RAY LAROSE|MINIATURES
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New to this? Start here
Gold
4 steps
The basecoat, wash, highlight sequence most metal is built on.
Ultramarine Armour
4 steps
The same idea with an edge highlight, which is what makes armour read as armour.
Rust
3 steps
Stippling and drybrushing, and hard to get wrong.
Ork Flesh
9 steps
The whole ladder: a basecoat, two layers, a highlight, then glazes to blend it together.
Every miniature I have painted, with the paints and the steps to paint it again.
Paint Schemes
How I painted each model: the exact paints, the order they went on, and the finish they gave.
Before you start, and what the technique words mean
- Thin your paint
- Almost everything here goes on thinner than it comes out of the pot. Neat paint dries thick and fills in the detail you paid for. Add water a drop at a time on a palette until it runs somewhere between milk and heavy cream, depending on the brand, then build the colour up in two or three coats rather than one.
- Start on a primed model
- Unless a step says otherwise, every recipe here begins on a model that has already been primed - paint will not sit properly on bare plastic. Black unless the scheme says otherwise, which is what most of these were painted over.
- The same words mean two things
- Wash, shade and layer are both things you do and names Citadel puts on pots. The badge on a step is the action. The Type column in the paint list is which range the pot came from. A step badged "layer" is often painted with a Base paint, and that is not a mistake.
- basecoat
- The first solid colour over primer. Two thin coats beat one thick one.
- highlight
- A lighter colour on the parts that would catch the light.
- layer
- A slightly lighter colour over part of the coat below, leaving its edges showing.
- wash
- Thin, watery paint that runs into the recesses and shades the whole area at once.
- edge
- A highlight along a sharp edge only, painted with the side of the brush.
- shade
- Darker paint placed deliberately in the shadows rather than left to flow.
- glaze
- Heavily thinned paint over dry paint, to tint it and soften the join between two colours.
- stipple
- Dabbed on with the tip of the brush for a broken, rough, mottled surface.
- drybrush
- Almost-dry paint dragged across raised texture so it catches only the high points.
- blend
- Two colours worked into each other while both are wet, so there is no visible line.
- special
- Anything that is not one of the above. The step note says what it is.
Recipes
Methods I reuse across models - skin, metal, armour, cloth and the rest. Each step is one named paint, one technique and a note. Unless a step says otherwise, every recipe here starts on a primed model - the scheme that uses it usually says which colour.
Before you start, and what the technique words mean
- Thin your paint
- Almost everything here goes on thinner than it comes out of the pot. Neat paint dries thick and fills in the detail you paid for. Add water a drop at a time on a palette until it runs somewhere between milk and heavy cream, depending on the brand, then build the colour up in two or three coats rather than one.
- Start on a primed model
- Unless a step says otherwise, every recipe here begins on a model that has already been primed - paint will not sit properly on bare plastic. Black unless the scheme says otherwise, which is what most of these were painted over.
- The same words mean two things
- Wash, shade and layer are both things you do and names Citadel puts on pots. The badge on a step is the action. The Type column in the paint list is which range the pot came from. A step badged "layer" is often painted with a Base paint, and that is not a mistake.
- basecoat
- The first solid colour over primer. Two thin coats beat one thick one.
- highlight
- A lighter colour on the parts that would catch the light.
- layer
- A slightly lighter colour over part of the coat below, leaving its edges showing.
- wash
- Thin, watery paint that runs into the recesses and shades the whole area at once.
- edge
- A highlight along a sharp edge only, painted with the side of the brush.
- shade
- Darker paint placed deliberately in the shadows rather than left to flow.
- glaze
- Heavily thinned paint over dry paint, to tint it and soften the join between two colours.
- stipple
- Dabbed on with the tip of the brush for a broken, rough, mottled surface.
- drybrush
- Almost-dry paint dragged across raised texture so it catches only the high points.
- blend
- Two colours worked into each other while both are wet, so there is no visible line.
- special
- Anything that is not one of the above. The step note says what it is.
Paints Used
Steps
- 1basecoatGerman Field Grey (70.830)VallejoBased with two thin coatsArtis Opus Series S 3
- 2highlightGerman Field Grey (70.830)Vallejo + Sunny Skin Tone (70.845)Vallejo (2:1)Nice light highlight on just the upwards facing creasesArtis Opus Series S 1
- 3washAgrax EarthshadeCitadelMix with water - bottoms of coat to show wet / dampArtis Opus Series S 3
- 4highlightBrown Earth (26.219)VallejoStipple in mud splashArtis Opus Series S 3
Notes
Very quick and simple scheme - mud splash is quite effective.
Steps
- 1basecoatBold Pyrrole RedPro AcrylEntire brushArtis Opus Series S 3
- 2basecoatOrange RedPro AcrylTop half blended inArtis Opus Series S 3
- 3basecoatWarm YellowPro AcrylTipsArtis Opus Series S 3
Notes
Wet blending is easiest for this. Really pops.
Used in: Iron Warriors Infantry
Paint Inventory
The paints I actually own - every pot on my shelf, not a catalogue of what exists. This is what the schemes and recipes are painted with.
| Paint | Brand | Type | Hue | Used in |
|---|
Paint Conversion Chart
Citadel colours matched to their closest Vallejo, Pro Acryl and Two Thin Coats equivalents, by eye, over time. Nothing here is a measured colour match - the dots say how close each one really is.
Still filling this in: 8 of the 108 colours used in the recipes here have no row yet. Mostly Vallejo. A blank means not mapped, not that no equivalent exists.
How close the match is: near identical usable avoid
| Citadel | Vallejo | Pro Acryl | Two Thin Coats |
|---|