10 Tips for Speed Painting Complex Minis (NO AIRBRUSH) - Featuring New Cities of Sigmar - HC 420

[@jamesgoodsell1678]

For me this is the best speed/army painting video I have ever seen bar none. A clear, concise and effective method that anyone can follow. Really grateful Vince, as someone with a young child and therefore time-poor, you’ve made me genuinely excited about painting my pile of grey again.

[@VinceVenturella]

Wow, thank you! Awesome to hear for sure. :)

[@RobbieSykes]

I have 2 toddlers and just started an Astra Militarum army for my first army. Everything James said 💯

[@PeachyPixel28]

The great thing about practicing using texture for free details is that this skill will directly transfer to more painterly pieces.

[@just_gut]

Great video, Vince. I think the important thing to remember is if you aren't trying to win a competition, perfect is the enemy of good. Even 'really good' can be the enemy of 'good'. Spend the time you save on your unit on your centerpiece(s), since those are what people are going to spend any amount of time looking closer. Also, know what is important to you. Vince pointed out the cloaks on the Fusilliers, but if you have something like Nighthaunt it may be the ghost parts rather than the cloak. If you have Bonesplitters, it might be the war paint or tattoos. Maybe basing is more your thing. Spend time on the elements that truly matter and just let the rest be good enough.

[@0supermoose804]

I had no idea under-shading could make that much of a difference with normal acrylic paints. I always assumed it was a contrast/speedpaint technique. Super useful!

[@MarieAvora]

that little comment to "wick off water on a paper towel" just changed my life, I've been having problems with thinning paints this whole year I've been painting

[@Smygolf1234]

Do more videos like this please. This was great! This is the levels of paint I can actually learn from and apply in practice. I guess like many others I don't have the time or the skills to do the super quality stuff. Would love to see it done on other types of minis, like monster, animal, humanoids with a lot of skin etc.

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you! Will do!

[@naib_stilgar]

44 minutes??! You are a wizard Vince..

[@xnax1993]

I think this is the first time I see a speed painting method that I can actually see myself using. No special equipment, no ridiculous curing times, and it ends up looking painted rather than someone just blasted it with the mandatory 3 colours through an airbrush. As a bonus, your centerpiece models wont look out of place, since you can just take a higher quality approach using the same fundamentals. Excellent video!

[@VinceVenturella]

Wonderful to hear!

[@MyOwnLanguage]

It's so funny .all of the tips, and tricks you give, that you repeat over, and over. like metallic paint was made to be painted over black. How much you stress the importance of the level of water in your brush, in context of what you're trying to do on the model .All of these things are so important .It probably took me a little too long to realize how important, for some of these things.Not to choose too many colors, how important contrast is, because the model is so small .How important the undercoat is, depending on what color you're using above it .I have learned so much from you it's crazy .using all these techniques I sold my first big sale on eBay for 90$ to someone in germany lol. Side note: i had to choose a " tariff" for it for customs, and i hope I chose the right option . The only option that looked like it fit was "art print" ANYWAY! i should be paying you for this wealth of knowledge you give away freely. thank you vince ,my pretend friend.

[@richardokeeffe8375]

“Sticky-outy bits”. Vince you’re an Absolute gem! Great video and info

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you kindly!

[@lucidiously]

This is some great advice! As someone who just started his Sisters of Battle army I've noticed I've been taking a lot of time painting up the basic models, but I was unsure how to speed up my process. These are exactly the kind of tips I needed!

[@spacedock873]

Face technique is amazing. I'm definitely going to try that! 👍😃

[@VinceVenturella]

Have fun!

[@ZodiusXx]

Finding out I've naturally done all these steps really makes me feel accomplished as a painter. One other thing I've been doing which is a more time consuming (but definitely worth doing) is a gloss varnish, followed by a recess shading of black ink. It adds a cool comic book effect of black lining, with the hydrophobic properties of the gloss often creating these wonderful little black droplets or sketch lines with minimal effort, followed by a matte varnish. It adds about 5-10 mins for each model so would only recommenced it for a skirmish game (although after doing it for a while I can get that timing down to 2-4 mins). Love your vids as always Vince (still waiting for the intro to turn into a full song though!)

