Speed Painting Miniatures Without an Airbrush: A Quick Guide

Speed painting miniatures can be a rewarding way to quickly enhance your tabletop gaming experience. In this tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how to paint a Fane Knight Cavalry model from Privateer Press without an airbrush. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced painter, I hope these tips will help you achieve the results you’re looking for without the need for fancy equipment.

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Quick tips for speed painting miniatures without airbrush

Key Points

Use a large brush to cover surfaces quickly and efficiently during the base coating stage.
Apply paint undiluted to achieve strong, even coverage with fewer coats, speeding up the process.
Limit your color choices to streamline decision-making and maintain consistency across your models.

RELATED: TOP 3 TIPS FOR SPEED PAINTING ANY MINIATURE

Materials and Tools Needed

For this quick painting guide, I use a Fane Knight Cavalry model as an example. But, all of the techniques and approaches are in principle the same as what you’d want to do with any miniature you want to paint.

To start, here are the materials and tools I use. You can replace any of these with tools you have already. Again, the point here is that it’s the method and your abilities, not the materials, that make a miniature look great.

Brushes:

Citadel X-Large Base Brush: Ideal for covering large areas swiftly
Sable Pointed Round #2: Perfect for finer details
10/0 Rigger Brush: Great for intricate highlights
Medium-sized dry brush: Essential for base coating and layering

Paints:

Reaper Master Series Paints: Pale Lichen, Highlight Moss, Olive Drab, Aqua
Pro Acryl Paints: Jade
Citadel Paints: Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade, Retributor Armour (Gold Metallic), Leadbelcher (Steel Metallic)
The Army Painter Matt Black: Popular for versatile use

Other Tools:

Vallejo Surface Primer: Provides a smooth base
Testors Dullcote Varnish: Protects and finishes with a matte effect
Vallejo Earth Texture Paste: Adds realistic ground effects
The Army Painter Grass Tufts: Enhances base realism
Redgrass Games Everlasting Wet Palette: Keeps paints fresh and workable
Hobby painting handle: Ensures ease of handling during painting
Inexpensive Hair Dryer: Speeds up paint dry time

See Full Video Tutorial

If you’re not keen on watching a video and want to see my quick tips for how to get the most of your miniature painting hobby time without airbrushing, read on below.

Key Tips for Efficient Miniature Painting

When speed painting miniatures without an airbrush, the following speed painting tips will help you achieve great results quickly and efficiently:

Use a Large Brush: Opt for a large brush to cover more surface area quickly, reducing the total painting time. This is particularly useful for the base coating stage.
Apply Paint Undiluted: Keep your paint undiluted to ensure strong, even coverage and minimize the number of coats needed. This technique speeds up the painting process and provides a solid base.
Simple Color Palette: Limit your color choices to simplify the process and speed up decision-making during painting. A straightforward palette makes the painting process more efficient and helps maintain consistency across your models.

Top three tips for speed painting miniatures

Step-by-Step Painting Process

Priming:

Start with Vallejo Surface Primer to ensure a smooth, even base that enhances paint adherence and color vibrancy.

Unprimed miniatures, metal pewter miniatures and models preparing for primer — Unpainted miniatures—bare metal goodness!

Primed models ready for painting with vallejo surface primer, panzer grey — My favorite primer is Vallejo Surface primer. It’s easy to apply with an airbrush or a regular brush (see how I use Vallejo Surface Primer).

Close up primed miniatures with Vallejo Surface Primer, Panzer Grey in the spray booth — Primed miniatures. Note the even and smoothly applied coat of primer.

Base coating:

Use a blunt, medium-sized dry brush for your base coat. Load the brush with paint directly from a wet palette to maintain consistency. The dabbing or tapping motion allows for fast and reliable coverage on the 3D sculpted surfaces of the miniature.

Comparison of pointed round and blunt dry brushes — When speed painting, the larger brush not only applies paint faster and more efficiently, it also produces a characterful texture. The more layers you apply, of course, the smoother your base coat of paint. In other words, the smoother you want your paint job, the longer it will take.

Side view of base coated miniature — For this miniature, I started with a darker, muted olive green paint. This took about 60 seconds to finish this step.

A second base layer using the large dry brush to apply the base coat didn’t take long at all. So far, I’ve only invested about 180 seconds into the project.

First base layer applied to miniature — As you apply color, make sure each previous coat is completely dry. Here I’ve started layering up to the brighter mid tone green color.

Sideview of the base coat on the miniature in green color acrylic — Here’s another view point of the base coated model.

