Painting miniatures is a good, chill time. Since I picked the hobby back up in 2017 Ive spent hundreds of hours away from my screens, listening to good music and great podcasts. And, as a bonus, I have dozens upon dozens of smartly painted little miniatures for all my favorite games. If youd also like to add an artsy little oasis to your life, one that can bring a bit of meditative joy to your free time while also adding beautiful bits to your favorite board games and role-playing games, youve come to the right place. It can be daunting to build up the skills and tools you need to get started, but our guide can show you how.In this article, I hope to demystify those first few steps beginning painters need to take. Below youll find my personal recommendations, not just of the paints and other tools youll want to buy, but a handful of carefully curated teachers and artists Ive come to trust over the last seven years of exploring. Lets dive in.Which miniatures should you buy?There are so many different kinds of miniatures on the market that just narrowing things down to a handful of choices can be difficult work. My recommendation is to start with one of your favorite games or subjects.Maybe youre really into dungeon-crawling board games like HeroQuest, Zombicide, Frosthaven, or Descent: Legends of the Dark. Maybe youre more into strategy games, like Scythe or Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition. Or maybe youre curious about miniatures skirmish games, titles like Star Wars Shatterpoint, Halo: Flashpoint, Necromunda, Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team, or Trench Crusade. Wherever your interests lie, start with a game or a universe you really enjoy and that bit of passion you feel in your gut will help to get you across the finish line with your first batch of painted minis.But dont start off by plopping down hundreds or thousands of dollars on a big army for Warhammer 40,000, or any other large-scale miniatures wargame for that matter. Piling up too much plastic on your desk before you even have the basics under your belt is a surefire way to get discouraged.Just a handful of minis is enough to get you where youre going, so start small and build from there.AssemblyWhile choosing your first small passion project, consider if youd like to spend any time at all assembling those miniatures before you paint them because you dont actually need to. Plenty of miniatures are sold preassembled these days especially ones that come with hobby board games. Other options include The Witcher and the Cyberpunk Red lines from Monster Fight Club, as well as the huge new range of plastic miniatures for Catalyst Game Labs BattleTech. WizKids also offers a huge selection of preassembled miniatures, including a wide variety of miniatures custom-made for D&D. Some even come primed and ready to paint right out of the box.Note that even if you arent assembling your miniatures, youll still need a simple self-healing cutting mat to protect your work surface.When selecting miniatures that you do need to put together, Id recommend avoiding metal and resin miniatures out of the gate. Both of these materials require different tools to assemble, which wont be covered at all in this guide. Stick with plastic miniatures your first time out. Plastic minis will likely come on a sprue the plastic frame that holds them safely inside the box for shipment. To gently remove each piece, youll need a pair of cutting pliers called sprue nippers. Sprue nippers look a bit like scissors, but with one flat side and one angled side. Unlike scissors, the edges of these blades should never overlap if they do, youre simply squeezing them too hard.To use sprue nippers correctly, carefully place the nippers with the flat edge touching the surface of the miniature youd like to clip from the sprue. Then, gently pull the two halves together until the piece comes free. Repeat for every point of connection between the model and the sprue to free the piece entirely. Never twist pieces free from the sprue, as you can severely damage them.Once you have all the pieces needed to assemble a given miniature trimmed from the sprue, you need to clean those pieces off. The goal is to remove whatever remnants of the sprue are still attached, which you can easily do with a hobby knife and a flexible sanding pad sort of like an emory board, but for plastic models.Youll also want to remove something called mold lines which youll nearly always find somewhere on a plastic miniature, even if it comes pre-assembled.To make a plastic miniature, two halves of a metal mold are brought together and hot plastic is pressed in between them. Sometimes the plastic seeps out where the two halves of the mold meet, creating unsightly ribbons of plastic called mold lines, and several different tools can be used to remove them.A hobby knife is the most common tool used to remove mold lines, as they are incredibly sharp. But they can lead to damaging your miniatures. A better tool for beginners is the Citadel Mouldline Remover. You can use its firm, sharp edges to scrape off the mold lines rather than cut them. Youll also want a small, soft brush like a toothbrush to clean those areas when youre done.Now that youve got all the bits of your miniature trimmed out and cleaned, its time to glue them together. Always check with the manufacturer of your plastic models to be sure, but more often than not you wont be using super glue youll be using plastic cement.Plastic cement is a solvent that literally melts the plastic that your miniature is made of, creating a permanent bond that will weld its various pieces together. Considering this, you will want to be very precise and delicate with how you apply it. I recommend Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. The brush applicator makes it easy to use just the right amount of glue, while the low-viscosity formula allows you to easily flow the glue into gaps and then gently sand or cut away the excess when it dries.Assembly shopping listPrimerPaint wont stick to bare plastic, so before you start painting, youll need to prepare your miniatures with a special kind of paint called a primer. A primer will stick to bare plastic, and it will create a rough surface that will be easier for you to paint on. The most common way to prime miniatures is with canned spray paint. Just about