Speedpaint | 5 Best Practices

With any new paint product or technique, there’s always a bit of a learning curve to get the best results. With Speedpaint, that learning curve isn’t so steep. Here are 5 Best Practices to get the most from this awesome new technique to add to your hobby arsenal.

Miniature is from Jonethealliance/Cults3D.com

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► PRODUCTS USED AND MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO

Speedpaint Starter Set
Speedpaint Mega Set
Mixing Balls
Wet Palette
Hard Palette (Only sold in the Hobby Set)

Primer:
- Air Primer Matt White
- Colour Primer Matt White
- Colour Primer Necrotic Flesh
- Colour Primer Skeleton Bone
- Colour Primer Gun Metal

Varnish:
- Anti Shine Matt Varnish (Can)
- Air Matt Varnish (Airbrush)

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► SHOP HERE

The full Airbrush and Speedpaint range will be available March 26, when our new display hits retail floors.

Read more about our Speedpaint here:

Read more about our Airbrush here:

#thearmypainter #speedpaint #airbrush

[TashiMortier]

Thank you for being honest about the reactivation here in the end. I really appreciate it. I cancelled my preorder of the full set for now, but I plan to pick up some of them later on to one coat paint some board games quickly. Excited to give them a try then. :)

[KeloseDEC]

The admittance of the reactivation property of the speedpaints earns you massive amount of respect from me (and I am sure many other people). I question if other companies would have done the same. Excited to get my hands on this speedpaint! Although I absolutely have to varnish and highlight mine haha.

[RollToExplode]

A lovely tip video! :)

I was silly and put them on my wet pallette now my sponge is technicolour! Haha :)

These are lovely paints to use, like all new things they just take some time to get a feel for!

[harrisonlorens]

Really happy you addressed the reactivation aspect of the paints. Absolutely something to watch out for!

[yanomamo]

Good tips for beginners. Cant wait to try them out.

[wddthedraftsman]

Thank you so much for the informative and clear videos! It's a true joy to watch them all and I learn a lot by it. Since 2020, The Army Painter is my favorite brand for the hobby. Thank you for listening to your community!

[oreettroll]

Just got my speed paints earlier this week, and planning to paint some test models tonight to experiment.

[NiteLynr]

Thank you for being open about this. I was worried about the the reactivation issue but have done a bit of research and this vid just backs up my findings. Can't wait for my set at the end of the month :)

[raeishimura]

I really appreciate this video. I'm looking forward to SpeedPaints for large army groups myself. I suffered a severe injury to my right arm in my twenties, and while I can paint single miniatures with the usual acrylics and washes, large groups start to cause pain, so a paint that can let me paint large groups of models more quickly and easily with one coat is is honestly a huge game changer for me. Knowing about the reactivation does help. I have the basic set on its way, and I have a large collection of models for D&D and Five Parsecs from Home that I still need to get painted. Hopefully these will do the job for me

[adriansmodelpage]

Got my set yesterday, had a quick play with them and I love em!!!! I'll be ordering the full set next week.

[roccoraspanti]

Ok, I'm not a speed/one coat/contrast type of guy. Instead, I'm real "slow painter", but all the cries and screams about the reactivation that I heard around the net made me really curious about these new range. I'll be picking a few bottles when singles are available. Good job AP ;)

[jcanada]

Hi Army painter, I wanted to follow up as now I have used the paints and done a number of experiments with many different scenarios.

I can confidently say this reactivation issue is totally overblown and a non issue as long as the person is willing to have a bit of patience.

If you need to redo an area or use white/grey or other paint on acrylic over existing speed paint you just use a light coat of paint on varnish in that area. I use your army painter Matt varnish and it works well, just brush lightly on the area you want to paint over. Then let it dry, then paint on the “undercoat” colour you want to use before you want to touch up the area. I use your acrylic white over the brush on varnish and have had zero reactivation issues on any colour. I will of course use spray varnish when doing the whole mini, but this works wonders for touch ups.

I find lightly dry brushing matt white or Skeleton bone acrylic over non varnished areas does not impact the paint much or cause reactivation, but if you are concerned, just use a light brush on varnish for the highlight areas or spray the model if you are doing it all.

Bottom line is, using acrylics or doing touch ups by re-applying Matt white as a base is working fine on all colours of my mega set, just use a light coat (and don’t brush too hard) of your Matt brush on varnish. You can than reapply any colour with no problems.

This is a great product and this is an easy fix for touch ups or highlights.

[Lets_Get_Gaming]

Oh wow, great tip on the primer, spray can vs airbrush. I just got an airbrush and preordered the three Army Painter Air primers as I get very few days where I live that has cooperative weather to spray prime. (If it's warm enough, it's usually too humid) Thankfully, it doesn't look too different. I'll definitely break out the test models and give it a try.

[minipaintinjohn]

Great vid guys! Can't wait to give them a try.

[thegamethemovie]

I'm looking forward to having these appear in Japan 🇯🇵 I hope you guys will post up some best practices and tutorials in the meantime!

[ronarion]

Guys I yesterday got your starter set and omg it is soo good! I just ordered the Mega set :D

[donniem]

For anyone like me who can't get their primer sprays at a good price... Rustoleum makes an amazing flat matte white... I took a dropper and added Reducer (Hobby Lobby) or Lamen Medium (citadel) to each drop of Speed Paint at a 1/1 ratio. Works beautifully. Straight out of the bottle it did just stain, and rarely gave me the good pool effect... But, as of this current time my local hobby shops sell AP Primers for about 20$... and Amazon is not very trustworthy to buy spray cans from because they tend to hold really old and not well climate-controlled stock.

[ogreman]

I know this week a lot of people have started whining about the speedpaints reactivating but a layer of varnish between base coat and highlight has been standard for me for years. Even outside of reactivating, it helps prevent your fingers from accidentally rubbing off paint while repositioning the model or on accidental drops or scuffs. I have the mega set on pre order and cannot wait to try them out for myself.

[HeadCannonPrime]

I'll buy your white primer again when you switch your spray can nozzles to something with better design. The droplets are too big for smooth pre-shading and I have had to throw away at least 3 cans of AP primer due to clogged nozzles. That said, I look forward to getting the full set of speepaints when released.

[SunDancerGE]

Nice video but it would have made more sense to add a leaflet to the box stating those 5 key points.