I've been painting minis off and on for years and this is the first time I've ever seen drybrushing thoroughly explained. Tutorials always assume you know the very basics, like how paint should be on a brush, how much to wipe off, what part of the brush to get the paint on, etc, but if you've never done it you need a guide like this. Perfect video! Thank you so much for covering this!
This is my one issue with Artis Opus videos. He's undeniably talented and clearly interested in helping people start out (heck he got me into drybrushing which saved my hobby experience) but I think in his videos he tends to gloss over some things.
Non a miniature painter, but I work in interior design and this video helped me so much with creating an antique/aged, gilded finish on modern mirrors & picture frames!
And drybrushing is SO much quicker than line highlighting. And looks more accurate to how light actually plays across a surface. Also, been watching since the first Titan video came out. Those videos have helped with my Imperial Knights.
I forget where I learnt it from (probably Byron on Artist Opus) , but i remember hearing that for drybrushing you shouldn't move your wrist to paint but move your arm with your wrist locked in position to brush. Also, holding the brush closer to the ferrule will have a heavier brush stroke, and holding it further back enables a lighter "feathery" stroke.
Thanks for adding that last bit about drybrushing as a 'beginner' technique. It makes my blood boil when i see others denigrate the technique so im very happy to see skilled painters shoot down the elitist myth.
Dry brushing is like most any technique, if it's the only one you know, or you don't know when, and when not to apply it, you may not get great results.
Dry brushing is a beginner technique, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t useful. Most beginners use dry brushing as a crutch. And that’s okay. Eventually you will get away from it entirely, then magically come back to it. Painting is a journey, and every tool is useful. Also: If your “blood is boiling” over people’s opinions on painting models, maybe this hobby isn’t for you… Go punch a wall or something. 😆 Then you can fix that wall , and paint it. Just keep punching, patching, and painting, and you can even dry brush the patch!
I don't do any mini painting, but I've started doing a ton of Gunpla recently and the amount of drybrushing I use for metallic details and weathering is nuts. It's super easy to do, but incredibly effective in making those highlights pop. Great video!
Awesome! These are the cheap makeup brushes I showed in the video, they're pretty decent for the price considering how many you get! geni.us/makeupdrybrush
Just got back into painting a little over a year ago (after a break of 25 years), and drybrushing is my go-to for almost any project. I've discovered that there's virtually nothing that an silver drybrush can't help if you're stuck on what to do-it exposes all manner of detail you sometimes can't spot until you start painting the model, it's sympathetic to most any color you want to put on afterward, and as you note in the video, it's even beneficial for metal pieces on the model. Just discovered the channel about two weeks ago and have been really enjoying the tutorials!
Great video! I started using dry brushing with my Kimera Kolors paint to help with highlights and I'm loving the results! The range has some great mixing guides to help give me highlights on a mid tone.
Something I've learnt and works well is that if you'd like a less chalky look to the drybrushing finish, dip the brush into the paint as usual but do NOT wipe it off on a kitchen towel or cloth afterwards. These are very absorbant, which means that it'll absorb all the moisture very quickly leaving you with dry pigment.That's the point of drybrushing, but if you instead wipe it off on a textured palette or whatever tester surface you've picked until you have the amount of paint you want, it'll get rid of any excess paint, while keeping just the right amount of moisture for a much smoother drybrushing finish!
I know a tutorial is excellent when I go to add to my playlist of Mini Painting advice and find I'd already added it to that playlist earlier the same viewing. I did that twice in this video. Seriously, excellent work Guy. I used drybrushing all throughout a recent skirmish force paint job of classic silver Stormcast. Zenithal drybrush from a dark color up to my main steel color, gloss varnish, oil wash to darken the recesses, matte varnish, zenithal drybrush up to the second highest highlight (silver) and pick out the final details with a regular brush for the highest highlight (chrome). Boom, all of the metal was done super easily, to a really high level, with plenty of contrast and shine.
I’ve only been painting for a few months and this is by far the best video on this topic I’ve seen. Answered all my questions and made it so simple. Absolute game-changer for me. Thank you. ✊🏻💚
I have been painting miniatures for years and I discovered dry brushing on my own and use it all the time. I did slap-chop before i ever heard people painting like this. I think dry brushing is what makes painting fun!
