Let's start with the elephant in the room, the 23-minutes army.

Back in 2013, I took some unpainted Infinity minis to my vacation in Argentina. First evening, I tested the color scheme on one model. Next evening, I painted everything else:

These won't take any "best painted" awards, I get it.

But honestly, I like the look of them. There's an atmosphere, a cohesive color scheme, and they look just fine as tabletop models.

A speedpainted beginner's army, done in a hotel room, without proper lightning, under 4 hours total for 10 miniatures? Fine by me.

And I know what goes next.

He is a monster! I'm spending hours and hours on every freaking model, and he's doing that in 23 minutes?!

Please, let me transfer the magic to you.

Because I just can't stand unpainted models on either side of the gaming table. And I'd love to see your stuff painted, as much as you do.

This tutorial is kinda longread, but find some patience and willpower. Study it thoroughly. It could totally change the way you paint.

There's reason why washing technique is so powerful, and so forgiving to mistakes, noob-ness, and lack of accuracy. Here it is:

Model's shape and the consistency of paint do all the work for you.

Most of the other techniques doesn't really use natural shape of the miniature. And that's why they rely heavily on your accuracy and skill with the brush. Which leads to two problems:

• It is very hard for you to paint with accuracy-based techniques (basecoat, layering, blending, feathering, freehands)
• Doing accuracy-based techniques takes much more time than shape-based techniques

So if you want to speed up your painting, and at the same time increase it's quality — just let the shape and the paint do the job for you. They are pros, after all.

There's difference between washing as a technique, and washes as a type of paints.

Washing is a painting technique that uses diluted paint that flows into recesses and crevices, using model's natural shape to create final effect.

You can do washing with almost any paint, not only with washes.

Washes are special consistency paints, well suited for washing technique. Usually a wash is a low opacity paint, that flows more easily and naturally over the model's surface. They can be called differently, but usually it is either "washes" or "shades".

You can use washes not only for washing, but for other techniques as well (like glazing or blending).

Citadel Contrast paints are something in between a normal paint and a wash in regards to opacity and consistency. But they are intended to be uses as washes, so they are in the same category. Treat them as high opacity washes.

Inks, on the other hand are a slightly different thing. Inks are very saturated, high-pigmented, and still very fluid paints. They are usually used for toning, glazing, and restoring saturation. You CAN use inks for washing techniques, but that's not the most common scenario.

Let's get back to the definition:

Washing is a painting technique that uses diluted paint that flows into recesses and crevices, using model's natural shape to create final effect.

Actually, there's more than one technique that follows that principle. More precisely, there's a group of washing techniques. All of them, in some way, uses fluid diluted paint and model' natural shape.

Namely:

• Pre-washing
• Washing
• Controlled washing
• Lining

We will discuss all of them here, so bear with me.

So, what exact washes do you need, and also what auxiliary products does this technique require?

Washes

I recommend Citadel Washes and Citadel Contrasts. I tried some Vallejo and ArmyPainter stuff, but they feel inferior. Don't waste your time and money, get yourself a set of Citadel, and they'll carry you a long way.

If you can't get the whole set, these are the priorities, regardless of what do you paint exactly:

• The most needed: black (Nuln Oil), blue (Drakenhof Nightshade), neutral brown (Agrax Earthshade)
• Often needed: blue-green (Coelia Greenshade), sepia (Seraphim Sepia), red-brown (Reikland Fleshshade), camo-green (Athonia Camoshade), violet (Druchii Violet)
• Rarely needed: red (Carroburg Crimson), yellow (Cassandora Yellow), green (Biel-Tan Green), orange (Fuegan Orange).

Note that there are glossy variants of these shades, like "Agrax Earthshade Gloss". I don't know the reason you might need them. So be vigilant, don't accidentally buy these.

And last precaution. Yes, you can do washing with regular paints, diluting them with medium or just water. But please, don't do this. It won't work well for you. The shades I've mentioned are worth their price. It's better to spend some money on them, than to suffer without them.

Medium

You'll want to dilute your washes quite often. And water isn't great for this. Watered down wash will create pooling effect — when colored pigment stays on the borders of the pool, and not spreading equally.

That's why there are mediums — transparent liquids, that reduce opacity without changing the consistency or the flow.

