You are like a painting Jesus. Just freely dispensing your insights, wisdom & secret painting techniques for us to follow your teachings. Praise to Smasher!

Wish I knew about this before painting my 100 conscripts. Now I know to do this for my 200 cultist. Thank you this helps a ton.

I just started into miniatures, and spent a HUGE amount of time painting my first 6 models (Exemplar Cinerators, they do look pretty great) I have been suspicious that this would be the way to go but, having 0 experience with this, had written the idea off. Definitely giving this a try with the next few models.

Great video and an excellent tip for people new to the hobby or looking to turn out a lot of miniatures for an army quickly.

I think Games Workshop saw this video and said that is a good idea, lets make more then just black and white spray paint...

useful advice Krylon paints work well, way cheaper then GW basecoat spray

Another great hobby tip. I constantly go back to your posts and review tips I may need as my modeling projects change. Thanks 🙏 again and as always great explanation too

I dont know what it is about your videos but I always enjoy watching them and listening to your tips. Keep it comming

There's something about your videos sir that I extremely enjoy every single of them

Really excellent brilliant tips and now I'm going to try this process of primer and undercoat with my new H&S infinity out now and then apply some washes just to start with, thanks for helping me break that many months of procrastination habit

your advice is so good for newbee's like me. Your rhythm is great and easy to follow, and listen to. Thanks

Got my Kil Team on after a long time away from the hobby - starting back from scratch with no tools, paints or models. Got my basic tools (scalpel and glue) and the next hurdle was where to start with the paints. Thanks a lot for this kind of tip. I'l be able to get a few armies built up and playable with my fellow relapsed plastic crack addicts without eating all my free time and money.

This was a really great tip. I am going to have to try this. Thank you for the advice.

amazing tips...have been priming and using rattle for base coating but never thought about highlighting like that. Will give it a try on my dark vengeance cultists also and if i like the results will buy probably a spray brush and adventure a bit further. Thank you!

I got lucky. When I first strated painting models and wargaming my father was very supportive and owned 3 airbrushes he used for automotive painting. I'm starting to get some of my friends into thr hobby and I will be sure to show them this video.

Good stuff, I'd been thinking of doing the same to pre-highlight minis, with a black primer and grey or white dusted on for the highlight. You should film a tutorial of yourself painting them, so we can see how it comes out before the washes are added.

Nice tip--I'm gonna consider how I could use this for my minis. I think it would work for my "good-enough" paint jobs. I don't have a neighborhood hobby shop so spray paint may be a challenge to locate. I do have other types of stores like big box, auto supplies and craft stores, so I think I could find something to work. I have tons of minis to paint and I'm frequently intimidated by the magnitude of my task, but I keep plugging away at it a few figures at a time. ANYTHING to speed the progress and reduce the magnitude of the job is helpful and inspiring! Thank you.

General advice from someone who uses spray paint often here: dont use krylon or rustoleum cans. they are way too expensive for the final results they give you. some good spray paints to use are (choose depending on your area and what is available) Montana 94: Acrylic paint with a matte finish. works really well for most things and is a good product for its cost (especially if you're in europe) Belton Molotow: for me this is the best spray paint you can get but it is kinda expensive. Montana Gold: its in between these two in quality and may be easier to find for some people. If you are wondering where to get these paints the best places are graffiti supply shops (yeah i know kinda weird but trust me they can give you some good advice and techniques if you are just starting out) Good luck on your painting!

Usually a glass marble in a rattle can.

Interesting tips that I now wanna try on my own Tau! Currently I follow some advice in your Underpainting article, and spray black primer with white at 30 degrees to make a highlight, then use watered down paint to successively layer it on top. Using a blue as a highlight hadn't crossed my mind. I might give that a try on the more numerous Fire Warrior and Pathfinder squads I'll be painting, and see how it goes.

WOW really helpful, Thank you. For years, I have been trying to perfect painting models. I'm no professional, but I can paint a decent ork. I still keep the crappy ones from when I was younger to remind me how NOT to paint. But I always found myself using many Browns, Greens and reds with my army. Green primer instead of black could be the answer.

I really liked those cultists after you had added the other details. Such a unique look to them. I may try something like this for my Iron Warrior cultists.

