Layering is the most prominent and basic miniature painting technique. It has many forms and at its core it is very very simple. This guide is for beginners to see how they can push their layering to its maximum potential and its many forms.

Layering at its core is the fundamental painting technique. Everyone layers their paints. And as its fundamental, many brush it of as simple. It is simple, but it can be pushed to be very complex and intrigue. All the hardship is in brush loading, application pressure and in paint consistency. Mastering layering means mastering the act of painting it self. We focus on the craft and not in the art in this blog.

Layering comes to life in proper application of light on the subject. This is a very complex subject, and I will not be covering that much on this guide. As it is the art part of layering/painting.

Layering is in its simplest form putting paint over one another. Thats it blog over, roll the credits.

(LOL)

Loading your brush

You load your brush with paint from the palette by dipping it into the paint that is already thinned to your need. If you have a wet palette, the moisture seeping through from the paper may be enough to thin your paint. Only about half way if you need much paint. Only the tip if you don’t need much. Now you wick away the excess to a damp paper and at the same time you roll your brush to form the tip to a sharp point. Remember to use gentle pressure to push the paint out and it also helps to create the tip.

That is about it really.

You can use pipettes to drop water, or any thinners or mediums, next to your paints on the palette.

Paint consistency

Paint consistency is the key for success with layering. We can use water, some mediums, retarder, flow improver to thin our paints, I will be calling these thinners. You don’t have to use all of these at every point. I usually use Glaze medium and water only. Every paint is different and there is somewhat of a learning curve with every colour and paint brand. Be patient and experiment. Practice on cheap models or on sheet of plastic. Muscle memory and mastery comes only from prolonged practise. You need to but the hours in and also sleep on it.

Remember that thinning is not the same as killing opacity! Sometimes we might want keep the paint thick, and not as opaque. If I mean medium that doesn’t thin, I will use the term medium.

Base coating the model is a starting step of layering. And here we usually use the thickest paint as we (usually) want opaqueness over subtleness. Its a game of chicken. You paint as heavy consistency as you can stomach with, but trying not to clog detail or leave brush marks. Thats it, brush away.

The more you add thinners, the more flowy, watery and not opaque it becomes. With more liquid paint you need to load your brush more correctly. More on that later. You want these semi opaque layers to still leave an imprint on the model. As we are not glazing at this point yet

To create a glaze or velatura, I recommend to use both thinners and medium. There is no exact recipe to give you. But start about 1:10 mixture of paint to thinners and mediums and experiment from there. Some mono pigment paints are transparent by nature. They can be painted quite heavily even when glazing. They will create a stronger filter that way, but you can create grater subtleness if you thin them to obscurity. This will take a lot of time as you need to paint tens of layers to create any noticeable difference. Remember that glazes and velaturas should not pool in to droplets. They also should dry in 5 second of paint them on. If you do a thick glaze with transparent pigmented paint, it will of course dry slower than the super thinned out version of paint.

Layering

Now we might want a transition of colours on the same plane of the model. We can put an another base coat over the last with the other end of transitions colour. This way we have the end points of the transitions mapped out. You can do this with the middle steps too. Remember to not go fully over the previous layer. As many times as you want. More steps, more smoothness of transition. This is layering with “base coats”. Layering with opaque layers. Nothing fancy, but it works. Key areas here are full opaqueness, neatness of brush application and trying not to create textures you don’t want to have. You can use some pressure to really spread the paint thinly even if its a little heavy. The paints self leveling should take care of the rest, if you remember not to distrupt it while its drying.