Again, there are mediums in every manufacturer's lines, but Citadel still beats them with Lahmian Medium:

This is your water 2.0 now, so I'd recommend keeping 2-3 bottles at home all the time.

Brushes

Washing techniques doesn't require any specific brush. They also don't kill brushes (the way drybrush or metallics do, for example). So, you can use you regular brush.

Any "size 1" / "medium" brush would do fine. You probably won't need size 0. Maybe size 2 occasionally, when you need to cover big area fast.

I use Citadel Artificer Layer M brush.

Pre-washing: do 1-2 coats of wash over entire model, after white or other bright undercoat.

This technique can serve several purposes:

• Define all areas and surfaces of the model, so that you can clearly see all shapes and forms. That would ease all of the following work.
• Cheap lining. Instead of doing line washing or classic lining afterwards, you can use this initial wash as lining. You just need to keep these dark crevices, and not paint over them. This is especially easy if you won't do basecoats at all, working with washing-only techniques.
• Some finished areas already. Done smart, this step can create several finished areas, already at the stage of undercoat and pre-washing. Bright armor, cloth, skin — it can be anything, you just need to adjust undercoat and wash colors.

If you're in a hurry, use the wash straight from the pot. If you can afford two coats, then do 1:1 mix of wash and Lahmian Medium. This would lead to smoother and cleaner look. A bigger brush would help too.

Washing: load your brush with a lot of wash, spread over a basecoat (or just bright undercoat), and let the wash flow into recesses naturally, doing all the job by itself.

Usually washing is seen as a step in "basecoat, wash, layer, layer, edge highlight" process, which is an old Games Workshop mantra. But this is not we're doing here.

Washing is the LAST step.

You just do a basecoat with bright color, and then do 1-2 coats of wash. And that's it.

Here's what you can get from this:

• Shadows and highlights in one go. The wash goes naturally into recesses, creating shadow there, and leaving all raised areas brighter. Meaning you instantly get your shadows and highlights, for free, with no additional highlight layers.
• Natural blending in one go. Washes (especially mixed with medium) naturally create simple blends, much smoother than you can achieve with hand-painted layers in the same time.
• Mistakes coverage. If you done some sloppy basecoating previously, wash will partially or completely cover that. You can be less accurate with your basecoats, you don't need to stress that much on brush control, and you don't need to repaint basecoating mistakes most of the time.
• Layers blending. As an advanced use of washing, you can do a wash over classic highlight layers, to slightly blend them together. That lessens the need for accuracy during highlights.

Some examples:

To get the best out of this technique, follow these guidelines:

• Use bright undercoat. If you are going to paint a miniature predominantly with washes, do bright undercoat. White, ivory, light grey, light bone — depending on color scheme.
• Use much brighter basecoat than you normally do. The color you need to use for your basecoat would be closer to what you normally would use as last highlight. Since you won't be highlighting, this is your only opportunity to create bright spots.
• Dilute 1:1 with Lahmian Medium. You can skip this on small areas (and just use wash straight from the pot). But on larger surfaces dilute with medium and do 2-3 coats. This will create much smoother transitions and less mess.
• Fix while wet. Drying time of a wash is much longer than of regular paint. That means you have some time to fix mistakes. You can clear the wash with an empty and just slightly wet brush (or just with your finger). You can redistribute the wash to prevent pools and messy spots.
• Let it dry. When the wash started to set, wait until the was is completely dry before moving on. If you touch a semi-dry wash, you will tear a patch — that is very hard to fix.

Controlled Washing: do several layers of highly diluted wash, applying it selectively and decreasing covered area with each coat.

Benefits of controlled washing:

• Cheap blending. If you can't do smooth blends with regular paints (I barely can, BTW), definitely try this one. Blending with washes is much easier.
• More accurate shading, compared to regular washing. You can control the placement of your shadows with this technique. Which is crucial when working on attention-grabbers — face, hair and skin.

Here's an example of a face done with controlled washing:

This technique can totally work even for display-level painting. There's no limit to what you can achieve, including perfectly smooth blends (usually associated with display-level).

Look at this girl. As you might have guessed, I like her — she is on the cover of "The LazyPainter Method" PDF. Won me couple of painting contests. So I'm proud and all that. Why is she here?

Apart from obvious stuff like eyes, eyebrows and lips, her face was done predominantly with controlled washes.

Here's more examples. Won't win any painting contests, but these are my tabletop-level pieces. Still pretty decent I'd say.