[@EmbraCraig]

This is a Vince V video that feels like an Uncle Atom video. Always great to hear a great painter give tips on quick army painting - love it 👍

[@Fox01313]

Looks great! Agreed about the small details that aren't too noticable, give it a color but they don't need a bunch of detail of painting. There's nothing wrong with some small elements (like a pouch on a belt or backpack) to match the color of the thing it's attached to.

[@kennypalmer8971]

This makes me feel so much better about my current project. It’s my first army that will actually be complete and I’ve been doing speed painting and batch painting the entire army over the last 2 months. The blends aren’t super smooth, but I went with pink as my primary color to make the models look bright and look good from a few feet away. Up close it’s rough, but when grouped with 30 other models that look identical, you can’t see the rough layering. When painting them, you’re up close and personal with them so it can be hard to remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect up close

[@coryway6951]

Great to see a video like this. Not only educational but for me validating. As I was watching it, I was just nodding along, as that's what I'd do for each step. Often we find our own ways to cut corners and it is fantastic to see it broken down so clearly here. The beauty of this, too, is that at any time in the future, one can easily take those units and 2.0 areas. A model is only done when you say it is.

[@callumhenry7420]

I’ve been wondering how to get my COS models painted relatively good but also not too slowly, so this is great advice! I may also try and dry brush the wood on the shield as that will work quite well as well I think

[@deliciousrelish]

Great info as always. Thanks for continuing to bring so much quality education to the youtubes.

[@VinceVenturella]

You bet!

[@whiteboyfrik5864]

Awesome tips, ipm surely more of a gamer than a painter, so tips for getting things looking good enough for the tabletop in a reasonable enough amount of time comes great. Wishing you a great day Vince

[@lorgor4eva]

It's always so helpful, Vince. Thanks for all your great advice and hot takes and discussions on warhammer weekly

[@HooperTriplett]

Thanks - was about to start sweating those near-impossible faces, and your solution makes soooo much more sense.

[@montlejohnbojangles8937]

Thanks Vince, this is a great video! Even though I rarely work on speed-painting projects or paint full armies anymore, I think there's a huge value to learning to paint quickly and fearlessly. It will improve your grasp of light and shadow, learning to pick clever and impactful colours, and stop you second-guessing yourself all the time if you're the kind to get half way through a project and give up because you're not exactly sure where to go next.

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Wijkert]

Your close up painting shots have become so much better over time, Vince!

[@AgeofGuns]

I'm building a Greywater Fastness army and their color scheme is Black/Yellow. I'm thinking of using red as a contrast for the wood on the Fusil-Cannons, for the Heroes I've gone with a checkered pattern of Black/Yellow to make them stand out. I appreciate this guide but I feel like I'm dealing with an entirely different battle than with blue, that being said there's a TON of really good advice that I'd never even known! I also plan on using black pigments on the guns to really try to bring out the weathered gun look. Your videos are awesome and I can't wait to use your Tomb Kings guide for the Old World!

[@s.w.4409]

Always appreciate speed painting videos from you!

[@Omegaterrain]

These are great tips Vince. I think I would add one more and that’s to make bases visually interesting by adding details such as grass tuffs, sprinkle on dry leaves, or use 3D printed plants. These elements don’t take a lot of time to incorporate and make a huge impact.

[@gideonhockenbarger6078]

I second this. I look forward to bases most of all, and it's because they add so much visual interest with not a ton of effort.

[@VinceVenturella]

Absolutely!

[@johnminer7894]

Your tutorials are simply the best, i love watching your videos. thank you

[@Bear_of_light26]

Love this video and I really hope you landed in AP's new factory team. I was so happy with Tip 10 though. I've been painting World Eaters and any time I look at a bad spot or an area where I accidentally nik a spot that was already painted and my instinct is to go back and fix it I stop and think - wait, I can just throw some blood there.