anything that you can find at the local hardware store will do, but be sure to read the label to make sure its safe to apply on plastic. Also, avoid enamel and other oil-based primers as they can be hard to clean up.Ive personally had the most experience with Citadel and The Army Painter primers, and both will do a decent job. They are, however, extraordinarily expensive something like four times as much as comparable paint at the hardware store. Thats why lately Ive just been going with Rust-Oleum. Something to consider later on in your painting journey is the color for your primer coat. The other paints youll be using arent perfectly opaque, so some of that primer will ultimately show through and impact the overall color and tone of your miniature. Stick with black your first time around, as that will give you an even base layer to work from.Youll also want to invest in some gloves, to keep your hands free of paint while spraying. Also, priming with a rattle can should always be done outdoors to protect your eyes and lungs, and you should closely adhere to the guidelines posted on your can of primer.Most cans of spray paint dont work upside down, and will work poorly if you even tilt them on their side, so to help you get into every nook and cranny on your miniature youll want something on which to mount your miniature. You cant go wrong with a paint mixing stick (free at most hardware stores) covered in masking tape, unrolled sticky side out. Just stick your minis on and go. Just be sure youre painting in an open, well-ventilated area and apply thin, even coats of paint. To avoid runny, drippy coats of paint you should both depress and release the trigger on your spray can while the stream of paint is not pointed at a model.Alternatively, a painting handle like the Citadel Painting Handle can make cleanup much easier, and help conserve paint.Primer shopping listPaintThe next big decision youll need to make is which line of paints to begin purchasing. For beginners, we recommend starting with acrylic paints that wash up with water. Oil-based paints are great, especially for weathering and other effects, but water-based acrylic is a lot more forgiving when youre just getting started and theres no fumes to speak of. So what brand of acrylic hobby paint should you get? My recommendation is to swing by your local hobby shop and see what theyve got in good supply. That way when you run low on something, or want to try a new color, youll have options that are compatible with the work youve already done. But if you have your choice in the matter, we recommend Two Thin Coats paint. Designed by former Games Workshop presenter Duncan Rhodes, and manufactured by Trans Atlantis Games, these paints are based on the common hues found in the Citadel range but feature more consistency from pot-to-pot. They also come in a dropper bottle with a stainless steel mixing ball inside two features that Citadel paints lack.Before you go any further, youll also need to understand that whatever paint you buy is not going to be ready to go onto your model straight out of the pot. Instead, youll need to thin your paints. Rhodes, who still presents on YouTube, does a great job of explaining why and showing how.Other kinds of paintWashesWashes are a kind of thin paint, designed to run into the recesses on your miniature. These will give depth and nuance to your models, especially the areas with lots of texture and shadow. Washes are applied on top of layer paints once the previous layers are dry. Washes tend to pool up, and youll use your brush to position these pools where you want them on your model. Washes are manufactured by just about every company that makes layer paints, including Two Thin Coats, Citadel (Games Workshop), The Army Painter, Vallejo, and others.Contrast paintThe newest kind of paints available on the market are called contrast paints, named after the progenitors of the type Citadel Contrast Paints.Contrast paints are used like layer paints, but behave like washes. Youll need a bigger, fatter brush to use contrast paints in most settings. Contrast paints are applied in neat, even coats. Multiple coats build up additional opacity, deepening the tone of the color. When thinned, however, contrast paints can often be used just like a wash.Note that while layer paints have some variance in how they can be thinned, mixed, and applied to models, contrast paints vary wildly in their consistency. Most notably, they often dont look anything like they do in the bottle once theyve dried on your model. So while contrast paints can be an expedient way to paint especially if youre using the slapchop method mentioned below they also take a little bit of practice to get comfortable with.Contrast-style paints are available from Citadel (Games Workshop), The Army Painter, and Vallejo.Paint shopping listBrushesThere are a number of different styles that you can use to paint your miniatures, and they tend toinvolve different brushes. Here well discuss layer painting in detail, touch on drybrushing, and discuss the newest style a hybrid known as slapchop. Youll find links below to starter brushes that will be compatible with each.Layer paintingThe most traditional method of painting miniatures uses base layers and highlight layers, applied with small brushes, to build up detail on a miniature. Those surfaces are generally painted from the bottom up, meaning that painters are working with the deepest layers of detail on the miniature and working their way to the topmost layers. The finer the work, the more variation and gradation between and within those layers.For instance, if I was painting a knight in armor I would paint his padding first, then his chainmail coat, and then the plates of polished steel on top of that. I would start each layer by blocking out the areas I need to separate them from the layers below, neatening up the edges with other colors as I go.As I work on each new layer, I might use just one or two paints, or perhaps several different techniques like glazing or drybrushing, or different kinds of paints like washes and contrast paints in different ways. Different techniques like stippling, glazing, and non-metallic metal shading (discussed below) can even be used to simulate different materials.Layer painting is the style most commonly seen in Kickstarter campaigns for high-end board games