The Two-Bottle System

[sequoiaranger]

Maybe this is too elemental, but it has worked for me for decades. I'm presuming you have an airbrush. Some airbrushes have a "color cup" that you dab some paint and thinner into---maybe this won't work for you, but I have a Binks that has a paint-bottle-cap device with a tubular uptake for thinned paint. The following are for those folk.

I generally mix my own colors, but my secret-that-shouldn't-be-a-secret is to LABEL your paints appropriately, to save heartache and headache later. I am NOT an "anal-detail" freak, but a little organization helps tremendously.

I usually have at least TWO bottles of identical paint.

One is the host bottle, of whatever size, of "normal" paint that I use with for brush application. It's too thick for airbrush, but great for brushes and is opaque enough when applied.

Another will be the size of paint bottle that has a cap compatible with the Binks cap. They were(are?) commercially available in bags or boxes of eight ("SNJ" was one brand I know, Floquil had some, too).

I carefully label the bottles for quick identification. I have some white "Avery" (U.S. manufacturer) stick-on round labels that I put on the top of EACH and EVERY paint bottle. I put a letter at the top of the label indicating the brand. "P" for "Pactra", "F" for "Floquil", "T" for Testors, etc. so I know what thinners to use ("Floquil" being a lacquer, for instance). I use almost exclusively enamel or lacquers, not acrylics, but have acrylics labeled with a parenthetic "A".

I "name" the paint with a unique name for the paint (sometimes even the name on the bottle, especially for elementary colors). F'rinstance, I have both an "RLM Gray", and an "RLMM Gray", which are different.  My "Decimator Blue" blue-gray is slightly different from my "F4F" blue-gray. If I modify a color, I give it a different name. I have "IJN-10" and "IJN-10-2" from a recent project. All that is needed is another Avery label slapped on top of the old one.

Then, the thinned airbrushable paint is given an additional mark. In my case, a black diamond below the name. Extra-thin paint (like washes or mist paints) has TWO black diamonds.

I keep my paints in an old library-card-catalog, multiple-drawer cabinet, by general color. When I open the drawer, the labels with the names are visible--very little "searching" required. When I am done with the paint for the project, I turn the paint upside down for a moment, to have the paint seal the top, then place them in the drawer label up for next time. I have many paints thirty years old that still work fine.