This is an amazing idea. I'm looking forward to trying this out on my Raven Guard army.

Just bought an Abyssal mega army for Kings of War. This is definitely going to help me get these done quickly. Thanks for the video.

Great thing about this way is at a later date you can take them to a better standard quite easy and quickly as you have done the bulk of the base painting already .

Great ideas. Thanks!

Thanks for the great tips!

thats an amazing trick! thank alot!

Thx for the tips. Will test this out

Very cool video thanks!

I did this with my first land raider, storm wolf, and my rhino. I used the GW russ grey primer, but I didn't highlight and I did the basic color scheme by hand. I still do most of my marines by hand, although I am planning on getting an airbrush.

nice tips and tricks!

this video was really helpful!

I know this video is now old, but just wanted to add: I use a (kinda) similar technique with my metallic-ey Night Lords: a metallic black tamiya spray plus Tamiya clear blue = major win, super quickly. You could add in a little clear red or to make it a bit more matte Kantor blue, night lords blue (FW) or Stormy Blue (Model Color), but I have found that a simple 1-2 like that is so amazingly cool looking yet simple to get that flip black/blue look.

this looks like a great way to do snow effects

Great vid really helped

Zenital Highlighting would be the perfect name for this video, nice job.

Thanks for the advice and helping me to start painting.

Nice video I enjoyed it :)

some of the new rattlecans now are "paintable primers" that are good base colors but take layers of paint over them REALLY well. I have been using rattlecans for decades and have switched to Valspar from my local Lowes and I LOVE it. goes on thinner than anything I have ever used from a can (its close to airbrush level thin if you do it right), sticks really good, and takes water based paints over it with NO worries. best of all its about $4/can... just my $.02

And when I see your older posts, you look younger and it helps me delude myself into thinking I’m young again too! Hahahaha. Thanks

I got great results on 40k vehicles too. I got a dark angel rhino and land raider from a friend. Since I am a blood angels player I needed to get them from black to red fast and a brush just wasnt going to work. I used Army Painter Pure Red and sprayed the tanks from the top and from 45ish degree angle and a little bit from straight on the side, front and back. The vehicles look pre weathered and shaded all in one step and no brush strokes in the red! Now I just need to pick out some details and do some highlights. Also black primer with Army painter dragon red worked great on my dark eldar. I go a little heavier on the lighter color than what you showed. I kind of make it a second base coat but only spray from the top and 45 degrees.

I would love if gw put out the two squads of cultists from dark vengeance since the set is not available anymore and i love using the models for penal legion

awesome!

i haven't done any highlights but the best thing i bought for my Stormcast eternals army is Retributor armor rattlecan primer

oh gosh I did not realize I had 6+ years of your wisdom to catch up on

BRILLIANT :D

Curious if you have any updated takes on rattle can tricks since you made this almost a decade ago? Forgive me if you have already covered this in a more recent video!

That red primer would be great for Blood Angels or Word Bearers

So I imagine this would be effective for dnd miniatures as well ,or does the scale difference effect it ,for example do I run the risk of too much highlight on a mini that is far smaller than your average space marine. Thanks for sharing this. I'm a dnd player and am constantly jealous of the 40k guys at my LGS for their paint quality so I am stealing the techniques from you guys and attempting to apply it to a different geekdom of model painting.

Was wundering where you buy your primer? 😊

Hi, I'm about to jump into painting, and I got a question... If you don't have an air brush, and the rattle can is too rough or crude, would a cologne atomizer do the trick? I guess you should extra thin your paints, and do several passes, but is it possible? does somebody do this? Thanks

What was used to get the rusted look on the cultists weapons at 9:38?

Hey uncle Atom, I know this is an old vid, but I was caught up in a snakes and ladders game of your vids. I’d love to own an airbrush, but have a small child at home. Do you have a video or some insights on the setup needed for an airbrush. The cost is not what’s keeping me; it’s the footprint and safety precautions someone with a child might need (in terms of paint particles and so on)

thats how I painted most of my deathwing terminators for my dark angels added a recess shade afterwards and they look awesome :D

Those rattle can paints though don't come off if you want to strip and repaint later, right!?

