Cover image copyright The Army Painter.

Hey everyone, welcome to Lazy Paint Productions. Today I’m gonna be talking about the a couple painting accessories I can’t go without these days: My Army Painter Wet Palette and the Citadel Water Pot (alright, I could do fine without the last one. I just needed a catchy opening line).

So, after my homemade wet palette had gone moldy for the second time, I figured it was time to dig in and buy a real one. I got the Army Painter one cause it had the best reviews next to the Redgrass Games Everlasting thingymajig, and was considerably cheaper. I’ve been using it for a few months now and I feel qualified to finally do a review of it, so here we go.

The first thing you’ll notice about the palette is that it’s kinda thick. Like, considerably thicker than it has any right to be. But that’s cause it’s got a super handy brush container built into the lid! It’s made for Army Painter brushes, but any brushes will fit just fine in it. I have all my normal brushes in the larger section of the compartment, and my metallic brushes in the smaller section, and it works great. The only brushes I have that don’t fit are my large drybrush and medium Shade brush, and they are looooong. The brush compartment is a great feature that shouldn’t be overlooked.

The palette is not airtight, or even watertight. There’s no seal, the halves are simply pressed together and held in place by that red band. But this is a pro, not a con: an airtight wet palette will become so moist your paints will end up like water, and flow and mix together if moved. The lack of a seal is subtle feature, but a good one.

But on to the actual wet palette. It comes with two pads and 50 sheets of wet palette paper. The pad and sheets are very good at their job, though there is a small issue I’ll get to later. The palette is easy to use and comfortable to work with. It does what it does really well. Your paint will remain wet for hours, if maybe not days. Wet blending and all those fancy techniques can be done with no issues. There’s no hidden gems or anything here, just a plain well made wet palette. That’s literally all there is to say about it. Good job, Army Painter.

There is one issue though. If you leave your paint for hours, the palette will keep hydrating it like it’s supposed to. The problem is that it will overhydrate your paint, making it a bit thinner and more runny then you might want it to be. I’ve even had this occur to me when I come back to a colour I used early on in a long painting session. It won’t ruin your paint, but it is annoying. The lack of an airtight seal probably helps this issue and makes this better than other wet palettes, but I don’t have other wet palettes so I can’t verify. But it is still a con.

That’s pretty much all I have to say on this product. All in all, not bad. I’d give it an 8 out of 10. So now, onto the water pot.

I know what you’re going to say. You spent 10 bucks on a glorified coffee mug?! Are you crazy?!

Well, I probably am. But mostly I’m weak. The thing makes me look professional! And yes, I’m aware of how pathetic an excuse that is.

But actually, the Citadel Water Pot is kinda worth it! It’s got a ton of subtle but significant features that make it better than a coffee mug. However, I’ve seen these things going for nearly 20 bucks. I got mine on sale for 10. And I will say, unless you can get it for similar, it’s probably not worth it.

Anyway, let’s review. The pot has quite a few design features that make it worth my tenner. I’ll go over them one at a time.

1: The bottom of the pot, instead of a smooth plastic bottom you might expect, has a series of deep ridges in it like an old-fashioned washboard. When you’re sloshing your brush back and forth in your pot to remove the paint, these will have the same effect as a washboard would: it’s effectively gently scrubbing your brush and removes paint, significantly lessening the time you’d use cleaning your brush. Not bad, not bad.

2: The shape. Instead of wider at the top and slimmer at the bottom like your average coffee cup, the opposite is true for Citadel Water Pot. This has a few subtle, but useful, features. For one, it’s harder to knock over. In fact, it’s practically impossible to knock over. I can verify, knocking your water pot all over your painting area or pants is a bummer. For another, as long as you don’t fill the pot right to the brim, you’re not gonna splash water everywhere when you’re sloshing around in it cleaning your brushes. This is great, as I tend to keep my palette near my water pot, and getting water all over that can ruin my paints. A subtle feature to be sure, but a very good one.

3: The brush holder. The pot has a brush holder built into the rim. This is great for when you’re switching between brushes during the same cost of paint. You can be sure that when you reach for your brush, it’s gonna be there.

4: The weird slits in the sides they claim are useful for getting a sharp tip on your brush: I’m not even gonna comment on these. They’re useless.

End verdict: If you can get this for 10 dollars or similar, it’s great. All the subtle features I’ve described are really useful and make this much better than a standard coffee mug or jam jar. If it’s going for like 15 or 20 bucks though, it just isn’t really worth it. All in all, I’ll give it a 7 out of 10, for what it’s worth. But not if it’s being sold for $18, though.

Thanks for reading, drop a like if you like this and if you really like this, why not join our Discord server at https://discord.gg/jZVegD3fUR! We’ve got extra content like painting blogs, hobby ramblings, more guides, and an amazing community of painters and hobbyists of all levels without whom this website would not exist. Anyway, I’ll be back with more content soon, see y’all later!

FYI, this (like nearly all my posts) was originally published nearly a year ago as a Google doc on the Lazy Paint Productions Discord server, which is why the pictures are rather low quality, for which I apologize.