Now to get smoother we use more thinners to “break” the opaqueness of chosen paints. Now we want paint that does not cover in one layer. We do the exact same thing as above. Layer our way from base colour through layers (how many you want) to the end of your spectrum. Remember to not paint over you previous layers. More steps more smoothness. More thinner equals more subtleness of transition. Be careful with your brush loading. You don’t want to lose control of your paint. We can use thinners and mediums for more controllable paint and added transparency. Your paint should flow from your brush very well but it shouldn’t stream out and pool into droplets. If this happens you have loaded too much paint into your brush. Pressure is also very important. If you push your brush too much on the model, it will release a lot of paint. We want just enough pressure for the paint to flow out controllably. Not too much, not too little. Practice this on a sheet of plastic or on printed cardboard. (plasticard, cereal packs etc)

Remember that you can leave brush marks if you want. With these I mean, you don’t have to try to erase the fact your miniature is painted! Don´t leave physical texture unless you are creating an effect you want to create!

If we want to not leave little to none evidence of painting with brush, we use glazes and velaturas to smoothen the layers together. This is very time consuming and you can paint every transition with just glazes. It will take forever. Most use glazes to soften the layers and of course to create colourful filters over areas. Only a soft touch from the brush is enough to release the paint with this much thinner in it.

These three ways of layering are the core. Now that the core is finished we can start to paint with more varied ways.

Layering with textures

We can layer with stippling and scratching as well as just drawing geometrical shapes. We can even combine everything. You can just stipple/scratch the transitions between your opaque layers. This is the least time consuming way to create transitions. They mimic smoothness from afar. You can use this “mimicking” to create an illusion of real texture. Scratches for battle damage. Stippling for hand sewn patterns. Combined to create dirt or realistic leather. World is your oyster. Observe real life textures and mimic away. Remember the scale you are painting. Even small dots and lines are huge on 28mm miniature. Creating believable texture you need to paint as small as you possibly can. This demand a lot from the brushes tip and from your hands. Pressure is very important to control. Very soft dapping and soft nicking with the brushes tip will create the smallest possible trace.

Layering with texture means you are leaving your “hand prints” on the model. This is texture that you want to be visible to the watcher. Try to avoid physical texture unless you want it.

To blend in and harmonise painted textures, you usually have to glaze them together with your base coat. This is not always the case. But it creates unity and usually painting textures you might up the brightness of your paint a tad too much. Or you might paint textures too much into the shadows and you need to blend it to be less visible.

Layering with multiple overlapping layers

Craftworld studios and “KAHA” are masters of this beautiful mixture of texture, opaque, semi-opaque and transparent layering with glazing to boot! This layering sings with powerful colours and conveys a lot of information to interpret.

This layering uses varied consistencies and opaqueness of paints applied. You will have to make the choice on every colour, every brushstroke. Feeling this creates is very painterly and arts-y. This is a very unstrict way to go about painting. It feels very strange at first, but I encourage everyone to try this! I tried but I could not make it work for the purple blade =( Sorry! Please check out the mentioned artist! They have galleries full of masterworks of this type of layering.

With powerful and complex underpainting you can truly create colours that are unmixable on the palette and truly experience your creativity with happy accidents. This method needs a lot of experimentation and understanding light. As you are using very uncommon colours and imaginative application, you need to sell the effect in light placement. Colours truly don’t matter much in painting.

This way of layering is just throwing all the before mentioned tools on the same surface. So its not really a “New” way to paint. I liked to mention it becouse I find it inspirational and different enough to highlight. Maybe you can take something from their art to your miniatures or just find a way to not hate your own brushmarks.

Last tips

-You have to steady your self and your breathing for better control. Steady yourself by locking your elbows to the table. And then control your breathing. Breath in through your nose steadily, then release slowly through your mouth. While releasing your breath you are the most stable. This cycle should last about 10-15 seconds. Remember! Its a cycle, that means you don’t stop breathing in the middle of painting!

-When you get the flow going you will start to breath out through your nose, but thats fine.

-You are going to get the shakes if you don’t wont be mindful of snacks and eating. When you are learning your brain is using hell of a lot of energy. Remember to keep it fed!

-Relax your eyes and wrist muscles from time to time.

-Speed comes from cutting away actions and enhanced brush control. Not from moving faster! You will get the speed after you have build the memory of actions and routines.

-Be patient

Thats all for now! Remember to practice 40 hours a day and you will be better in no time!

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