Base, Layer, Shade and Contrast Explained

Why the names exist at all

The paint type names are not marketing. They describe genuinely different formulations — different pigment loads, different mediums, different intended film thickness — aimed at the specific steps of painting a miniature. Once you know what the steps are, the names become obvious.

The confusion comes from the fact that each brand names them differently while making broadly the same products. Citadel’s terms are the ones everyone uses, because Citadel’s terms are the ones in the tutorials, so those are the names used here.

Base — the opaque workhorse

High pigment load, thick out of the pot, designed to cover primer in a single thin coat. This is the range you will empty fastest, because every model needs its main colors basecoated and basecoating uses more paint than anything else.

Use it for: the main colors of the model. Armor, cloth, skin, metal.

Buy: four or five, in your scheme’s colors. These are the pots worth paying Citadel prices for if your scheme is bright, because opacity is where the premium is real.

Layer — the highlight

Thinner, less pigmented and slightly translucent. Meant to be applied over a basecoat on raised areas so the color underneath still influences it. That translucency is the point: a highlight that completely hides the basecoat looks like a stripe, not a highlight.

Use it for: edge highlights, raised surfaces, the second tone of a color.

Buy: one or two, in lighter versions of your main colors. A Layer is the paint that makes edge highlighting possible, and edge highlighting is the technique that most changes how a model reads from across a table.

Shade — the one you cannot skip

Pre-thinned, flow-enhanced, low-tension paint designed to run off raised areas and pool in recesses. Other brands call it a wash or an ink; it is the same thing.

This is the type that makes a model look finished, and it is the type beginners most often leave out of their first purchase. A basecoated model with no shade looks like a toy; the same model after one shade looks painted. Nothing else in the hobby produces that much improvement that fast.

Buy: two — one warm brown and one neutral black. The wash roundup covers which, and why you need both rather than one.

Contrast — a different route, not an extra step

Transparent, heavily pigmented, in a medium that pools in recesses. Over a light primer it does the Base and the Shade in one pass.

The important thing to understand is that Contrast is an alternative to Base plus Shade, not an addition to them. You do not basecoat and then Contrast. You prime light and Contrast straight onto it.

Use it for: getting an army finished. It is the single biggest time saving available to a new painter.

Constraint: it needs a light primer and will do almost nothing over black. Army Painter’s Speedpaint is the direct competitor — the comparison is here, and Contrast in detail goes deeper.

Technical and Dry — the two you can skip

Technical is a catch-all for special-effect products: texture pastes for bases, blood effects, crackle mediums, gloss and matte varnishes. Genuinely useful individually, and none of them is a step in painting a model. Buy a texture paste when you get to basing; ignore the rest until you want a specific effect.

Dry is a very thick, low-moisture paint formulated for drybrushing. It works, and it is an expensive way to buy a convenience: any Layer paint left to dry slightly on a palette does the same job. If you drybrush constantly it is a small time saving. Otherwise, skip it and read drybrushing instead.

The minimum set, by type

That is nine or ten pots, which is why a twelve-to-sixteen paint starter set is good value. The full arithmetic, with what each pot is for, is in how many paints to start with.