5 Miniature Painting Tips I Wish I Knew Earlier

I started painting miniatures about two years ago, and honestly, I had no idea how much I would learn along the way.

I started because of a game of Dungeons & Dragons. My friends had painted their miniatures, and I didn't just enjoy the game — I loved seeing what they had created.

So I started painting too.

Looking back, there are a few things that made a much bigger difference to my progress than I expected. These aren't rules you have to follow, and I'm definitely not saying there is only one way to paint miniatures.

They're simply five things I learned during my own journey that helped me enjoy the hobby more and improve along the way.

Painted tabletop miniature from Sem's miniature painting journey

1. Stop overthinking and just start painting

This is probably the most important one.

When I started painting, I naturally just picked up a miniature and started painting. I didn't spend ages thinking about which colour should go where or whether I was making the "right" decision.

But I noticed something interesting when I introduced other people to the hobby.

Some of them would get stuck before they had even really started.

They were thinking about which colours to use, where to begin, or what the miniature was supposed to look like. Instead of painting, they were trying to mentally create the perfect miniature first.

And that's difficult to do when you don't have much experience yet.

You simply don't have all the information.

I eventually realised that one of my strengths was being able to paint somewhat intuitively. That doesn't mean everything I paint works, or that I don't make mistakes. It just means I'm comfortable making a decision and seeing where it takes me.

That's something I think is worth developing.

Don't try to predict the perfect miniature before you paint it. Paint it, see what happens, and adjust from there.

Sometimes the best way to figure out what works is simply to put some paint on the miniature.

Miniature painter working on a tabletop miniature at a hobby desk

2. Learn how to actually use your brushes

For a while, I assumed that buying a set of brushes was basically the end of the story.

It wasn't.

My brushes started losing their tips and splitting surprisingly quickly. I was frustrated because I didn't really understand what I was doing wrong.

I didn't know enough about how to load a brush, how much paint to put on it, how to clean it properly, or how to take care of it during a painting session.

So I started watching videos about brush control and brush care.

I also bought some spare brushes of the same size. That way, if I managed to destroy one, I could simply grab another and continue painting.

But the funny thing was that once I actually learned how to handle and clean my brushes properly, I stopped destroying them nearly as quickly.

And that made painting much more enjoyable.

A brush with a good tip gives you much more control. Instead of fighting your tools, you can concentrate on the miniature itself.

So if your brushes constantly seem to lose their point, it might not simply be a problem with the brushes.

It might be worth looking at how you're loading, cleaning and handling them.

Kolinsky Sable brushes for precise miniature painting and fine details.

3. Don't cut corners on the tools that actually improve your workflow

I'm quite stubborn when it comes to buying hobby equipment.

Sometimes that's useful.

Sometimes it means I spend a year making things harder for myself.

One example was holding my miniatures directly with my fingers.

I would move my fingers around while painting and eventually realise that I'd accidentally scratched paint off parts of the miniature.

And not just one spot.

Usually several.

Eventually, I bought a miniature painting handle.

It immediately made holding the miniature more comfortable and made it easier to keep my fingers away from the areas I had already painted.

The other big change was a wet palette.

For a long time, I used a porcelain plate instead because I didn't want to spend the money on a wet palette.

That worked, technically.

But my paint would dry incredibly quickly, especially when I was painting outside during the summer.

I ended up wasting paint because I couldn't keep it workable for long enough.

When I finally bought a wet palette, it changed my workflow dramatically.

It made controlling my paint easier and gave me much more time to work with it, particularly when experimenting with things like glazing and blending.

Wet palette on a hobby desk

I don't think beginners need to buy every miniature painting tool immediately. If you're not even sure whether you'll enjoy the hobby, there's nothing wrong with starting simple.

But once you know you're enjoying miniature painting, don't automatically assume that avoiding every hobby tool is saving you money.

Sometimes the right tool simply makes the hobby more enjoyable.

4. Get uncomfortable and try techniques you don't understand yet

At some point, simply painting miniatures wasn't enough for me anymore.

I wanted to understand techniques like layering and blending.

And I struggled with it.

A lot.

I watched YouTube videos and kept wondering what I was missing. Other painters seemed to create these beautiful transitions between colours, while I couldn't understand why mine weren't working.

Eventually, I realised that part of the problem was patience.

When working with glazes, you need to let previous layers dry before going over them again. If you rush the process, you can disturb the layer underneath instead of gradually building up the transition.

And it wasn't something I understood immediately.

I had to try it, fail at it, watch more videos, and keep experimenting before it started to make sense.

Once it did click, though, my painting changed noticeably.

Miniature showing layered colour transitions from miniature painting

That's something I've learned repeatedly since then:

Sometimes the technique isn't the problem. You just haven't given yourself enough time to understand it yet.

Trying something you're currently bad at can be frustrating, but it's also where a lot of progress happens.

5. Eventually, learn why your miniature works

This was probably the biggest shift in my painting.

After about a year and a half of painting, I had learned quite a few techniques.

But I started asking myself a different question:

Why am I doing this?

I could paint shadows, midtones and highlights. I could try different techniques. But I didn't always understand why some of my miniatures looked better than others.

That curiosity pushed me towards things like hue, saturation, value and contrast.

Instead of simply asking:

"How do I paint this?"

I started asking:

"Why does this look the way it does?"

That distinction made a huge difference for me.

You can learn techniques without understanding the underlying principles. But once you start understanding things like value and contrast, you can make more deliberate decisions about where you want the viewer's attention to go.

A miniature can have technically clean paintwork and still feel flat.

Contrast, colour relationships and the separation between shadows, midtones and highlights can change how the entire miniature reads.

Color wheel with different color theories

For me, this was the point where miniature painting started feeling like more than simply putting paint onto a three-dimensional object.

I started thinking more about how to make the miniature feel alive.

And that's a much more interesting rabbit hole to fall into.

You don't need to follow these rules

These five lessons aren't rules for miniature painting.

They're simply things that helped me during my own journey:

• Don't overthink every decision.

• Learn how to properly handle and care for your brushes.

• Invest in tools that genuinely improve your workflow.

• Try techniques that are currently outside your comfort zone.

• Eventually, start asking why your painting works, not just how to do it.

You don't need to understand all of this before you start painting.

In fact, I think that's part of what makes miniature painting so much fun.

You paint something.

You make mistakes.

You discover something new.

Then you try it again on the next miniature.

And somewhere along the way, you look back at an older model and realise just how much you've improved.

That's been my experience so far, and I'm still figuring things out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBo6MMS40UM&t=2s

That's the whole Fatalquest for me: keep painting, keep experimenting, and see where it takes you. 🎨

info@fatalquest.com

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