Layering:

Add depth and dimension by layering with slightly lighter shades, using the same dabbing technique. Ensure each layer is completely dry before adding the next to avoid smudging.

Wet palette with mixed paint — I load my brushes from paint on a wet palette.

Keep layering up the colors until you’re comfortable with the overall appearance.

Highlighting and Shading:

Utilize washes such as Citadel Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade to deepen shadows and define details. Apply highlights strategically to areas where light naturally hits the model, enhancing its dynamic appearance.

Miniature model with highlight applied — For this model, I wanted the highlights to help the model standout. The volume of a miniature really comes together when you ensure good contrast, i.e., bright highlights and dark shadows.

Miniature model with detailed highlights — When you’re done painting the major elements of the model, e.g., armor plating, flesh tones, I move on to painting details. I generally paint metallic elements last.

Studio photograph of a miniature on black background — With the fine rigger paint brush, I painted the glowing runes. I also applied a wash over the metallic areas to add some vibrancy to the base color. The metallic sheen really comes out with this step.

Detailing:

For fine details, switch to smaller brushes like the Sable Pointed Round #2 and 10/0 Rigger Brush. These are perfect for intricate areas and small highlights that add character to your model.

Gold metallic accents painted on miniature — Clean up any stray brush strokes. A close up shows how the details come out, even when you’ve painted quickly. The faster you paint the larger elements, the more time you’ll have to be more meticulous with any of these other details. From a philosophical standpoint, start big, think big; then funnel down into the details. The smaller the elements you need to paint, the slower you’ll make progress.

Side view of painted miniature in studio setting — I love taking photographs of my final painted minis.

Studio photograph of a painted miniature — Here is a tutorial for how to photograph painted miniatures with the infinite black backdrop.

Advantages of Non-Airbrush Techniques

When choosing to speed paint miniatures without an airbrush, you can enjoy several significant advantages:

Cost-Effective: Avoid the expense of airbrush equipment. Standard brushes and simple acrylic paints are sufficient for achieving excellent results.
Greater Control: Hand-painting offers more precise control over the paint application, which is particularly beneficial for models with detailed textures and embellishments.
Versatility: This technique can be applied to any miniature, regardless of size or complexity, making it a universally applicable skill in your painting repertoire.

Miniature tank model with realistic effects applied, including wet slide decals and oil washes — The best paint jobs often require a combination of techniques. This Warhammer 40k Land Raider incorporates multiple techniques, including airbrushing, oil paints, washes, and much more. If you want to learn more about painting miniatures, check out our collection of miniature painting technique articles.

Finishing Touches

To complete your miniature and protect your hard work, follow these finishing steps:

RELATED: BEST MATTE VARNISH FOR PROTECTING PAINTED MINIATURES AND MODELS

Varnishing:

Apply Testors Dullcote Varnish to protect the paint job and reduce shine for a professional matte finish. This step ensures your miniature is durable and ready for tabletop use.

Testors spray lacquer for matte varnish — I seal all my painted miniatures with Testors Dullcote, one of the most popular matte varnishes in the hobby community.

RELATED: HOW TO RESTORE ACCIDENTLY FROSTED OR FOGGY VARNISHED MINIATURES

Basing:

Enhance the model’s base with Vallejo Earth Texture Paste and The Army Painter Grass Tufts for a realistic ground effect. This adds a final touch of realism and makes your miniature stand out on the battlefield.

Vallejo Earth Texture Acrylic Gel — Vallejo Earth Texture is super easy to use. Apply it like frosting on a cake using a plastic hobby spreader tool.

RELATED: OUR RECOMMENDED BASING KITS FOR SCALE MODELS AND MINIATURES

Newly painted miniature model — The final painted model—time to completion: ~30 minutes

Conclusion

So, what do you think? I’m sure there are a lot of other tips and tricks you’ll find elsewhere. But, for most of my work, I tend to work with the methods outlined above when I’m not using my airbrush.

I know from experience that getting my miniature painting projects done quickly often helps me overcome procrastination and keeps my motivation to complete my backlog.

I hope this post inspired you to keep moving along even if you don’t have or want to use an airbrush. An airbrush is an amazing tool, but isn’t essential for painting fast or efficiently. If you want to learn more about how I use an airbrush, check out my complete airbrush guide.

Ultimately, I think the best way to make any progress (e.g., skill up) is to give whatever it is a try. Experiment. Have fun. Go for it! And…Don’t beat yourself up. Trust the process.

If you enjoyed this short guide, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Happy miniature painting!

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Speed Painting Miniatures Without an Airbrush: A Quick Guide

Key Points