You wander into the shop for one pot of red, glance at the paint wall, and suddenly six different reds are staring back at you. Base? Layer? Shade? Contrast? It reads like a wine list written by a robot. Deep breath — it is actually a system, and once it clicks you will never look at that wall the same way again.
Games Workshop's Citadel Colour paints (now sold under the Warhammer Colour banner) are not a random rainbow of pots. Each type does one specific job, and they are designed to be used together in a sensible order. This guide walks through every paint type — Base, Layer, Shade, Contrast, Dry, Technical, Air and the sprays — what each one is for, and how to use it without wasting a fiver on the wrong thing. Everything here lives in our Warhammer Colour range if you fancy following along.
It's a system, not a rainbow
Every pot is a blend of two things: pigment (the colour) and medium (the stuff that carries it). Getting your head round the different types is really just understanding how each one balances those two. Some are loaded with pigment for solid, opaque coverage; others are deliberately thin and translucent so they flow into detail and create effects. Once you know which is which, choosing the right pot stops being a guessing game.
Base paints: your foundation coat
Base paints are the workhorses. They are packed with pigment and formulated to give solid, opaque coverage over a primed model in a coat or two — no patchiness, no fighting to hide the undercoat. When you are blocking in the main colours of a model (the armour, the cloak, the skin), you are reaching for a Base.
- Best for: the first solid colour on any area — think Macragge Blue armour or Mephiston Red.
- How to use: thin very slightly with water and apply two thin coats rather than one gloopy one. A little patience here saves you a lot of grief later.
- Watch out for: going on too thick and drowning the crisp detail you paid good money for.
Layer paints: highlights and fine detail
Layer paints are thinner and slightly less opaque than Bases, and the range is enormous — this is where you will find two or three shades of almost every colour. The idea is to build up from your base coat with progressively lighter tones, catching raised areas and edges to fake the way light hits the model.
- Best for: highlights, edge highlighting, and painting small details on top of a base coat.
- How to use: apply to raised surfaces and edges, leaving the darker base colour showing in the recesses. Two thin coats, always.
- Metallics: most metal paints (Leadbelcher, Retributor Armour, Ironbreaker) live in the Base and Layer ranges — treat them exactly the same way.
Shade paints: instant depth in a pot
Shades — everyone still calls them washes — are thin, heavily pigmented inks that run off the raised areas and pool in the recesses. Slop one over a base-coated model and it settles into every crevice, instantly creating shadow and definition. Agrax Earthshade and Nuln Oil are the two most famous pots in the entire hobby for a reason: they make a merely tidy paint job look properly competent in about ninety seconds.
- Best for: shading a whole model in one hit, and defining detail like faces, chainmail and rope.
- How to use: apply generously over your base coats and let it do the work. Keep a dry brush handy to lift any pooling off flat panels.
- The classic trick: base coat, one wash of Agrax Earthshade, done. It is the single biggest quick win in miniature painting.
Contrast paints: the shortcut that actually works
Contrast is the clever one. Each pot does the job of a base coat and a shade in a single pass: brush it over a light undercoat and it stains the recesses dark while leaving the raised areas bright, giving you shading and highlighting from one coat. It is comfortably the fastest way to get a whole army looking respectable.
- Best for: painting armies at speed, and fiddly organic areas like fur, robes, bone and skin.
- How to use: the undercoat matters. Contrast needs a light primer such as Grey Seer or Wraithbone to work its magic — over black it just looks flat and disappointing.
- Pro move: thin it with Contrast Medium rather than plain water, so it keeps flowing into the recesses instead of drying blotchy.
Tone Pro: the new numbered-tone system
The newest arrival on the wall, and the one that finally ends the "which red goes with which red?" argument. Tone Pro is 30 colours, each made in five numbered tones: 1 is the darkest, 5 is the lightest. Instead of memorising which Layer pairs with which Base, you just count. Shade with a 1 or 2, basecoat with the 3, highlight with the 4, and hit the sharpest edges with the 5.