[@KingPuuChuu]

Once again, you post an incredible tutorial. Thank you.

[@VinceVenturella]

My pleasure!

[@alancook1053]

Yep “THE” Techno Mancer! Awesome video. You bring us back to the “simple” reality🥸

[@VinceVenturella]

You bet!

[@adamduncombe594]

Great video Vince. Thanks for taking the time to share

[@VinceVenturella]

You bet

[@hulejul9748]

this is really good advice for the metal! another one I found for normally layered steel or silver, is to thin down something like a black Templar contrast paint (with contrast medium), and cover the metal with it. gives it a really nice dark shaded yet metallic look, and adding a few scratches with a bright silver is a fast and easy way to top it imo it gives a way better and more metallic look than thick contrast or shades

[@joegkushner]

Good stuff. Appreciate the Cities of Sigmar use as that's the new 'hotness' and I have them on the to be painte list.

[@VinceVenturella]

Have fun!

[@kewanzahedinour7304]

Thank you, especially for the no Airbrush part!

[@VinceVenturella]

You're welcome!

[@robv.johnson6360]

Great video, this is the thing I'd like to focus on more than anything, especially as someone with a batrep channel. I struggle making the minis be something I'm satisfied with while cranking things out to add variety for the people at home. I'll definitely be trying to add this to my arsenal, more of these videos would be greatly appreciated and thanks as always!

[@fresh_kerfer]

Really great video! Perfect match for me as I'm gonna order this unit and also have more steelhelms to finish for my custom city! Glad to find the channel, instant subscription for me! 🎉

[@WolfTau]

You really brought up some good points, thanks. I'll have to try those ideas.

[@blakeherrod3909]

I'm super new to the hobby. This really helped me out a lot. Will definitely subscribe. And will rewatch this video to get these tips down! Thank you 😊

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful! Happy to have you along on the hobby journey!

[@Dotification]

Great video, Vince! Appreciate it!!

[@VinceVenturella]

My pleasure!

[@zpetriw]

Great video, great techniques. Makes me want to tackle some of the smaller figures I have in units. Thanks, Vince!

[@Vortid]

Very good advice. The only thing that I miss is if you want to varnish and how that might affect the order of doing metal/non metal paints.

[@VinceVenturella]

Very simple answer, I don't varnish. :)

[@mtpstyles]

Brilliant array of paint advice. Thanks a ton!

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@timkline162]

This is great. When I speedpaint, I just paint solid colors and then slather nuln oil all over everything. Yours looks much better :)

[@TheWalterZabel]

Thank you Vince! This is gold and just in time for my Adeptus Mechanicus Army Project. I tend to get sidetracked and stuff :D Thank you for your teaching Senpai :D

[@robbied8587]

Thanks a lot Vince, great tips as always. Had never considered the concept of fast blending/layering as you did on the cloak (as opposed to slightly less sophisticated techniques like just drybrushing and washing) but it looks great and will need to give it a try

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@aaronsomerville2124]

Great tips! I'm finally starting to loosen up about bright highlights... not sure why I was so resistant to them for so long.

[@torstenaan]

The last tip is really good! :O

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@gregoiremallet5751]

Thanks a lot. I like the method and tips for reducing time !!

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@LakeyWargames]

These are some great tips for the topic Vince! I'm definitely always putting too much pressure on myself to make things look perfect when I don't always need to be doing so. I'll be making sure to do my best to try a project following these only and not going OTT on every mini. :)

[@renaudroyer5390]

Excellent tips. Thanks a lot 👍

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Gaiawolf]

Always enlightening. Cheers Mr V. Keep well 🖖

[@cordial001]

Great video man. Thanks for your hard work - it's appreciated.

[@TheMiniaturesPaintbrush]

Not caring about the smooth blends is my biggest weakness. I loose sleep over it, I know in my heart I could have done better. Great video buddy

[@VinceVenturella]

I understand, its a journey to let go.