Fantastic video, thank you. I feel like a lot of tutorials just *brush* over simpler techniques. I've been painting for less than a year and found this really helpful!
I really liked that you put stuff about "over brushing" which i figured out on my own its better in a lot of situations. Everyone only says. "Rub most of it off until almost all paint is off." Which i thought was cheeky at the start of the video. Because thats literally every other dry brush video ive seen in 5 years painting.
Thanks for the tutorial. Learned a lot, and I feel especially on the stuff I knew (or thought I knew). Will be putting this into practice with my 40k Necrons and Imperial Agents :)
Great work as usual, Guy. Have you thought about doing an in depth video on airbrushing? A friend got me one and I'm a bit intimidated to start using it.
Have you tried just practicing on pieces of paper or cardboard? Also just junk that's about to go into recycling for a variety of textures and shapes, if you created a dry brush palette from bits like Guy suggests maybe practice picking out details on that with the airbrush. A useful exercise can be making lines and dots, I started airbrushing 30 years ago and I still do this whenever I've had a break from using the airbrush. I get why you might be feeling apprehensive but any kind of practice will help, just maybe not on minis at first 😊 Also don't worry too much about breaking anything, airbrushes are more resilient than people make out. Most problems can be fixed with a good clean. Good luck, enjoy and welcome to the club 🙂
thank you for showing all sides of mini-painting. accessible methods leading to great results, as well as how it looks when too much/not enough paint and soon. love it. you can only learn from mistakes. thank you for educating like you do. I learn somethig every time :)
i honestly appreciate these kind of videos, taking a relatively well known technique and both explaining it in a general sense as well as expand on it. It adds a lot of value to the video I think and makes them useful to both old and new painters, which I'm sure was your intention. TlDr great video, keep up the good work!
Nice to see a more an in-depth video on drybrushing! Also do you plan on doing another video on converting and painting the other first founding Loyalist Legions like you did for the Salamanders?
Glad you enjoyed it! I am planning on making more of that series, yes! I'm going to try to finish some of the other series I've half-cooked already though ;)
I've been using dry brushing for a while (especially after I started slap chopping) and I love how it gives you great details within a short time. This video was really helpful in how I can improve my dry brushing technique.
I don't get the people that berate dry brushing like it's some kind of cheat code. It's just another technique to get us where we want. Not everyone suffers from realistic perfection on plastic toys, to fiddle every nook and cranny into perfection, with perfectly drawn lines and free hand patterns.
I kind of discovered this myself with no real knowledge of techniques before I started painting my tyranids. I started by loading my brush up and painting the back of the tyranids, where the chitin is and I wanted a thick, consistent coat of paint. Then I brushed down the tail, and along the top of the legs, and by the time I got to the limbs where I wanted to more just highlight the bits that stick out, there was so little paint left on the brush that I could dry brush the rest for a better effect.
As someone who's been following you for a while (but only just started painting) this is super helpful, and perfectly timed! Super helpful and well explained. And as a Battletech fan more then 40k, the Atlas may be my favorite piece you've done. Can't wait to see your painted Lances!
I have a pretty bad hand tremor. It makes mini painting extremely frustrating sometimes, especially when trying edge highlight and get fine details. Dry brushing is pretty much a lifesaver, and even though I've been doing it for a while now this video has taught me a lot more. Thanks Guy!
I'm still pretty new to drybrushing, but the metal highlights that its given my Ballistus Dread to simulate damaged and worn armor makes it one of my best looking minis. Wonderful technique.
I am so happy you made this video. I always worried that I was doing this wrong some how. Glad to see if I’m doing it right and seeing the other skills I can do.
Perfectly timed for everyone getting the Skaventide box at the weekend. Drybrushing is great for painting all the feathery gryph-creatures the Stormcast love!
