ImpendingDuff is here to up our painting skill with a quick tutorial on how to paint distressed leather on miniatures!
ImpendingDuff may be somewhat new here, but he’s actually been doing this for a while now. He does great painting tutorials and is definitely worth checking out.
This week he has a solid tutorial for anyone looking to paint their leather looking more realistic and not so new for their miniatures! This is part of his new quick tips series, which focuses on one or two small things each time to up your painting game. Check it out!
How to Paint Distressed Leather on Miniatures: ImpendingDuff Tutorial
Here’s the mini we’ll be starting with today. He started with Monument’s Dark Umber for the base coat here, he did it with a brush, but you can also do it with the airbrush.
Step #1
He starts by taking Light Umber and does a stipple with a big dry brush. He tries to not get too much into the recesses to mess up the shadows. Once there is almost no paint left on the brush, do a light dry brush here. Now, he mixes Golden Brown and Light Umber on the brush and lets it mix on the paper towel. Now, he does a more focused stipple here on the more raised edges.
Step #2
Here we’re going to add dings to the leather . He really waters down a light brown (almost to a glaze) here and as lightly as you can, add in some superficial scratches, just wherever you feel it needs it. Just be sure to stay away from patterns as they will look off. Just try to make them as random as you can and really try to control your brush.
Now he’s going to add a final bright highlight on this. You could leave it at the step above before glazing but he’s going to the next level. He uses Olive Flesh for this stage and again waters it down a lot. He just does a super focused highlight here on the raised areas, but not everywhere to give it a beat-up look.
Step #3
Once dry, he does a glaze to pull it all together. The colors he uses are Transparent Yellow, Transparent Brown, and Transparent Black. He mixes these all for his glaze with about 4 parts brown to about 2 parts yellow to 1 part black. You can just use a brown glaze here, but he likes this mix better.
If you haven’t glazed before, check out this tutorial on it here! He pretty much goes over the entire cloak here to really blend everything together. If you want to go to the next step, you can do a second glaze.
That’s pretty much it for this one. Just a fast and easy way for how to paint distressed leather on miniatures to make them look a tad more realistic.
If you liked this feature, be sure to check out his channel for more great tutorials!
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
