Paint Finishes & Ranges

Miniature paint ranges are split into different finishes, each designed for a specific stage of the painting process. Understanding what each finish does will help you pick the right paint for the job, whether you're blocking in base colours, building up highlights, or adding weathering effects.

Base

Base paints have high pigment density and strong opacity, designed to cover primer in one or two coats. They're the foundation of most paint jobs. If you're starting a model, you'll almost always reach for a base paint first.

Available in

• •Citadel Base - 48 paints. The go-to starter range for Warhammer painters. Thick, opaque, and designed to work over Citadel spray primers.
• •Vallejo Game Color - 129 paints across base, metallic, shade, and technical finishes. The base colours in this range serve the same purpose as Citadel Base.
• •Army Painter Warpaints Primer - 8 spray primers that double as your base coat. Apply straight from the can for a smooth, even foundation.

Layer

Layer paints are thinner and slightly more transparent than base paints. They're made for building up highlights and painting fine details over your base coat. You'll typically apply these in thin coats to gradually build colour intensity.

Available in

• •Citadel Layer - 92 paints. The largest Citadel range, covering every highlight colour you'd need.
• •Citadel Dry - 21 paints. Formulated with a thicker consistency specifically for drybrushing. Technically a layer-type finish optimised for a specific technique.

Shade / Wash

Shades (also called washes) are thin, highly pigmented paints that flow into recesses and panel lines. They add depth and definition with minimal effort. Often called "liquid talent" because a single wash over a base coat can make a model look dramatically better.

Available in

• •Citadel Shade - 19 paints. Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade are probably the two most-used paints in all of Warhammer.
• •Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic Wash - 26 washes including both matte and metallic options.
• •Army Painter Quickshade Washes - 5 classic washes. The original Army Painter wash set.
• •Vallejo Game Color - Includes shade finishes within the broader Game Color range.

Contrast / Speedpaint

Contrast-style paints combine base coat, shade, and highlight in a single application. You paint them over a light primer (usually white or a zenithal) and the paint pools in recesses while staying translucent on raised areas. They're brilliant for batch painting or getting armies table-ready quickly.

Available in

• •Citadel Contrast - 61 paints. The original contrast range. Works best over Wraithbone or Grey Seer primers.
• •Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 - 82 paints. Army Painter's answer to Contrast, with the 2.0 formula fixing the reactivation issues from the original Speedpaints.

Air

Air paints come pre-thinned for use with an airbrush. They flow through the nozzle without clogging and lay down smooth, even coats. If you own an airbrush, these save you the hassle of thinning regular paints yourself. They're especially useful for basecoating vehicles, laying down gradients, and zenithal priming.

Available in

• •Vallejo Model Air - 223 paints. The largest airbrush range in our database. Widely considered the gold standard for airbrush paints.
• •Army Painter Warpaints Air - 97 paints. Colour-matched to the standard Warpaints range, so you can basecoat with an airbrush and detail with a regular brush using the same colours.
• •Citadel Air - 8 paints. A small range, mostly metallics and technical colours. Most Citadel painters thin the regular Base and Layer paints for airbrush use instead.

Matte

Matte paints dry with a flat, non-reflective finish. This is the standard finish for most miniature paints and gives your models a natural, realistic look. Most general-purpose acrylic miniature paints fall into this category.

Available in

• •Vallejo Model Color - 161 paints. A huge range of matte colours originally designed for historical modellers, now widely used for all kinds of miniatures.
• •Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic - 145 paints. The latest generation of Army Painter's core paint line with improved formula and dropper bottles.
• •Army Painter Warpaints - 75 paints. The original Warpaints range, still widely available.
• •Colourforge Spray - 30 spray paints with a matte finish, great for priming and basecoating in one step.

Metallic

Metallic paints contain fine metal flakes that reflect light, giving a shiny, metallic appearance. Used for weapons, armour, gold trim, and anything that needs to look like actual metal. They're available across nearly every brand and range, usually alongside the standard colours.

Available in

• •Metallics appear across most ranges. You'll find them in Citadel Base, Layer, and Air, Vallejo Model Air and Game Color, Army Painter Warpaints Fanatic, and others. Use the search with the type filter set to "Metallic" to find them all.

Technical

Technical paints are specialty products that create specific effects. This includes texture paints for basing (like Citadel's crackle earth and sand textures), blood effects, rust effects, and other special finishes. They're not regular paints you'd use to colour a surface, but tools for adding particular visual effects.

Available in

• •Citadel Technical - 21 paints including Blood for the Blood God, Nihilakh Oxide, and various texture paints.
• •Vallejo Game Color - Includes technical finishes within the range for effects and washes.

Gloss

Gloss paints dry with a shiny, reflective surface. In miniature painting, gloss finishes are niche but useful for specific effects like wet-looking blood, gemstones, visors, or slimy surfaces. Most painters will also use a gloss varnish as a protective coat before applying decals or oil washes.

Available in

• •Citadel Technical - 4 gloss paints, including 'Ardcoat (a gloss varnish) and gloss shades.

Brand Overview

Here's a quick summary of what each brand brings to the table:

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