure 4: Adding Flow improvers and Thinners
Step 4
We open the well-mixed bottle and pour it into a new bottle in which we put the funnel before. If the funnel tube is so wide that it fits snugly on the neck of the bottle, it is necessary to raise the funnel a little so that the air can reach the bottle without hindrance and thus facilitate the entry of paint into the bottle. (Figure 5)
Figure 5: Pouring the paint
After the paint starts to drip, stop pouring and add approximately 0.5ml of thinner to the Citadel bottle and mix again. Repeat the remaining color. With this procedure, I was able to extract most of the paint from the bottle and I did not bother with any paint residue on the cap.
Step 5
We let gravity do its thing and put the funnel in a container with water. (Figures 6 and 7)
Figure 6: Pouring of color into a new bottle
Figure 7: Disposing of the funnel in a container of water will facilitate its later cleaning
Step 6
If you notice that the nozzle opening of the bottle is too narrow, you can drill it, either with an awl or a drill of a hobby drill. This will reduce the likelihood that the paint in the nozzle will dry out and the nozzle will crack. (Figure 8)
Figure 8: Nozzle drilling
And that's it.
Figure 9: Paint in its new home
Additional notes
The mystery of the second water vessel is that some youtubers also use water to dilute the paint. In my opinion, that is not necessary, the two products I listed were quite enough for me.
I guess Citadel washes or contrast paints don’t need as many diluent additives because they’re already a lot rarer than base coat and base paints anyway.
The paint poured in this way is a bit thinner than the original paint, but for me it is negligible. I mostly paint using layering and glazing anyway so I prefer that anyway.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
" ["content_hrv"]=> string(4306) "U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
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