Technique reference

Thinning is
the whole
game.

Almost every problem on a miniature traces back to paint that was too thick, or a brush carrying too much of it. If you read one thing here, read the ratios.

One pigment, five dilutions Dark ground → light ground

2 : 1 basecoat

1 : 1 layer

1 : 2 thin layer

1 : 6 glaze

1 : 10 tint

Thin paint barely shifts a dark surface but strongly shifts a light one. That asymmetry is the whole trick behind shading.

Dilution by job

Ratios are paint : thinner by volume, straight from the pot. A starting point, not a law — pigment load varies by brand and by colour, so judge what you see on the palette.

Basecoat

2:1Water or medium

Consistency of whole milk. Two thin coats always beat one thick one — the second evens out what the first missed.

Layer / highlight

1:1Water or medium

Consistency of skim milk. Expect 2–4 passes, each smaller than the last and kept off the recesses.

Glaze

1:6Medium, not water

Tinted water. Medium keeps pigment suspended and stops beading on semi-gloss surfaces. Dry fully between passes.

Wash / shade

1:10Water + flow aid

Shop-bought shades come ready to use. Control the load — a targeted recess wash reads far better than a flood.

Drybrush

1:0Undiluted

Straight from the pot, then remove nearly all of it. Thinned paint on a drybrush is how you get chalky streaks.

Brush load

Four states, judged on a paper towel before the brush touches the model. The ratios above decide how thin the paint is; this decides how much of it the brush is carrying, which is a separate control and the one people skip.

Charged

Paint in the belly, tip still fine. Roll the brush against the palette rather than dragging it, so the belly fills while the tip comes back to a point. A charged brush pulls one continuous edge highlight; a merely loaded one runs out halfway and the join shows.
Loaded

Paint fills about one third of the bristle length. No bulge at the ferrule, tip still holds a point. Paint driven into the ferrule is what kills good brushes.
Damp

Touch the tip once to the towel. If a bead forms where you set the brush down, it is still too wet for glazing or blending.
Dry

Wipe until the towel takes almost no pigment — streaks barely visible. That faint mark is correct, not a sign to keep wiping. The second tell is the bristles: a dry brush splays under light pressure and springs back. If it stays clumped there is still wet paint in the belly, and it will dump on the first raised edge you touch.

Load by job

Same paint, same ratio, different amount on the brush.

Job	State	Note
Basecoat	Loaded	Reload every two or three strokes. A basecoat that fades out as the brush empties leaves tide lines you then have to cover.
Layer	Loaded, tip wiped	Belly full, tip clean, so the mark the brush makes is the edge of the tip and nothing wider.
Glaze	Damp	A bead on the towel means it will pool in the recesses instead of tinting the surface.
Wash	Damp, or loaded for a full flood	Decide which before you start. Pull the excess with a clean damp tip while it is still wet.
Edge highlight	Charged	The one job where you want the belly full — see two kinds of highlight for the mark itself.
Drybrush	Dry	Undiluted paint first, then wiped. Thinning before wiping is the usual cause of chalky streaks.

Size the brush to the paint it has to hold, not to the detail you are painting. A larger brush with a good point holds more and keeps its tip longer than a small one that runs dry every stroke — most people size down too early.

When the load is the problem

Symptom	Fix
Edge highlight starts crisp and goes fuzzy	The tip lost its point partway through. Reshape between strokes, not between colours.
The brush runs out halfway along a long edge	Only the tip was loaded. Charge the belly by rolling on the palette, then start the stroke again from the same end.
Tip holds a point but almost nothing transfers	Over-wiped, or the paint at the tip has started to skin. Go back to the palette rather than pressing harder — pressure splays the tip and does not move more paint.
Wiping to dry takes forever and the brush is still soggy	That is water in the belly, not paint. Squeeze the belly against the towel, not just the tip, before loading.

Order of work

This one really is a sequence. Jumping ahead costs more time than doing it in order.

Clean and assembleMould release, seam lines, fit.
PrimeLight passes. Primer colour is a decision about value, not a neutral step.
Set valuesZenithal spray or drybrush. Establish light and shadow before any colour goes down.
ColourThinned, multiple coats. Over a value underpainting this means glazes, not opaque basecoats.
ShadeRecesses unless you want the tint everywhere. Pull excess with a clean damp tip while wet.
HighlightUp the ridges, each pass tighter than the one before.
DetailsEyes, lenses, teeth, metals.
Base and rimTexture, then a solid rim.
SealMatt overall, gloss only where you want shine.

Colours that fight back

Four colours do not behave like the rest. Each one needs a different starting point than the one you would guess.

White

Do not start from white. Base a light neutral grey, wash the recesses with something heavily thinned and dark, and put white only on the topmost points. White everywhere reads flat and chalky — there is no room left to highlight into.

Yellow

Yellow covers badly and turns green or brown over a dark base. Start from an ochre or darker yellow and work up. Shade it with a thin orange — brown and black wash both kill it.

Black

Highlighted with grey, but the grey's temperature decides what it reads as: cool grey for armour and metal, warmer grey for leather and cloth. Keep it sparse. If the grey is obvious at arm's length the thing has stopped being black.

Red

Highlighting red with anything white-ish turns it pink. Push toward orange instead. Shade with a neutral dark rather than a brown, which drags it toward rust.

Two kinds of highlight

Both get called highlighting. They are different marks and doing the second one like the first is what makes a model look busy.

Edge

A thin continuous line along the full length of an edge, one step lighter than the base colour. It follows the edge and stops where the edge stops.
Extreme edge

Not a line. A dot or short tick at corners, tips, and where two edges meet — much lighter, and on a small fraction of the edges. Run it down the length of an edge and it stops being an extreme highlight.

At arm's length the eye reads an isolated bright point as a reflection. A bright line just reads as a lighter object.

Eyes

The detail people dread most. The trick is that you do not paint the eye small — you paint it too big and then take it back.

Darken the socketDark brown or black into the whole eye socket. Stop here and the face still reads fine at arm's length — plenty of finished armies go no further.
Fill the eyeAn off-white — bone or light grey, never pure white — across the whole eye shape. It will look far too big. Correct.
A line, not a dotPut the pupil in as a thin vertical line rather than a dot. A dot has to land dead centre to work; a line that sits slightly off still reads as an eye.
Cut it backReclaim the edges with the skin colour, narrowing the eye down to the right shape from above and below. This step is where the eye actually gets made.

Both eyes have to match more than either has to be good — mismatched pupils are what make a face look cross-eyed. If one is off, widen both and re-cut.

When it goes wrong

Symptom first — that is how you will actually look it up. Frosted primer, filled detail, cloudy varnish, tide lines, a brush that will not hold a point, and how to strip a model back down all live on their own page.

Troubleshooting →

Consistency words

What people mean when they skip the ratio.

Cream: Pot paint, unthinned. Drybrush and texture work only.
Whole milk: Basecoats. Covers in two passes without pooling.
Skim milk: Layers and highlights. Slight translucency on the first pass is correct.
Ink: Glazes and washes. Colour visible in the mix, no body to it at all.

Rules of thumb

The short list worth memorising.

Value does the work. Colour gets the credit.
Two thin coats. Then a third if needed.
Contrast comes from keeping shadows dark, not from adding highlights.
Let each pass dry. Most blotching is impatience.
Fix mistakes with the surrounding colour, not by scraping.
Finish the model in front of you before starting the next one.