This was absolutely fantastic, well done. Will probably be sharing this on a near daily basis on reddit to new painters freaked out about painting vehicles
Drybrushing is so good i barely do miniature painting anymore because gunpla hAs taken over my life but it works so well for getting nice raised metallic details looking gorgeous for no effort
Im only 1 year in with my dedicated painting. And I have learned SO much from drybrushing. All your videos with finding out where the sun or shadow falls, and figure out which part i should or shouldn't highlight was so difficult for me to understand. But drybrushing showed me, by my own hand where to look and what makes most sense. I have become a generally better painter because it gave me such a good understanding on highlights in general. So I can only recommend drybrushing for new painters :)
thanks for the tutorial will defenetly try to drybrush correct now ... watched some other toturials but never in so much detail and i think this will improve the quality of my minis
Finally an actual drybrushing video! I've been trying to encourage this to new players but there's literally no videos on the power of drybrushing/overbrushing.
My man. Ive been painting for over a decade now, but only been active in a painting communtiy for a few of those years. And i gotta say, id love it if youd do a full line of in depth fundamental technique videos. Youd have at least this view on it, of not multipme of this one.
Great video! Dry brushing is my favourite techniques. I find it can replace airbrushing a lot of the time - especially for someone who doesn’t have time to setup and clean an airbrush in my short nightly painting session. The idea dry brushing is for beginners has always been funny to me - if painting competitions were about pure technical skill with a brush they would ban airbrushes which give you insanely smooth blends relatively easily - but aren’t they are about the skill using any technique to achieve the ‘best’ paint job.
My number one tip, is to avoid wiping the brush on a paper towel. I recommend glueing some extra bits to a sheet, then use that to wipe your excess paint before going to the model.
Tried dry brushing for the first time yesterday and thought i did okay then I've seen this video today all i can say is that this has been a massive help for me when i go and paint again! and if anyone is struggling trust me i'm only on my third model it gets easier! 😃
I really don't like how a lot of other youtubers talk about dry brushing like its a rea really awful way to paint and that you're a bad painter if you do I use it because I have ASD and have never been able to have steady hands, even my handwriting suffers because of it Ty for doing a good job showing off how to use it p.s using cardboard is a bit better since it doesn't absorb paint like a paper towel
Great guide to dry brushing. Got turned on to cheap makeup brushes for dry brushing from Sonic Sledgehammer and Tabletop Minions. Use them along with my beat-up brushes for my core dry brush tools.
One of my favorite dry brushing techniques for a quick and good looking gold (over a zenithal primed miniature) is to do a base coat of Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint and then dry brushing retributor armor over the top
I use Make up brushes specifically for drybrushing really large surfaces. For example the first few colors on bases. Or my Chaos knight skeletons that I drybrushed with a dark silver for the metallic look. Usually the make up brushes are relatively big and it basically takes not even a minute laying the groundpainting with it. For everything that needs more "fine tuning" i use those flat drybrushes You showed here. Also thanks, as always really helpful even for people that paint for a longer time
Very useful video. I'm basecoating my Yaegir Kill Team to make "slap-chop", and without know it is called "overpainting", I made that with the first darker base colour. The resoult is very smouth, fast, and has grest coverage. I've used Zandri Dust for this step. Tomorrow I'm going to drybrush a 50/50 mix of Zandri and White Scar for the first lights, and for the last drybrush layer will use pure White Scar with my smoller brush. I'm using 3 make-up brush for this process, the biger has the size of a fingertip, another is like a half of it, and the smaller is like a half of the medium. And, because I love to build my own stuff, Sunday I made a texture palette with a few almost free material I had in my house. And I'm loving to unload my brush in it and see exactly the load and coverage I'm going to have over my model.
I use a drybrush technique that I don't hear a lot of people talk about - I don't wipe as much paint off the brush, and brush more with the "flat" of the brush. It smothly paints the raised surfaces and look less scratchy than drybrushing. I would say its different than the "overbrushing" mentioned.
I really needed a video like this. I am currently dry brushing Votann models and I couldn't figure out a good way to transition with the chosen color. Thank you for reminding me of meshing colors together to create the shade Im looking for.
The only thing i want to add which might be a bit of a problem for a new painter is using an absorbent thing to remove paint, like a paper towel. the issue is, that more moisture is sucked out than pigment is deposited, which results in a higher risk for that "caked" look. Yes, a bit of moisture helps, but ive seen a few new painters running exactly into that issue :)