Swatches

I have an unhealthy obsession with getting the "right" color for my miniatures. In trying to figure out the color I need for a particular project, picking the right color by its depiction on a store's website is impossible. They never match. Looking at a paint pot or bottle doesn't work either, because sometimes the paint is unmixed, and wet paint is usually a slightly different shade than what it is when dried.

So I make swatches.

It's pretty simple: I just cut out a lot of 2-inch squares of posterboard, and then painted them with each of my colors. Now I know just what the color looks like when dry.  Whenever I'm dithering over which color to pick, I grab some of the swatches and do a comparison until I make my decision.  A 2-inch square is also good in case I need to go to Home Depot and buy a pint of paint for larger projects.