How do you organize your paints?

[Hibou]

Over the years i have purchased a fair amount of paint along with a few of the paint caddies Reaper makes.  I also have a number of paints coming from the Bones Kickstarters coming as well.  

 

My question to you folks is how do you organize all that paint?  Reaper color number?  Grouped in triads?  Grouped by where they fall in the color wheel?  Or autobiographically like Rob in high fidelity?

 

 

video has a curse word in it. 

Edited December 15, 2014 by Hibou

[Bonwirn]

Oh my!  I was just searching for these answers!

 

With several orders coming from the 12 days of Reapermas, I will be topping 200 RMS paints.  Currently, they are in the paint racks by part number, but I was thinking that maybe sorting them by color would be "more efficient" when looking for a specific shade...

 

I have the Back 2 BaseIX rack with a few extra pieces.  I also have the plastic boxes from Reaper, but find that I don't travel as much as I could to justify keeping them in the boxes.  Usually, I just grab a few of the paints to take with me.

 

Hmm, it really is hard to decide... since there really is no Right answer, only "good enough" for what you want to do...

[Inarah]

I have a paint caddy and they are roughly grouped by color and type. IE: all flesh tones, metallics, reds, browns, etc.  Paints that get high use (washes, inks, black, white, bone, certain browns, greys and blues) are on the table between me and my coffee cup warmer. 

[Adrift]

I use a Kobalt organizer from Lowe's. I know where every color in my palette is and what I want to grab and use when I want to use it. It has sufficient room for brushes, towels, and other little tools I might need. It is easy to take on the go so I can paint wherever I want and easily take my operation on the go.

 

I have 79 Reaper paints; 6 HD paints, and 73 MS paints. 

Edited December 15, 2014 by Adrift

[fanguad]

I have a box very similar to the ones that the large Reaper paint sets come in.  It is organized roughly by hue and value, with special sections for metallics, clears, mediums, washes, and other stuff that isn't just "paint".  Skin colors get their own special section, organized by triad.

[Kormydigar]

Poorly.

 

 

OK on a more helpful note, I have two tri-level paint carousels, and a three step spice shelf. I organize paints by color on the carousels and use the shelf for all of the pre-mixed washes, and glazes that I use regularly.

[dsmiles]

It puts the paint in the box, or else it gets the hose again.

 

No seriously. They just go in the box. That is the entirety of my organization method.

[CashWiley]

I'm closing in on 300, I think. I haven't counted. Currently by manufacturer and SKU, though I've never been totally happy with that, as I'm a visual thinker. But it has the benefit of making it easy to find what I'm looking for.

 

I do keep a running set of things I use most often, which is mostly greys and browns; off-whites, etc.

[ShadowRaven]

I've only got around 100, but I built my own racks, three inches wide, so I group by triad, primarily, and by general colour secondary. So blues are in one spot, greens in another, reds in another, 

[MissMelons]

By color. Dark to light. I need a bigger shelf.

[Heisler]

I use a Kobalt organizer from Lowe's. I know where every color in my palette is and what I want to grab and use when I want to use it. It has sufficient room for brushes, towels, and other little tools I might need. It is easy to take on the go so I can paint wherever I want and easily take my operation on the go.

 

I have 79 Reaper paints; 6 HD paints, and 73 MS paints.

Kobalt organizer is to vague. Which one are you using?

[Mad Jack]

 I mainly keep my MS paints in the 2 plastic paint cases they came in, organized roughly by color, while my old Pro Paints and anything in similar jars sit out on my table, also roughly organized by colors. Aside from a few really nice colors of Delta Ceramcoat craft paint I keep out on the table, most of my older craft paints are stored in a lower drawer.

 

 I really do, however, need to order another paint case, as I've recently acquired/will be acquiring a fair number of new colors between the limited editions and the KS1 and KS:CAV colors.

[Aard_Rinn]

I have one of the reaper black paint boxes. I'll be honest - I only use about 14 colors when painting, so I just put all my Vallejo, Sample, LE, and technical paints in with those, and the rest go in a drawer. I haven't used paints out of the drawer in months.

[Wren]

Currently I have three Paintiers and a step shelf. Paints are grouped by colour, though it's not super precise. The Paintier ones tend to be by triads with the HD and oddballs inserted between as appropriate. Flesh colours, browns, tans, and creams are on one rack, since those are both pretty frequent use and there's some overlap in the colours. The hardest to reach Paintier rack has most of the 'special effect' paints - inks, metallics, Tamiya clears, other stuff I don't use a lot. And blue, since blue is not my favourite colour so I don't use it a lot. The third Paintier holds greens, blacks, greys and variations thereof. The step rack has yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, teal, and off-whites. And on that one I went more dark to light within each colour than sticking with the triads. It also holds my most commonly used additives.

 

Over time I've found that it's not so much that a particular system will make it easier for me, just that there is a system, and that I take the time to replace paints correctly. I know roughly where any given paint I might look for should be, and get thrown off on those occasions when I have to work with another system.

[fanguad]

I should also mention that I transfer all paint pots into dropper bottles.  I don't have anything against pots per se, but it is hard to organize pots and dropper bottles together.