[@Dignika]

Mr. Vince, I am currently working on a greywater fastness army, I will try to use your video as a guideline, but I was wondering after watching your yellow video if I should use another colour for the primer because I am afraid black will just scuff up the yellow layer tones, any advice on that? Many thanks!

[@VinceVenturella]

I would do a zenithal of some kind, that would set you up for the yellow.

[@devorer77]

Hello Vince! Thank you for your new video!

[@papabopp]

Great video as always! A video on painting Jade (on seraphon!?) Would be awesome and very helpful for me

[@basslaats8889]

Very nice tutorial, love it! . I would love to see a similair one, but for smaller scale figures (15/25 mm)

[@arandomlostsoul753]

Great tutorial, appreciate it!

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sluki6190]

brilliant work as always! May I ask which primer you used on the model? really like the matte finish

[@VinceVenturella]

Pro Acryl Dark Neutral Grey primer.

[@alanfordham3017]

​@VinceVenturella this painting guide is amazing. I am in the process of following your tutorial/ guide. Unfortunately I am having to hand paint / prime my minitures. When hand painting the primer do thin it down or use straight from the bottle after a good shake?

[@VinceVenturella]

@@alanfordham3017 I always at least have a moist brush, but I mostly spread it around and thin it out on the miniature, you want to make sure it's really thin and smooth by working it on the surface and smoothing it out.

[@optomix3988]

Great Tips. Thank you

[@jasonrichardwatts]

As always, badass!

[@howardcoates6985]

Sneaky contrast, "use a brown that has orange tones to better contrast with the blue". I have never consciously thought of this but looking at some of my recently painted stuff I have been doing it... I will keep that in mind much more from now on. Love these videos as I always learn something from them! Keep up the good work.

[@VinceVenturella]

Happy to help!

[@chucklamb3496]

Nice effect! Vince

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@darrinstanaway8943]

your tips are always helpful

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad to hear that :)

[@M0U53B41T]

I like his almost five oclock shadow too (or how the face turned out anyway)

[@Ben-kc9ye]

Fantastic demonstration. Can you recommend some specific paints for the same effect with yellows instead of blues?

[@VinceVenturella]

Any of the yellow contrast paints would work, but you would want a warmer undershade, like browns, pinks, ivorys, before you lay the yellow over the top.

[@DaHobbles]

+1 engagement BB! 🙌🏻

[@calvanoni5443]

Thank you!😊

[@G_Threepwood]

Just what I needed

[@chriss427]

vince this video is gorgeous, the concept will help so much with my guys. Do you have a suggestion for greens you would use for this for my living city scheme? ive had such an issue finding greens that pop

[@VinceVenturella]

Sure, simple advice would be find some greens you like in the Army Painter or PronAcryl lines, both have some great greens and would work easily for this scheme. Just stay a little more warm green for living city.

[@daswolfy]

This is a brilliantly pertinent video as I'm preparing for the Old World to come back, I love it! Do you have any tips for how I could do some large scale underwater osl on an army? I'll be going for an Undead Atlantis look for my Tomb Kings and just don't really know how to sell them being submerged.

[@VinceVenturella]

There is no simple way to do that sadly, it's a very complicated lighting effect, and it's not the type of thing I would ever try on an army, it's one of those "there is no simple way to do this" things, because it's a complex lighting effect, it's like painting your army as though it's in moonlight, or torchlight or so on, there are no quick answers because you are drastically altering the lighting assumptions, which also changes colors, shadows, placement - the whole figure, if you want the effect to be credible. Now, you could sell the effect in other ways, make them mossy, algae covered, have soggy or resin water bases, lots of things like that which would be quicker.

[@ringodeathstarr9795]

cannot wait to get these new cities models

[@adamlord6834]

New like and sub here. Great work! Very excited to get my new army out there. This helps a ton! Thanks!

[@VinceVenturella]

Fantastic! Glad to have you along on the hobby journey and always happy to help.

[@HappyDuude]

Youve probably got a video on this already! Dry pigment is something im still cautious on using, im guessing its separate brush, and a varnjsh layer to seal it in?

