5 Fast Painting Habits for Stunning Miniatures in Half the Time

Today, we are talking about 5 unexpected hacks to paint your miniatures faster! Why are they unexpected? Because these are techniques that I have not seen in any other miniature painting video! Lets talk about our mindset, how recipes help us paint faster and achieve better results, the mullet of painting, and more!

00:00 Intro
00:24 Shifting Mindset
00:49 Recipes
3:02 The Mullet Of Miniature Painting
5:50 Your Arsenal
7:09 Don't Paint Blind
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Lyla Mev The Mini Witch creates beginner miniature painting tutorials and easy-to-understand guides for Warhammer, dungeons & dragons, and more. My favorite things to paint are sisters of battle, display quality miniatures, and focusing on having fun.

[cordial]

using a reference photo is the best cheat code for painting ever. I love your videos. Thank you

[jamesblackburn]

Thanks for not skipping mindset. Awesome way to start.

[joesleboda]

Wonderful video!
I've painted for 39 years. My wife, 9. Your general concept of embracing the familiar and the real vs. chasing new shiny is spot on for both of us.

Nice job.

[dracosummoner]

Thanks so much, Lyla and kitties! This was super helpful, because something that was sometimes a stumbling block for me was feeling like I needed to paint every model to a competition-ready level when they just need to be ready for the tabletop. So your demonstration of different techniques and emphases depending on context (gameplay, social media, competition) was super helpful, especially since a lot of twenty-minute painting tutorials on YouTube don't always take into account that their techniques need to be viable for someone's attention span across a unit of at least ten models, in some cases dozens of them. Comparing myself to established painters on social media has sometimes had its uses when I'm looking for reference photos but has more often than not simply made me feel like I'm not doing enough. So this video was a blessing to see, particularly for its focus (no matter your skill level and no matter which specific context you're painting for) on honing and mastering the fundamentals until you feel comfortable enough to experiment with them, and it was very much appreciated. Blessings!

[RocktCityTim]

Reference photos! I learned this in 7th grade art class back in 1970 and have never given it much thought since it's just been what I do for both models and minis. Great to call it out.

I also fought the paint pot of the week battle for over a year (and took the associated hit to the wallet). A month back, I watched a vid on using craft paints (blasphemy) and picked up Testor's Craft line in a 36 bottle range. And it was an "et voilà!" moment - they provide excellent opacity, consistent pigmentation, consistent viscosity, easily mixed, easily thinned, work with brushes and airbrushes, and $29 for 36, 2oz bottles. At my current thinning rate, I suspect that these 2oz bottles will each become 5oz to 6oz of usable paints.

[anthonywaggett]

A line attributed to George Lucas when shown a Apple Mac mock up for a background, 'Good enough is good enough'. If you are not painting for competition or display, this is what everyone should remember. Plus I believe that in the early days the GW 'Eavy Metal team only painted the front of the models because that was all that was seen in the photos so for most games the back detail isn't important as you are the only one who would see it - actually love to see that in an official GW tournament. Great video.

[mandalorianknight]

A great list of reminders! Now, it’s time to slay some grey!

[TranscendentaLobo]

I love your channel. I’m just starting out with mini painting but I’ve learned SO much from you. Thanks so much for all you do Lyla!!! ❤

[redrooster]

I will argue about dropping the speed metal playlist. But knowing for what purpose you paint is crucial!

[rccarguy]

I love your advice about finding a paint line you like and stick with it. Thats exactly what I did. I had so many brands. So I bought an Army Pinter Mega Set, and gave everything else away. 🙂

[Frank-pyhk]

Simple tips we all need to hear once in a while as we are inundated each week with the method of the week videos. Thank you for keeping us grounded.

[jasonfrank]

Just the video I needed today. Getting out of personal habits and painting mentally and physically. So you video helped feed my mental side and off to paint for the physical.

[timwells]

Dang... I have been jumping techniques WAY too frequently. Time to pick a path for a while! Thank you for the video, great as always!

[Undune]

Another basic that some people skip is that it also pays to organize your workspace before (à la mise en place). Setting up the tools, brushes, and paints you're going to use, in order of use or how frequently you need it, really speeds up the session.

[SpicyPetePaints]

Some really useful tips in here, and I felt naive in parts because I hadn’t considered them! Every day is a school day! Great video

[Filthyanimal]

Thanks for sharing. I enjoy these vids so much when I’m struggling with motivation!

[YouTubeuser]

I just saw in person the sculpture you showed in the video <3

[antiwaffles]

Recently I've gotten more invested in one line of paint, and I can attest to how much of a difference that makes in simply knowing how everything will work together. Great video!

[evanmurphreegamble]

I’m such a big fan of painting from reference! I mostly paint dnd minis, and have been focusing on monsters. I like looking at photos of real life animals to understand texture, form, and basic colors, and at fantasy art to get inspired for the overall color pallet and lighting.

[Sir_PinkPirate]

Great video, I actually did a lecture at my old animation uni on a similar topic a few years back. Procedure, workflow and knowing where to focus your effort is such an important part of building speed and efficiency in your work, but I often see newer artists focus too much on only the act of drawing/painting to the neglect of everything else. It's really hard to physically just paint mini's faster, but so much we can do with workflow and preparation to help us get us get our plastic painted.