Take my approach. Buy games but never play them. Then you don't have to look at the unpainted minis!

Man, this is probably THE video on the subject for guys like us: who just want to have their minis painted without devoting years of life to the stuff. THANKS and cheers from Poland!

These paints are so good that you can even see a hand reaching out from the right to steal them 7:47

This is the best promotion I've ever seen and if @ArmyPainter didn't sponsor it, they should definitely send you a new set when you run out.

Speedpaints totally changed my opinion on painting. Whereas I always found the process at least somewhat enjoyable, motivating myself to do it was always tough because of just how looooong it would always take and how the results would sometimes be disappointing. Speedpaints are so fast, so easy and so consistently good-looking that it made me actually *want* to paint more often.

I've been painting minis for over 20 years, and using that silicone fidget popper for a palette is a super clever idea. I'm going to have to give that a try the next time someone unlocks a new character in Gloomhaven.

Starting painting with these paints and have very little desire to learn the traditional methods because of it. With slapchop priming, you can get them looking really good. Better than just table ready

This should be the first video that anybody wanting to paint miniatures watches! I've heard nothing but good things about this product! Great job on the video! Thanks for the info!

Slay the Gray!

Great video. I wish it existed when I started out a couple of years ago.

Good paints, as good as the contrasts but much cheaper ! Personally, I dip my brushes directly into the pot (with a suitable support ;)). Less waste than on a palette. With a slapshot the result is very good. I'm a beginner, so it suits me.

Natural hair brushes can be reconditioned back into a perfect point, which is great for people doing lots of very small, fine lines and dots with regular paint. They have no value for speedpaints. You can make a whole flow out of idiot-proofed steps and come out with a pretty professional look at the end if you do enough. If you start with a zenithal highlight (ideally sprayed rather than drybrushed), put on speedpaints, slap black or brown oil washes on your minis, wipe them down, then drybrush with an off-white, you end up with something display-worthy. Could be worth it for something major, like the final boss of one of the Monster Hunter World sets.

Add a bit of dry-brushing on top of the minis Also, priming does help with speed paints because the paints are thinner and more delicate. Also, zenithal for speedpaints will make a biiiig improvement on all of them! Also, your spendy brushes are for long-slow-painters, not really for what you're doing. :) ALso, you can use two speedpaints of similar colors(like with multiple shades of the green speedpaints) to add darker shadows, or even just multiple layers. :)

100% agreed speed paints are amazing. I own every bottle they made. I especially love the Metallics. After using it for 2 years your minis can start looking like high quality painted.

Painting models of any type has never been my thing, but I also wince at my grey games. Thanks to you I have a potential path to paint my copy of Mechs vs Minions! I can probably get my kids involved to dial in some fun. Cheers!

very helpful video, thanks!

This is another reason why I sub to you guys. You have very useful tips for the hobby. I also haven't gotten into painting because i just want to treat it like a coloring book as you say. If speed paints allow me to do that, then I may give it a try. Beats paying a studio 2-3k and months of waiting to do it for me.

The slapchop technique is one of the fastest / best looking for low effort. It’s like 15-20 mins a mini. You prime black, dry brush grey with a texture pallet, then dry brush more of the highlights with white. It creates your shadows, mid tones and lights for when you apply the speed paints.

Epic. Best mother****** mini painting video ever. Subscribed.

7:50 - After you see it, you can't unsee it.

Great video!!!! I got into miniature gaming many years and I was in the same boat as you. To speed up table ready models, one thing I learned to do was batch painting. If there are a number of models that use the same color of paint, paint each of one them. By the time you are done with the last one, the first ones should be dry for the next coat of paint. Also, you said you stopped priming because it didn't seem to help. That will depend on the model. Some plastics will not take paint as well and will run. Also, release agent residue may be on the model (used to help get the model out of the mold) which will also hurt the ability for paint to stick. When this happens more time is spent trying to get your paint to stick than it would have been to just spray some prime on it. Lastly, you said your goal wasn't to get good at painting. Every minute you spend painting you get better. That most recent model you just painted is probably better than the first one. And you'll learn even more techniques not only making the models look better, but get them done quicker. Again, thanks for the video because most people are afraid to even try it. Speed paints definitely help get people started and soon they'll realize there was nothing to fear!