[@VinceVenturella]

I have many videos in the playlist on using pigment, it's really easy. REally its just a separate brush and you can just smash them in. You don't really need to seal it in most of the time, but yes, you can seal it with matte varnish.

[@jimbojones9888]

This is a great video and I'm looking forward to putting these techniques into practice across the new Cities range! Do you think this would work for a Lethis scheme, or would the purple be too dark to pull it off? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[@VinceVenturella]

Absolutely! Purple would actually be a great color for this as well. Darker purples are quite transparent, so it's a little tricky when you get brighter, as some of those transitions will show, but you will want to use those mixed glazes like I use here.

[@markgnepper5636]

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

[@Ghostly_Shadows]

What would be some advice for having issues with my eyes not being able to separate the metallics. I use magnifiers, but the shine of them all just blend together and I can tell we’re my highlight and shades are.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, NMM won't have that issue, but of course, that takes forever, so not great for speed. You could work with some darker metallics and then drybrush a little brighter steel on top of it. The darker more black steels might make it easier to separate before a simple drybrush on top.

[@Ghostly_Shadows]

@@VinceVenturella I will give that a shot, I think my base steel isnt super dark to begin with. If that doesnt work, I may jus add black, and knock the shine down. Thanks

[@jasonsmall3364]

hey mate great video! just wondering if u have a list for the prime colour and other paints u didnt list ^^

[@VinceVenturella]

Most were what you say, from there, anything in that color range or that you like will work, the specific paints don't really matter. Now, the prime was just black and then ivory over the top.

[@jackbrownii]

The way you did the metals was eye opening. I will have to try that. Question: how do you fix the powdered pigments after applying them? Is a matte varnish spray over the model sufficient?

[@VinceVenturella]

I don't that is the real answer. I slam them in hard and call it a day. :) - THat being said, a matte varnish would do it.

[@Philslifeandgaming]

Looks great, thanks for the tips.

[@markl.3167]

Hi Vince, can you mayby tell me. When, would you recommand, to replace the seals between the Body and the needle chuck, I don't know how they call them, and could you tell me how to do that without destroying the Airbrush? Or do you have allready done a Video about that? Kind regards MarkL

[@VinceVenturella]

I don't think there is really any regular need to do it if you have a nicer airbrush. Each airbrush varies in the exact seals (some don't use them at all and only rely on the quality of the metal machining). The real answer is - if it's worn and you have an air leak.

[@smoothbrush4722]

Hi Vince, for a hero character from lotr mesbg like Shagrad Gothmog that is full of metal you will still do nmm or metalic paints?

[@VinceVenturella]

Whatever you like, you could make both look good, it would be a question of how much time you wanted to spend and what your goal was with the figure.

[@whusk1605]

I know this violates the get it done quick element just a bit but... Say I was to do a unit of these guys (or any human ish people with face concealing helmets) and I wanted to both speed paint and have some diversity of skin tone, what would you recommend? My instinct is to use the same procedure you laid out but for one third trade out the cork and ivory for slightly darker colours and then for another third go even darker. Giving some variation to the skin tones without adding too much work / time but I'm not sure how that would work with the fleshshade.

[@VinceVenturella]

Absolutely what I would do, just vary the base skin tones some and you really shouldn't see much a time change.

[@cpolitz]

So I just want to say I'm getting back into mini painting after about a year or so hiatus and all these videos are all like slapchop this and slapchop that as if it is some revolutionary technique and here I am like Vince did this back in like Hobby Cheating 2 8 years ago? Just needed a catchy name for the algorithm to catch on I guess.