Now, please look at the picture again. But this time, keep this thought in mind:

There are NO HIGHLIGHTS on those faces.

I mean, at all. They're done with controlled washing over white basecoat / undercoat. And BTW, see that blonde Fusilier? Her hair is done the same way. Just some sepia washes over white.

Hope at this point you get it why I'm so obsessed with this technique.

Like with regular washing, you'll need to do bright basecoat / undercoat. Apart from that, here's the guidelines:

• Dilute heavily. Something around 1:4 .. 1:8 wash to medium ratio.
• Load lightly. Opposite to regular washing, controlled washing needs very small amount of wash on your brush.
• Shade selectively. Opposite to regular washing, don't cover the whole surface. Apply the wash only where you need shadows to appear.
• Apply several layers. Work in several layers, applying them one after the other. Since there is very little wash on your brush, it would dry very fast.

Line washing: load your brush with medium amount of wash, and apply to recesses and joints between surfaces, in a controlled manner.

Line washing is just a form of lining, classic technique used with regular paints. The effect is just much easier to achieve with washes.

Benefits of line washing:

• Definition. Lining brings visual definition to the model, separating all areas and surfaces.
• Mistakes coverage. If you made some slight mistakes during basecoats, and slapped some paint outside its supposed area, line washing will cover that. The wash would flow into the joint, darkening and covering bad brushstroke.
• Natural lining. Line washing uses natural flow of washes to simplify the process. The was flows naturally into recesses and joints, doing the lining for you.

Here's an example:

Guidelines:

• Medium load. You don't need a lot of wash on your brush, or you'll spill it all over. Too little wash also won't work, since you need it to have some volume and flow. So something in between
• Don't dilute. Use your wash straight from the pot for line washing. Diluted wash will take 2-3 layers to create enough contrast, and this technique is already time-consuming.
• Apply lightly with the tip of the brush. And you'll want a sharp tip for this one. With regular washing, you can apply some pressure and smear the wash over the surface. With line washing, you can't. Gently move the tip of the brush along the recess, letting the wash flow into it.

So, you've already seen my "23 minutes per model" conversation starter.

This initial squad was done with just regular washing over bright basecoats (no line washing or controlled washes). Layering was used only for turquoise light sources and details. I more or less completed that army later (back in 2013), using the exact same process.

Several years after, when Shasvastii sectorial update dropped in March 2019, I needed to add some models to this force. And that was a nice chance to revisit the process and update it.

Then I did exactly two adjustments:

• Forgoing the basecoats altogether, and just doing washes over white undercoat.
• Starting with zenithal undercoat to achieve more dramatic brightness contrast.

The night before our gaming Saturday, I quickly built 6 new models, airbrushed a zenithal undercoat, and get myself ready to speedpaint them.

March 29 of 2019, 9:30 PM, I posted this to our local gaming chat. Like, "hey guys, if you want to paint with me, I'm doing these right now":

March 29 of 2019, 11:42 PM, I posted an update. Something along the lines of "hey guys, I'm done, how's your night going?":

The math says it's 132 minutes total, 22 minutes per model. Including the drybrushed clump foliage on the base, and that nice reddish pigments (I added pigments to the whole army btw).

My painting buddies were very annoyed.

Another example of army-painting with washing approach in mind is this Hassassins army:

The process here is a bit more time-consuming. My result was 43 minutes per model, and I also added some sepia washes later, which you can see on the photo. Still, it is somewhere around 50 minutes, and still definitely hitting "under an hour" bracket.

I would also like to show you my speedpainted interpretation of old Saito Togan miniature.

One night I was helping my wife with her Bakunin starter. Meaning, she was painting it, and I was just giving some advice and directions. So, my hands were unoccupied most of the time, and I painted Saito. It took something like 2 hours or probably less:

Most of the work was done with regular washing over white undercoat. I've only done some layering on his armor and katana. I especially love the look of his back, with all those fabrics perfectly defined by a wash.

I guess if you were strong enough to finish this longread, you got it:

Use washing. It's a game-changer.

It's the speediest technique. And also very simple. And novice-friendly. And it cover your mistakes. And it doesn't require an airbrush. And you can paint an entire army in a very reasonable amount of time.

So, give it a try, and please share with a painting buddy who might need some speed boost in his army-painting.