Dude. Duuuuuuuuude. Awesome video! Thank you very, very much! Ginormous help 🥳

Painting without priming… it does work, sort of. An issue I’ve had is that after a lot of handling, or if you try to glaze paint (put watery thinner paint overtop), the paint can come off easier. If you’re painting a nice mini, or any mini you plan to play with a lot then I’d still prime. Primer has special adhesion molecules that stick to the plastic, and allow the paint to stick to the primer. Standard used by good pro-home painters, art painters, and mini painters is to prime for that reason. Basically, why do the dry speedpaints pop out of the fidget-popper so easy? No adhesion. If you primed that bad-boy then speed painted you’d have more trouble clearing it out. Same principle applies to minis. But do what makes you happy. Glad you’re painting!

So glad this video exists. 😊 I've been thinking of doing this exact thing with three explorers and buildings in Spirit Island. But I imagined it would not work. So glad it does!

Need to prime man. I tried to paint right into grey mini and didn't stick well. Elbows and certain knobs. It would just not stick and angered me. But I am with you. I love painted minis. Don't love painting.

I love AP speedpaints

Did I see oathsworn there 👀 does that mean we're getting a review

Mine too. For the better. More time to play!!

I used to think minis were dumb until I bought a game that used them with a theme I love. Then I had to figure out how to paint them. I know nothing of the hobby other than my research on KZfaq. It has been a trip and it does take ages to paint them but a part of me finds it relaxing. I'll have to experiment with Speed Paints now because they do seem to make the minis look good for a fraction of the time.

Dang boy! Those minis turned out great! Thanks for the tip!

So with you on this. I was actually starting to consider only buying games with standees instead of forking out for grey minis I was never gonna paint (I did a lot of miniature painting in my life but never felt excellent at it and always despised how long it took me). Then I tried speedpaints, and next thing I know, I ordered Nemesis Kickstarter in mini version and painted all my core space and all my minions of mordak. And I even enjoyed doing it!!! Wooooot???!!! 🥳🥳

Love the editing and effort here!

I also paint many of my minis and similarly don't care to make them beautiful works of art, just good enough for tabletop play. I haven't tried speed/contrast paints yet because I have all these old paints I feel bad about not using, but maybe if it's that much faster I'll give it a shot. I still prime my minis after an incident where the paint rubbed off of one of my minis while I was handling it, but I found that zenithal priming really helps me figure out quickly where to put my lighter colors and where to put my darker ones. I hear that you can just drop the contrast/speed paints right on top of a zenithal prime and the light values should just show through, eliminating the need for washing or highlighting, which will definitely save a bunch more time. The only thing I need to figure out now is how to quickly do eyes in a hurry and without making them look derpy.

omg the fidget popper palette might be a real game changer

Airbrushing primer + zenithal on a bunch of minis at once saves a ton of time and gives you the best highlight. 1. Attach the minis to something with a little blue tac (spinny thing, plate, box, whatever works) with a little room to quickly hit them from every angle. 2. Prime with Molotow one4all black out of the airbrush. Yep you need a small hood and an airbrush but you'll make that $ back in no time by never buying overpriced rattle cans. No more worrying about the weather and getting crappy textures. No more brushing on highlights. 3. The Molotow dries really quick and then you can hit it with some white/light-colored acrylic from one angle (acrylic inks and Golden high flows work out of the bottle in the airbrush or just use Flow-aid). This is done in a minute, hitting each mini from the same angled "light source". 4. ALL your models are now ready to paint and have perfect highlight. I'd be careful not priming some minis. I have found that sometimes paints won't stick well in certain areas. Maybe if you spend time washing but that takes even longer. More extreme highlights may work well with speed paints and you can experiment with direction of the light.

Fidget popper Brilliant!!!!

I use Army Speedpaints. They definitely speed up the process I do prime with dark grey and white for zenithal. Love the silicone popper. I got a large one for painting

Great video. Im back to painting thanks to it. Speedpaints 2.0 on the way. All say it is worse than 1.0 but I dont care. It dries faster. 😂

This is finally the video I was looking for! I want to paint my blood rage minis. Single color, just to better diferenciate each clan, as just the base gets dificult sometimes.

Yeah, these were pretty good paints.

I’m the same. I do wonder the result of not priming Vs priming. I prime grey, HEAVY dry brush white. Then use the same speed paints over the mini. Make sure you HEAVY dry brush the face and any area you want light. The result is pretty good shaded look. For dry brush you need makeup brushes of different sizes though for ease of access. After the priming the painting is super quick.