[@ProrokLebioda]

Hot dang! I'm on the fence between Slaves to Darkness and Cities of Sigmar at the moment. Battleforce for Slaves seems like a good painting project, Cities army release box is also nice, less interesting, but in terms of playing has usefull trinkets... Hard choice! I sometimes get too focused on single mini, forgetting it's going to be in a unit. Great tutorial, nice color scheme. Hopefully they will nerf Fusiliers to be useful, but not broken and spammable. I hate when lists are so skewed in one way with no interaction (although all cav army looks cool as heck, but still would prefer if there were more options for cav units. CoS have a lot of mounted units, but I'd like to see new sculpts for those)

[@jonfisher4106]

Great tips thank you! Quick question, would you recommend painting the fusiliers fully built or in sub assembly? It looks like there’s plenty of room to get in behind the pavise?

[@VinceVenturella]

I thought about this a lot. Any sub assembly will slow the progress, but I think if I was doing the full army, I would likely still do them as you see here if going for speed, but if I was willing to go for a slightly higher quality, I would keep them separate, you have a good amount of space to work, but it was a little annoying.

[@jonfisher4106]

@@VinceVenturella great! That’s what I suspected! Thank you!

[@jugvara]

What do you use to dilute the speed paint? Water or medium? Thanks for the video. Always excellent and helpful.

[@VinceVenturella]

So this was all standard acrylic paints, no speed paints, but generally, I will use the medium for those.

[@MrZippidydoodahh]

In regards to why we care about perfect blends all of a sudden: it's all about the Gram baaaaaaaaby

[@zackcook5123]

Do you have any advice for using the metal colour with a dry brush? It always comes out too clumpy for me.

[@VinceVenturella]

I just put a few drops on the dry palette and then wipe on a cloth or paper towel. I wipe heavily for a while, you need very little on the brush so you can wipe for a while.

[@Varundin]

Vince, those leather pouches are phenomenal! What paints did you use? Id really like to try and replicate this

[@VinceVenturella]

Just some grashnak sewer brown contrast paint and then mixed it with a little ivory for some highlights.

[@Varundin]

@@VinceVenturella Thank you so much sir!

[@nvcn86]

looking forward to painting 80 imperial guards 🥲

[@Sam_Steel_Of_Patriot]

What’s your grey color primer ? 👌

[@VinceVenturella]

The darker base primer is Dark Neutral Grey from Pro Acryl, then just white over the top of that.

[@darioriviezzo2332]

Hi Vince, which primer do u suggest to use?

[@VinceVenturella]

I generally prefer Pro Acryl dark neutral grey.

[@TheGreatWyrdling]

Hey Vice, I had a question regarding contrast paints and inks. Can you use inks in the same way you use contrasts? Is it the same product more or less?

[@VinceVenturella]

Sure can, you need to thin them, but they can do the same stuff.

[@andreweckford6319]

Looks suspiciously like alpha legion turning up in a new location.

[@terrorshard2916]

What I wouldnt give to see you do this method on a conquest hold warrior....which is what I am trying to do

[@tofathi195]

Thanks!

[@michaelmccullough1034]

Hello, I am interested in getting your feedback on one model. I really want to do a good job on it and take my skills from "table ready" to "should we be playing with this?" I see you have a Review & Feedback tire of your pateron. I don't think I stay a pateron member for too long, at least at that tier. I was wondering if there was a membership waiting period to the Review & Feedback tire? Or does one get to submit for review & feedback upon joining? Thank you for your time and clarification. I really appreciate your time & helpful videos. - Michael

[@VinceVenturella]

Sure, so when you join you can submit right away, so happy to work with you around the model for whatever duration you're comfortable. If you're that tier, you can share and get feedback. :)

[@ThomasGallinari]

This pretty much sums up my painting techniques for my main army. F*ck smoothness ;)

[@andreikoenig5718]

Great video, but I have a question that bothers me. Do people not varnish their miniatures after they painted them before the play with them? I personally do, so I find metallic paint quite useless as the effect gets completely destroyed by matte varnish

[@VinceVenturella]

I sometimes varnish them before i put any metals on. So all matte paints, then varnish, then metal paints. That beign said, I don't tend to varnish my miniatures unless I am evening out finish, acryllic paint is pretty durable and you don't really risk much over plastic.

[@andreikoenig5718]

@VinceVenturella thanks for reply, Vince!