Drybrushing is the fastest highlighting technique in miniature painting. You load a brush with paint, remove almost all of it, then sweep the nearly-dry bristles across a surface so the pigment catches only on raised edges and texture. Thirty seconds of work produces highlights that would take ten minutes to place by hand.
It is also the technique most likely to leave a model looking chalky and dusty. The difference between the two outcomes is mostly about how much paint you remove and how many passes you use.
What drybrushing is good at
Drybrushing works by catching the highest points of a surface. It excels wherever the surface has genuine texture for the brush to find:
- Bases. Sand, grit, rubble and rock are the ideal case. A drybrush picks out every grain and creates instant depth.
- Fur and hair. The technique naturally follows the direction of sculpted strands.
- Stone, brick and terrain. Rough surfaces with lots of small raised edges.
- Chainmail and scaled surfaces. Hundreds of tiny raised elements that would take forever individually.
- Heavily damaged or weathered armour. Where the surface is deliberately irregular.
- Metallics on textured surfaces. Metallic paint drybrushes particularly well because the reflective particles catch light.
Where it struggles is large, smooth, gently curved surfaces. A clean armour plate has nothing for the brush to catch, so the paint lands as a haze across the whole panel rather than a highlight on an edge. On those surfaces, edge highlighting gives a far cleaner result.
Step by step
- Choose a lighter colour. Usually your base colour mixed with something paler, or the next value up. A colour close to the base gives a subtle result; a big jump gives a dramatic and potentially chalky one.
- Load the brush. Pick up paint from the palette. Do not thin it. Drybrushing wants paint at pot consistency or slightly thicker.
- Remove most of the paint. Wipe the brush repeatedly on a piece of paper towel, turning it as you go, until it leaves only a faint mark.
- Test on the towel. Drag the brush across a clean part of the towel. You want a soft, even, barely-there deposit, not a solid stroke.
- Use light, repeated passes. Sweep the brush across the surface with almost no pressure. The bristles should skim, not press.
- Build intensity gradually. Several light passes give control. One heavy pass gives a dusty stripe you cannot undo.
- Concentrate the final passes where light would naturally be strongest: upward-facing surfaces, the tops of shoulders, the leading edges. This turns a uniform dusting into directional lighting.
How dry is dry?
This is the question that decides whether drybrushing looks good or terrible.
Completely desiccated paint produces the chalky result everyone complains about. The pigment has no binder carrying it, so it sits on the surface as loose powder, looks dusty, and can rub off later.
Slightly damp is the target. You want almost all the paint removed but the bristles still faintly moist, so what transfers is a very thin film of actual paint rather than dry pigment. In practice this means wiping until the brush leaves a faint mark, then using it immediately rather than letting it sit.
If you have been wiping for a while and the brush has gone genuinely dry, reload rather than pushing on. Dry bristles also wear out faster.
Choosing a brush
Drybrushing destroys brushes. The technique involves splaying the bristles and scrubbing them against paper towel and model surfaces, which is the opposite of what a fine detail brush is built for. Never use a good brush for it.
What works: a brush with a blunt, rounded head and reasonably stiff bristles, sized to the area. Large and soft for broad surfaces like bases and cloaks; small and stiffer for chainmail and fine texture. Old brushes that have lost their point are ideal, which is a useful second life for them.
Direction matters
The direction of your stroke controls where paint lands. Sweeping downward catches the top edges of raised detail; sweeping upward catches undersides and looks wrong.
For a consistent lit-from-above look, keep strokes moving broadly downward and across, matching the direction light would come from. On fur and hair, follow the direction of the sculpted strands. On stone and rubble, vary the direction slightly so the result looks natural rather than combed.
Building multiple highlight colours
One drybrush layer looks flat. Two or three, each lighter and applied to a smaller area, produce genuine depth.
The pattern is straightforward. First pass covers the whole textured area in the first highlight colour. Second pass uses a lighter colour over roughly half that area, concentrated on the upper surfaces. Third pass uses the lightest colour on just the highest points, applied very sparingly.
Each pass should be smaller than the one before. If your final highlight covers as much area as your first, you have simply repainted the surface a lighter colour.
Avoiding chalky drybrushing
- Do not let the brush go bone dry. Slightly damp, used immediately.
- Do not jump too far in value. Bone white over dark brown reads as dust. Two intermediate steps read as light.
- Use less pressure. Pressing pushes pigment into recesses where it does not belong.
- Build in passes. You can always add more; removing is much harder.
- Do not thin the paint. Thinned paint flows into recesses and defeats the point.
- Consider a glaze afterwards. A very thin wash of the base colour over a too-chalky drybrush pulls it back together.
Drybrushing smooth armour
You can do it, but manage expectations. On a smooth panel the brush has no texture to catch, so the paint lands as a soft haze. That can be useful as a subtle overall lightening, particularly on curved surfaces where you want a gentle gradient, but it will not produce a crisp highlight.
The controlled approach is to drybrush only the edges of panels rather than their faces. Hold the brush so it contacts the raised rim and sweep along it, effectively using the technique as a rough form of edge highlighting. Follow up with a proper edge highlight on the most prominent edges for definition.
Drybrush versus edge highlight
| Drybrushing | Edge highlighting | |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | Very fast, seconds per area | Slow, minutes per model |
| Best surfaces | Texture, fur, stone, chainmail, bases | Smooth armour, hard edges, panels |
| Control | Low, affects everything the brush touches | High, exactly where you place it |
| Finish | Soft, diffuse, slightly rough | Crisp, defined, clean |
| Skill required | Low | Moderate, needs brush control |
| Typical use | Whole armies, bases, terrain | Characters, display models, focal areas |
The two are complementary rather than competing. A very common approach is to drybrush the base and any textured areas, then edge highlight the armour. Our guide to edge highlighting covers the other half.
Frequently asked questions
Should I drybrush before or after shading?
After. Shade first to establish depth, then drybrush to bring the raised areas back up. Drybrushing then washing over it flattens the effect you just created.
Can I drybrush over a wash that has not fully dried?
No. The still-damp wash lifts and smears. Let shading dry completely before drybrushing.
How do I fix a drybrush that went too far?
Glaze the base colour thinly back over the area. Repeat until the highlight sits where you want it. If it is badly overdone, repaint the base colour and start the highlight again. Our guide to fixing painting mistakes covers similar repairs.
Does drybrushing work on bases?
It is the single best use of the technique. Textured bases are exactly what drybrushing was made for. Our basing guide uses it in every scheme.
Will drybrushing rub off?
Paint applied genuinely dry, with no binder, can. If your models will be handled or transported, either keep the brush slightly damp so real paint transfers, or seal the model with varnish afterwards.
What consistency should drybrush paint be?
Straight from the pot, and definitely not thinned. Thinning is the enemy here, which is the opposite of most other techniques. Our guide to thinning paints explains why consistency changes by task.
If you are new to painting, our beginner guide covers where drybrushing sits in the overall sequence.
Independent guide published by Blubbercove Ltd/WarSplay. This article is not affiliated with, sponsored by, endorsed by, authorised by or licensed by Games Workshop Limited. Warhammer 40,000 is a trade mark of Games Workshop Limited.