How to Paint Mud and Dirt on Warhammer 40,000 Miniatures

October 11, 2026

Mud is the weathering effect that connects a model to the ground it stands on. A little dust on the boots makes a squad look as though it has marched across your bases; heavy, wet mud on a tank's tracks tells a whole story about the battlefield. The trick is matching the colour to your basing and building it up in layers.

The short answer: use your base colour as the mud colour. Drybrush or sponge a light dust tone onto boots and lower legs, stipple a darker textured mud onto feet, hems and tracks, flick a little thinned paint from an old toothbrush for splatter, then add gloss varnish only to the freshest, lowest areas if you want it to look wet.

Types of mud and dirt compared

Effect	Technique	Finish	Where to use it
Dry dust	Drybrush, sponge or dry pigment	Matt, pale	Boots, knees, lower hull
Caked mud	Texture paint or pigment paste stippled on	Matt, raised	Feet, tracks, wheel arches
Splatter	Toothbrush flick of thinned paint	Matt or satin	Legs, cloaks, vehicle sides
Wet mud	Dark mud colour plus gloss varnish	Glossy	Lowest edges, tracks, puddle areas

What colour should mud be?

Match it to your bases. If your basing scheme is a red desert, the dust on the model should be the same red; grey ash wastes call for grey grime. Wet mud should be darker and richer than dry dust, so most painters use two or three shades of the same earth tone.

How do I add dust to infantry quickly?

Take a soft, worn brush, load it with your lightest base colour, wipe most of it off and drybrush upwards from the feet to about mid-shin. Fade it out higher up the legs so there is no hard line. Our drybrushing guide covers how much paint to remove.

How do I paint caked mud?

Stipple a texture paint, or a paste of earth pigment and matt medium, onto the feet, the bottom of cloaks and around vehicle tracks. Keep it thickest at the lowest points and break it up into clumps rather than a solid coat. Once dry, a light drybrush of a paler tone picks out the texture.

How do I do mud splatter with a toothbrush?

Thin your mud colour to a milky consistency, dip an old toothbrush, and run your thumb or a cocktail stick across the bristles so droplets flick onto the model. Mask faces and focal points with a piece of card first. Practise on paper to see how far the spray travels, then build it up in light passes.

How do I make mud look wet?

Paint the mud a slightly darker shade, then add gloss varnish only to the lowest, freshest patches after the rest of the model has been matt varnished. Some painters mix a dot of dark brown into gloss varnish for a deeper look. Keep it selective; an all-over shine just looks like an overvarnished model.

How much mud is too much?

If you can no longer read the colour scheme from arm's length, it is too much. Infantry usually look best with mud below the knee, while vehicles can take heavier treatment on the tracks and lower hull. Leave heads, weapons and the squad markings clean so the army still reads as yours.

Should mud go on before or after varnish?

Paint-based mud can go on before your main varnish. Pigment-based dust looks best applied over a matt varnish and then fixed, as explained in our weathering pigments guide. Gloss for wet effects always goes on last.

How do I keep mud consistent across a whole army?

Write down the exact colours and order, then do mud as a single step across a whole squad. Batch work keeps every model at the same level of grime. Our batch painting guide explains how to slot steps like this into a production line, and our rebasing guide helps if older models need their bases to match.

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