Drybrushing Miniatures

What drybrushing actually does

Drybrushing is a shortcut for highlighting. Instead of carefully painting a lighter color onto each raised edge, you let the physics do it: a nearly-dry brush dragged across a surface only deposits paint where the surface sticks out far enough to catch the bristles.

That gives you highlights on every raised edge of a model in seconds rather than minutes, which is why it is the backbone of fast army painting. The trade is control — you get highlights everywhere the geometry sticks out, including places you might not want them.

How dry is “dry”?

Drier than you think. Wipe the brush on a paper towel until a firm stroke leaves almost no visible mark. At that point it feels like there is no paint left on it at all, and that is exactly the right amount.

The failure mode of too much paint is unmistakable: a chalky, dusty film across flat surfaces, visible brush strokes, and detail that looks smothered rather than highlighted. If a drybrushed model looks powdery, the brush was too wet.

A useful test: drybrush a stroke on your palette or the back of your hand first. If you can see a solid line of color, go back to the towel.

Pressure and angle

Light, and shallow. The bristle tips should graze the surface, not be pressed into it. Pressing the brush bends the bristles so their sides contact the recesses, which deposits paint in exactly the places drybrushing exists to avoid.

Move across the detail rather than along it. On a chainmail cloak, sweep perpendicular to the links; on a stone base, sweep across the ridges. And keep the strokes fast — a slow drag presses harder without you noticing.

What drybrushing is good at, and what it is not

Excellent on: metallics, fur, hair, chainmail, rough stone, bases, wooden planks, rust and anything with a lot of fine repeated texture. Metallic paint in particular drybrushes beautifully, because the flake catches the light on the edges it lands on.

Poor on: large smooth panels, faces, cloth with soft folds, and anything where you want a clean edge highlight. On a flat space marine shoulder pad, drybrushing leaves a visible dusty haze where a brushed edge highlight leaves a crisp line.

The practical approach: drybrush the textured areas, edge highlight the smooth ones. They are complementary techniques, not competing ones — see how to paint miniatures for beginners for where each sits in the sequence.

Why it destroys brushes, and which to sacrifice

Drybrushing works the bristles sideways against a hard surface with minimal lubrication. That splays the tip, and once splayed it does not come back. It also drives paint up into the ferrule, where it dries and forces the remaining bristles apart permanently.

So: never drybrush with sable, and never with a brush you use for detail. Use a dedicated stiff synthetic with short blunt bristles — they are cheap, they are designed to be consumed, and the stiffness genuinely works better. The drybrush roundup ranks them, and how to care for brushes explains the ferrule problem in detail.

Wash it the moment you finish, with brush soap rather than water alone. Water will not shift unthinned paint out of the ferrule.

Fixing an over-drybrushed model

It happens, and it is recoverable. A wash in a darker tone over the top knocks the chalky haze back and re-establishes the shadows — our wash picks cover which. If the haze is severe, re-base-coat the affected panel and start that area again; a second drybrush over the first only makes it worse.

The preventative version is simpler: two light passes instead of one heavy one, and check the model under your actual painting light between passes rather than afterwards.

Drybrushing is one of six techniques that cover almost every model; basic painting techniques shows where it sits relative to washing, layering and edge highlighting.