and in the lavish miniature wargames produced by companies like Games Workshop and others. Its also one of the most commonly taught methods of painting, since the same skills apply regardless of how many layers there are or how detailed those layers might be.Because layer painting is so popular, tutorials are easy to come by online. I found my way using Games Workshop tutorials almost exclusively for the first few years. Just about every model that the British company makes has its own tutorial multiples, in fact, to include the color schemes for each of its different factions. Theyre currently divided into two levels of difficulty: Battle Ready and Parade Ready. You can find them all on YouTube and in the Citadel Colour mobile app.Edge highlightingWhile there are many different techniques that go into layer painting, one of the most important is called edge highlighting. This involves taking a relatively full brush and using it to draw thin lines along the edge of a model. Merely the presence of a thin, bright line by itself gives the geometry of a miniature more definition and volume. But you can also add depth and flash by painting multiple lines, each one thinner than the last, using progressively brighter, sharper colors. Its a subtle, versatile technique that applies just as well to military models and mechs as it does to faces and flesh.There are a bunch of tutorials that can teach you more about edge highlighting. Here are just a few to get you started.Miniac: Edge HighlightingSquidmar Miniatures: Edge HighlightingDrybrushingDrybrushing is a common technique used in layer painting alongside edge highlighting, and in that context its not much of a big deal. Just get a brush, put some paint on it, then wipe nearly all of that paint off. Drag that dry brush against the sharper details on your miniature and voila, off comes the paint. Its like edge highlighting, but a bit softer and over a larger area.But you can also use the technique to paint your models start to finish, using little or no layer painting techniques along the way. This method has been popularized by a company called Artis Opus. Its signature style of painting relies on big, poofy, makeup-style brushes and a specially textured palette. While beginners will have more success with larger models, including terrain, it can also be combined with layer painting for smaller miniatures as well.Artis Opus video tutorials are tremendous, and include everything from painting large pieces of terrain to smaller figures to caring for these large, unique brushes.SlapchopThe last style of painting that well deal with in this guide is called slapchop, named after a mostly satirical video by The Honest Wargamer that helped to popularize the style in 2022. While they clearly set out to take the piss out of over-serious painting videos and YouTube hobby gurus in general, they accidentally made a decent little tutorial of their own. Heres how it works.Slapchop is a hybrid of both drybrushing and layer painting. It begins with a black primer, and then a thick drybrush of white paint over the top. The secret here is that the white paint is applied directionally, with the intent to preserve areas that would be shaded by a natural light source.Imagine a black baseball cap. To prepare that black baseball cap for slapchop, youd hit it hard with a white drybrush from the top. The imagined sun (the white paint) would be hitting the top, while the imagined shadow (the black paint) is hiding under the brim.Once youve established a monochromatic, fully shaded model, slapchop uses the transparency of contrast paints (Citadel Contrast, Army Painter Speedpaints, and others) to its advantage. A single, relatively thick coat of paint over a given area will be more intense over white, and less intense over black. Just slap on the base colors that you want, and you get shading and blending for free, essentially, thanks to the high-contrast black-and-white undercoat. You can leave it there, or glam it up with washes, glazing, stippling or even more drybrushing.Paintbrush shopping listProtecting your miniaturesOnce youve finished a miniature, you need to protect it from damage using a clear varnish. Varnishes can be applied with a brush as a thin, all-over coat. They are also available in cans and can be applied through an airbrush. Two thin coats will do in most situations. Choosing either a gloss varnish or a matte varnish will change the look and feel of your miniature, so plan accordingly.Varnishes can also be used in between stages of painting, effectively saving your work from damage before you move on. These clear varnishes are essential when working with other kinds of paint as well, including enamel and oil-based paint.Its also important to consider how and where you want to store your miniatures. Some plastic inserts can damage your paint work, so be careful when placing minis back into the box.For displaying your miniatures, consider clear plastic or glass boxes.Additional painting techniquesThere are a bunch of additional techniques that you can use to supplement your chosen style. Here are just a few of my favorites, presented by trusted sources and available for free on YouTube. You can also check out my other guide on airbrush basics.Caring for your brushesFilling gaps in your modelZenithal highlightingStipplingGlazingNon-metallic metalsApplying decalsWinterdyne Commission Modeling Blog guide to Waterslide DecalsAppendixWeve mentioned several times that contrast-style paints can be deceptive in how theyll actually look on your model. Below youll find a fan-created color guide for various contrast paints applied on top of various surfaces.Citadel and other contrast-style paint swatchesSometimes you cant quite find the right color at the local shop, and you cant wait for it to ship from an online retailer. Thats when you need to consider using a different brand of paint. The chart linked below can help you find compatible colors across multiple ranges.Dakka Dakka paint range compatibility chart (for swapping colors between brands)Of course, this is far from an exhaustive list and leaves out many other common techniques including airbrushing. Nevertheless, its a good place to start and should keep you busy for months, if not years.If you have a favorite painting trick, tutorial, or tutor, be sure to mention them in the comments below.