Amen, brother.

Can you share the link to the pack of brushes you purchased for so cheap?

Love speedpaints. People are way too biased towards Games Workshop, everything they make is overpriced, and everything except their plastic is often worse quality than the competitors.

I never use primer and always thought you had to prime with at least white for these speed paints to look good. You just sold me on them.

Note that you are feeling good about painting, may I suggest painting TI4? Sure, the game is playable unpainted, but imagine how much nicer it will be painted.

I'd watch a video of you explaining now to do zenithal shading.. that's my next step in my painting journey

I think you normally record the videos at x0.75 speed and then you uplad them at x1 lol

If you want some of the minis to look nicer with zenital highlights, I'd recommend just using spray cans. dark grey from underneath and side, then lighter grey 45 degrees and to finish, white or very light grey from the top down 90 degrees. Gives much more depth and is also faster than drybrushing for the zenital effect

Kolinsky brushes are not for speedpaints, contrast paints, washes and metalilcs. You'll just ruin them.

These are my exact sentiments. Thank you, Daniel, I am seen.

Personally, I think of painted minis or even minis at all, the same as what I think of impressive graphics in computer games. They're nice, but once the novelty wears off, I can't help but realize that they don't actually do anything for the gameplay, and I often ponder cost/benefit analysis. I believe if themes are conveyed well enough through them that you understand everything you're intended to, and the visuals are clear and functional for the gameplay, then they're as good as they'd ever need to be, and further fidelity and polish veers into the realm of excess. I'm mostly talking about computer games there. Now if I had to personally spend a bunch of time and labor to go that extra mile instead of actually playing games? Heh, I doubt I'd bother. Maybe all of that goes without saying or it's redundant. I hope it's interesting instead, but point is: When I get, for example, my copy of Frosthaven, I'd sooner switch to the standees to look at the color art, if I prefer that over blank minis, than paint said minis myself. With all that said though, I do respect well painted miniatures. It's a nice hobby, and it's its own artform. This video was interesting to me regardless. Btw, Shelfside has quickly become one of if not my favorite channels about board games. You guys do great work, and I'm particularly impressed how humor and even skits are so quick and well integrated that I never lose my patience with them, thinking 'just get on with it!' A lot of online critics really mess that up.

Would you need a wet palette (like one would need to prepare for normal acrylic paint) when using this type of paint? I've also heard that its difficult to go over the speedpaint again with a second coat (e.g. if these are the ONLY paints I own, and if i wanted to correct a colour or highlight, could I do it?), so is that a concern? Would you need a clear coat on them at the end?

I cannot paint but tried Speedpaint after having enough of constant grey and it turns out I can actually do something that isn't horrific. I am shut down for 7 months due to not being able to prime outside, did I hear you say you can paint mini's WITHOUT priming first, I am struggling to find anything online about this so interested to hear people's thoughts.

Oh god, phantom hand at 7:50! I've been trying to get into mini painting, and I have a basic set of speedpaints just waiting to be used, I'm just so intimidated about starting I just need to convince myself to dive in and go for it.

Never throw out old brushes, they will still find their uses. In fact, a crusty old brush can be very useful, especially for splatters or damages.

There are dozens upon dozens of video of painting videos on how to paint miniatures in 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. You just aren't watching the right channels or doing the right search.

Ah good you have paints now. Now it's time to upgrade to good games and start playing real miniature games. Also, sick editing on the intro, bro.

You are awesome

thought about doing a mini tutorial on how to paint? Been meaning to try and paint some miniatures but literally no idea where or how to start. I'm looking to buy the set of speedpaints but then what.

Could you create a checklist for stupid people like that have absolutely no idea how to paint but want minis good enough? Like what is must-have to paint, what are good extras and what is just if you're feeling fancy?

Speedpaints are amazing. No point in paying for a constrast paintjob like sundrop when you can easily DIY it with speedpaints. EDIT: Was about to mention Zenithal but then you went ahead and did it for me XD

loved the first half of this video but then hated the second half. A lot of poor tips dispensed here which might ruin the painting hobby for some people. 1. YOU MUST PRIME YOUR MINIS. You will NOT have a good time painting unprimed grey minis. Do not listen to this video. 2. Best way to Zenithal is prime black then spray white from above. 3. Also at 6:20 the mini has cracks all over it and looks bad because Daniel did not leave the primer time to dry before painting over it.

His voice sounds AI generated