How to Paint Miniatures: The Whole Process

Before you start: the three things that cause most bad first models

Not skill. These:

Unprimed plastic. Acrylic paint on bare plastic beads up, goes on patchy and rubs off with handling. Priming is the step people skip, and it is not optional — here is why.

Paint straight from the pot. Undiluted hobby paint goes on thick, fills the detail that made you buy the model, and dries with visible brush marks. It is usually done because thinned paint kept drying mid-session, which a wet palette fixes.

Painting in bad light. You cannot paint what you cannot see, and one ceiling bulb puts the model in your own hand shadow. Two lamps at 45 degrees — see the lamp guide.

Stage 1: primer

Primer gives paint a mechanical key and unifies the color of a model that may be gray plastic, clear plastic and resin at once.

Grey is the right default for a first army: black gives you free shadows and makes every light color a fight, white does the reverse, gray sits in the middle. If you intend to use contrast or speedpaint-style paints, a light primer is a requirement rather than a preference.

Spray outdoors in dry weather, or brush on / airbrush indoors. The complete decision is in the primer picks, and if you have no outdoor space, priming indoors covers it.

Stage 2: thinning, which is the actual skill

More first-model problems trace back to paint consistency than to brush control.

Put a blob on the palette, add a little water or medium, and mix until the paint runs off the brush rather than clinging to it — roughly the consistency of skim milk. It should flow into detail, not sit on top of it. Then do two coats, because thinned paint is translucent and that is the trade you are making.

The full technique, including how to tell “too thin” from “just right”, is in how to thin miniature paint.

Stage 3: basecoats

Block in each area with its base color. Work largest-to-smallest — armor, then cloth, then leather, then metal — so you are correcting small mistakes over big areas rather than the reverse.

Two practical habits. Load the brush by drawing it across the palette so the tip stays pointed (not by dunking it, which floods the ferrule and ruins good brushes). And let each coat dry before the next — painting onto a tacky coat lifts it.

Stage 4: the wash, the stage that does the most work

A wash is a very thin, dark, flowing paint. Brushed over a basecoated model, it runs into every recess and dries darker there than on the raised surfaces.

That is instant shadow on an entire model in about two minutes. A basecoated model looks like a toy; the same model after a wash looks painted. Nothing else in the hobby gives that return for that effort, which is why a brown wash is on every recommendation list ever written.

Apply it where you want shadow rather than flooding the whole model, and keep a clean damp brush handy to pull excess out of flat areas before it dries.

Stage 5: highlights

Shadow came free from the wash. Highlights are where you add the light, and there are two beginner-friendly methods.

Drybrushing. Load a stiff brush with a lighter tone, wipe almost all of it off onto a paper towel, then sweep the nearly dry brush across the model so pigment catches only the raised edges. Fast, forgiving, and superb on chainmail, fur, stone and anything textured.

Edge highlighting. A thin line of lighter paint painted along the specific edges that would catch light from above. Slower, needs a brush that holds a point, and crisper on armor plates and hard surfaces.

Start with drybrushing. Add edge highlighting on your fifth or sixth model, when your hand is steadier and you know what you are highlighting.

Stage 6: details and the base

Eyes, lenses, gems, metal trim, parchment, insignia. Tiny areas, disproportionate impact — and the stage where the handle and good light earn their money.

Then the base. A plain black-rimmed base with some texture and a drybrush takes five minutes and is the difference between a painted model and a finished one. Beginners routinely spend four hours on a model and leave it on bare gray plastic.

Stage 7: seal it

A thin matte topcoat once everything is cured. Gaming models need it; cabinet pieces are optional. The reasoning and the frosting warning are in do you need to seal miniatures.

What to expect from your first model

It will be worse than the box art and better than you fear, and the fifth one will be noticeably better than the first. That improvement comes from finishing models, not from perfecting one — a finished mediocre model teaches you more than an unfinished good one.

So: pick a model you do not care about, follow the seven stages, seal it, and start the next. If you want the shopping side of this, it is in your first army shopping list, and the mistakes to dodge are in beginner mistakes.