Paint, paint everywhere and not a drop of Black!

Normally, I undercoat my figs with a black (sometimes white) spray paint. Normally, I would do this outside but with the weather being so cold this hasn't been an option and with Mrs Kingsleypark less than pleased at my suggesting I spray the figs indoors, I have had to resort to good old fashioned brush and some watered down paint.

Today, I have the house to myself, Mrs Kingsleypark and the kids are all away down to the Webster Theatre in Arbroath for the final rehearsals of "Titanic, The Musical" (runs from Tuesday 7 Feb to Saturday 11 Feb, curtain up 7.30pm, ticket price £12 if anyone is interested!!!). As such I had my day all planned to get some serious painting done, but first I wanted to put some undercoat on some more Byzantine Cavalry. Not wanting to risk the wrath of Mrs K (even when she is not here I can still feel her "watching" me), I got the brush out but realised, the black paint I had been using had pretty well been used up. "Never mind" thought I, I'm bound to have some more, so I started to empty my carousel to find the elusive black......

No doubt, there will some of you whose paint collection dwarfs this lot, but I was surprised just how many pots of paint I had (and that's not taking into account the tray of enamels that I have but are unlikely to ever use again) and also how long I had some of these pots. I even discovered a tub of yellow that came from the very first "Citadel Paint Set 1" which must date from about 1983 or thereabouts. All 9 inks from the first Citadel Ink set are there and also some of the bigger bottles are from a range called "Anita's All Purpose Acrylic". I don't know who Anita is/was but her bottles of paint are still going strong some 25 years after I bought them.

But considering how pretty important paint is to my hobby, I was a bit abashed to discover just how little care and attention I pay to my paints. I discovered several pots of the same colour all opened, half used. Some of the really old pots their plastic lid broke apart when I tried to open them, the plastic had become so brittle, although the paint inside is still perfectly useable. Some, in not so good nick. So, I've just spent the afternoon decanting from one pot to another, thinning out those pots where they had gone a bit gooey, putting all the duplicate paints away into a box but indexing what I have got just in case I need to find that elusive colour, cleaned up the carousel which had a lair of dust (and a dead fly) and putting those pots that I think I am likely to use on a regular basis back into it.

Hooray! Nice tidy carousel!!

Still didn't find a pot of black though.........