I just bought 2 cans of this stuff. Black and Sand. I usually use Army Painter color primer but I got tired of paying $15 a can.

The wonders of red oxide primer. Have gone through soooo many cans with my post apocalyptic cars.

Still so useful

Just a question: Could you just simply combine the primer layer and the base color and use that? IE instead of priming something grey and then painting like khaki or red or whatever, could you just prime the model khaki or red or whatever and use that as the base coat?

Can you do one for guards men possibly

I just like the sound of a rattle can. And the sound of the words "rattle can." Yeah, I'm weird like that.

What are your thoughts on decanting paint from rattle cans? I've seen a number of videos on how to but thought I'd ask what you think of the actual usefulness.

This only works on minis that pretty much have one dominant color. For my Ork army, I have to hand paint a hundred boyz because they have all sorts of colors in small areas so this won't work. I rather sit down with my citadel paints and paint for a long time than have a difficult time painting over a weird primer color.

You should do a video showing this technique.

reminds me of a guide coat for automotive primer

I don't like rattle cans and I cannot invest in a airbrush however I do use sponges and straws and they give my models the same effect as if I was using a airbrush. Works good for me. On average I can finish from scratch about four to six models a day. I also work full-time, a dad of three and I am building my daughter a dolls house.

I had just watched your video on stripping paint, will this paint strip off?

Thanks for the tips, great video. You had said that you used pill bottles to hold the models, what kind of putty do you use to hold the model to the bottle?

As a newcomer to this hobby, I find it very hard to craft my own technique and set preferences as there are many different opposing opinions out there on the internet,and in the two gaming stores in my city. Recently I went to go get some grey primer for my Tau and one of them suggested that instead of priming Grey and painting blue,the main color of my Tau, I instead should prime blue and then get a lighter blue primer to highlight. while that would shave time off, I prefer to paint by hand. Another problem is this cruel weather we have up here in the midwest which,so far, has prevented me from priming as I prime in the garage.

If i prime my Deathwatch with black. What´s the best idea to spray highlight? Maybe gray?

The rattle is an imperfect glass marble.

Back when I played WHFB we told our dwarf player exactly what's rattling inside these cans and that he should crack the empty ones open to stock up on minis...

Hah, reference to "sand color" dates the video a lot! GD GW and their ever changing studio schemes

These tricks are all great but I am still completely lost about a specific problem. You say that we can use a paintbrush to prime a model but if I stick to GW for example, then I know I based a model but I do not think I primed them. If I use a rattlecan then as said in multiple videos you need to accept that some parts will not be covered by the primer or else you will put too much paint and It will destroy the details. The problem of course is that because of that my color priming is kind of useless since I will need to base anyway. I am super confused and nobody seem to talk about this basic problem.

Army painter do a good range of sprays, you might find your light red with them.

I had orange Tau aswell. I brush painted them though. badly.

Anyone got links for the cans?

I was priming my first miniatures today and I was freaking out trying not to fill in the detail. It's hard to tell with the naked eye. I live in Australia and bought a can from my games workshop for $30. I wish everything was as cheap as it is in america.

50 is your lower limit? Does your average LSM spam scouts?

Can you do this with white?

RATTLECAN FOR THE RATTLECAN GOD!!!!

It's a marble usually.

Wouldn't a 90 degree angle from the ground be spraying it from the side? :P

RVB fans @ 4:13 - "It's not pink, it's lightish-red!"

Truth, the doohickey is actually a glass marble.

The grainy cultist looked pretty rough

This was uploaded 2 months before i started collecting Gunpla. :P

the rattlers inside are actually glass marbles most of the time.

I have never heard spray paint called a rattle can. New wargame vocab I guess.

the first 1:20 all facts XD

Is this a reupload

I think GW saw this and went hmmm just paint with washes..... Let's call them "contrast paints" and slap a higher price tag on them!!!!

This is how I paint my baneblades

Lightish-red is definitely pink. Unless your name is Donut, ofc.

Maybe another hack is... removing the marble?

It's a marble inside it. 😀

The rattle is from a marble.

Those tau look speckled

great colors green & yellow, chevron stripes, paint leaded heavy metal figures too like Greek black figure