Learning how to dry brush miniatures gives you one of the easiest and most effective ways to highlight the raised details of your models. With just a small amount of paint and the right technique, you can bring out texture and definition in minutes; no complex, advanced skills needed.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know to dry brush like a pro.
What Is Dry Brushing?
Dry brushing is a technique where you apply paint to your brush, wipe most of it off, and lightly drag the brush across the surface of your model. The paint catches only the raised areas, leaving the recesses untouched and creating natural highlights and texture.
Dry brushing is great for a rapid highlight of a model after you’ve given it a wash with some shade paint. This two step combo adds a lot of depth and contrast to a model, and can give you high-quality table top finishes very quickly. It’s especially useful for highly textured surfaces such as fur, chain mail of chunky armour but can also be really good for terrain and basing, particularly stone and brickwork.
What You’ll Need
- Dry brush: A stiff-bristled brush works best. Purpose-made dry brushes (like Citadel’s) are ideal, but older, worn brushes also do the trick. For particularly large areas (for example on terrain) a lot of people turn to make up brushes for excellent results.
- Paper towel or tissue: For wiping off excess paint.
- A palette: Any flat surface to load and spread paint.
- A model with texture: The more surface detail, the better the results.
How to Dry Brush Step-by-Step
- Load your brush with paint: Dip just the tip into the paint, don’t overload it as you’ll waste a lot of paint due to step two.
- Wipe most of it off: Use a paper towel to remove 90% of the paint until the brush looks almost dry.
- Lightly brush the model: Use quick, back-and-forth or side-to-side motions across the surface. For irregular surfaces like rocks or fur you might have better results with circular motions.
- Build up in layers: You can do multiple dry brush passes to build to the level of highlighting you want.
- Correction: If you’ve over done it in any areas you can go back over with your base coat colour to tidy up.
Choosing the Right Colours
When you’re learning how to dry brush miniatures you can make it as easy or as hard as you like. To start with we’d recommend opting for a single pass, giving a quick highlight to get your models ready for battle. Once you’ve got the hang of the technique then you can get more adventurous. Dry brushing works really well when you progressively highlight using lighter shades. Use that when you’re considering your highlighting recipe if you’re aiming for a more advanced finish.
For example, if you’re dry brushing a back base coat you want to focus on greys. Start with Eshin Grey (doing a light dry brush and leaving it there for a quick finish) or progress on to lighter greys for a more layered effect. Dawnstone and Administratum Grey are both good progressions to get slowly lighter.
Another more adventurous use for dry brushing is adding some object source lighting effects. Pick an area that will be a source of light on your model (a fire, a glowing plasma gun, an ominous green puddle), dry brush away from that source with the relevant colour, and you’ll create the effec that light is catching on the raised areas of your miniature. For example, our editor Niall used a very simple green dry brush to give this skaven model a dank, sewer-y glow.
Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Too much paint: You’ll lose control and leave streaks. Less is more when it comes to dry brushing! Off-load onto your paper towel until it’s 90% gone to just leave that light highlight you’re after.
- Brushing too hard: Can push paint into recesses – be gentle, with quick light passes. This is a highlighting technique.
- Wrong brush shape: Avoid soft, pointed brushes. Use flat or rounded heads with firmer bristles for the best results.
Dry brushing is a powerful technique – fast, forgiving, easy to learn and surprisingly versatile. Whether you’re highlighting Necron armour, adding texture to a cloak, or bringing life to a bombed out building, dry brushing is one of the best tools in your painting arsenal. Take a little time to experiment, and you’ll be amazed how much depth and definition you can add with just a few flicks of the brush.
Got any tips for how to dry brush miniatures? Any advice for new painters wanting to up their game? Let us know in the comments below!
Did you enjoy this article? You could always tip the author with a coffee (or something stronger). If you want to try out new painting techniques on some new models, then check out Element Games. They have great deals on a wide range of Warhammer and accessories. Finally, make sure you’re following us on Instagram to stay up to date and get involved in our community!
Leave a Reply