PaintRack is an Android & iOS phone/tablet app I discovered a few years ago ago, used a little bit, then during a reorganization of my chaotic painting bench remembered the existence of. This little review has sat in my Drafts folder for a couple of years, but it’s worth hitting publish on because the app continues to be really solid and useful!
The core of PaintRack is a paint library/inventory system to help you track which paints you own. It comes pre-loaded with a huge library from dozens of manufacturers, and can use your device’s onboard camera to scan the barcodes on your paint bottles to make creating your inventory as painless as possible. The free version will only scan one bottle at a time, but the paid version has a feature called RapidScan that lets you do a whole batch of scanning then update your inventory all at once. The paid version is only a few bucks, I highly recommend the purchase!
PaintRack is actively working with various paint manufacturers to get their lines into the app, so if you’re Kickstarting the latest celebrity painter’s private line of paints the app probably already has their stuff available.
It isn’t just wargaming or model paints like Vallejo, GW, or Reaper in the onboard inventory, there’s art supply companies like Windsor & Newton and craft paints like Deco and Apple Barrel listed too, which means it can be useful for scenery painting or for those of us who branch out beyond just the game store paints.
There’s a Sets tool that’s basically a notepad for painting schemes that links into your inventory, and a set of Color Tools for developing colour schemes and picking paints for your inventory that are close matches to paints you don’t own (very useful for trying to follow other people’s painting tutorials!).
PaintRack also has a Wishlist shopping list feature, potentially very useful if you’re standing in front of a massive wall of paint at your favourite local hobby store trying desperately to remember which weirdly named colour it was you were missing at home! I think it’ll also tie into your Amazon account for online purchases, but I don’t give Noted Sociopath Jeff Bezos money if at all possible so I haven’t explored that part of the app.
Search for PaintRack on Google Play or the iOS store, see more detail from the developer on the Courageous Octopus website, or follow their BlueSky account (@courageousoctopus.com) for updates.