Squidmar is back with another tutorial covering five techniques every beginner needs for painting miniatures!
Squidmar’s channel is rapidly growing due to his great tutorials ranging from full-scale models to tips, even to practical physics! Painting can be hard when you’re just starting out, these techniques will make getting your army done that much easier. Even if you’ve been painting for a while now, we’re sure you can learn something as well!
If you want to check out his more advanced tutorials, go see them out here. Let’s check out these techniques!
Five Techniques Every Beginner Needs: Miniatures Tutorial
He’s assuming you already have two things to start this video. You have the mini primed and you have a wet palette. He’s done a video on how to use a wet palette already, but you can pick one up here if you need it.
#1: Base Coating
The base coat seems simple but it’s the foundation for the whole mini. When putting on base coats, he goes fast and uses a big brush, it doesn’t really matter what kind of brush you use, just get it on fast. If you’re using a wet palette you may need to do two coats to make it thick enough. Just get good coverage here and really lay down the foundation for the rest of the paint job.
#2: Layering
The most common way of using your brush and adding highlights to your minis. Layering is just adding more layers on top of your base coat. He adds a base mid-tone and highlight on his wet palette. Then he mixes them together into tones in between all of the original three. Moving from the darkest to the lightest color adding layers after each one is dry. Just move up in color gradually without rushing any step.
This gets a really good look without having to use an airbrush. This is the most used technique and can really speed up your painting when you get good at it.
#3: Wet Blending
This technique is perfect to make a transition between two different colors. You need to be fast with this technique because acrylics dry quickly. To start, get both colors on the mini and then start mixing them together over the area and be fearless! Just have an idea of where you want each color to start and end before you start.
He recommends putting a lot of paint on your brush to start and keep the brush moving fast the whole time.
#4: Drybrushing
Drybrushing is a great technique for every level of painting. It can add highlights quickly and bring out the details of the mini. It is better to do this with a dry brush made for it since it will destroy normal brushes. Load up a lot of paint onto your brush, then dry most of the paint off. Then just start hitting the area you want to be highlighted.
The biggest thing to note here, is you have to make sure the brush is very dry. If you have too much paint it will leave splotches and big areas of paint.
#5: Edge Highlighting
Be selective here, because while this can make minis pop, it can make them look cartoony if you do too much. As the name shows, you use the edge of your brush and not the tip. Get paint on the brush and then wipe off the very top of it. Then apply it to the tops of the highlight with the edge of your brush. This will really make the mini pop when done right.
That does it for this quick rundown of the 5 techniques! Give them a try and he’ll break down some more advanced techniques later on.
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Squidmar Miniatures is a great place to learn all kinds of painting techniques! Be sure to subscribe to Squidmar Miniatures YouTube channel for more tutorials.
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!