- Best for: smooth, controlled shading and highlighting without guesswork — and anyone who has ever bought the wrong highlight colour.
- How to use: pick a colour ladder, such as Ultramar Blue 3 for armour, then step up and down the numbers. They cover from the first coat and also work for glazing and drybrushing.
- Pro move: mix with Tone Pro Shading Medium for glazes or Blending Medium for silkier transitions between tones.
All 150 pots are in our Warhammer Tone Pro paints collection, and the Warhammer Tone Pro launch guide has the full story.
Dry paints: drybrushing made foolproof
Dry paints are made thick and deliberately low on moisture for one job: drybrushing. That is the technique where you load an almost-dry brush and drag it across raised detail so the paint catches only the high points. Normally you would have to wipe most of a normal pot off onto kitchen roll first; Dry paints skip that faff and go straight on.
- Best for: texture in a hurry — chainmail, fur, rough stone, and picking out the detail on bases.
- How to use: use an old flat brush, wipe off the excess, and flick it lightly back and forth across the raised areas. Build it up gradually; you can always add more.
- Watch out for: pressing too hard, which dumps chalky paint into the recesses you were trying to keep dark.
Technical paints: the special-effects drawer
Technical is the odd-jobs shelf — a grab-bag of pots that each create a specific effect rather than just a colour. This is where the hobby gets properly fun.
- Texture paints: Astrogranite, Stirland Mud and friends give you a fully textured base in one thick coat — no glue and sand required.
- Effects: Blood for the Blood God (glossy fresh blood), Typhus Corrosion and Nihilakh Oxide (rust and verdigris), and Agrellan Earth, which cracks as it dries for instant parched-earth terrain.
- Mediums and finishes: 'Ardcoat for a wet gloss shine, Munitorum Varnish to seal things, Lahmian Medium for thinning paint without weakening the pigment, and Contrast Medium for stretching your Contrast paints further.
Air paints: for the airbrush crowd
Air paints are simply Base and Layer colours pre-thinned to the right consistency for an airbrush, so you are not mixing in thinner and testing the spray yourself. No airbrush? You can happily walk straight past this shelf. If you do own one, they take a lot of trial and error out of coating big vehicles and large units.
Sprays and undercoats: where every model starts
Before any of the above touches your model, it needs an undercoat — and that usually comes from a spray can. A primer gives the paint something to grip; skip it and your lovely base coat will rub off the first time the model sees a game.
- Classic undercoats: Chaos Black (deep and dramatic), Corax White and Mechanicus Standard Grey.
- Contrast-ready: Wraithbone and Grey Seer are built to sit under Contrast paints.
- Colour sprays: pots like Macragge Blue and Leadbelcher come in spray form too, so you can base-coat a whole unit's armour in one go.
- Golden rule: thin coats, a warm dry day, and hold the can a good 20–30cm away. A cold, humid garage will give you a gritty, frosted finish every single time.
The order you actually use them
Here is how the types slot together on a typical model. You will not always use every step, but the sequence rarely changes:
Step 1: Undercoat
- Prime with a spray so everything above it has something to grip.
Step 2: Base
- Block in your main colours with Base paints, two thin coats.
Step 3: Shade
- Wash the recesses with a Shade to drop in shadow and definition.
Step 4: Layer and highlight
- Build the raised areas back up with Layer paints, finishing with a fine edge highlight. Using Tone Pro? Steps 2 to 4 become simply 3, then 2, then 4 and 5.
Step 5: Details and effects
- Pick out eyes, gems and metals, then add any Technical effects — rust, blood, a textured base.
Step 6: Varnish
- Seal the finished model so all that effort survives contact with the tabletop.
Fancy the express route? Undercoat with Wraithbone, hose on Contrast, tidy up a couple of details, varnish. Done. It will not win Golden Demon, but it will look smart across a table and take a fraction of the time — and if you want it spelled out move by move, we have a full beginner's painting walkthrough.
Three habits that make cheap paint look expensive
Honestly, the paint type matters less than how you use it. Nail these three and your models will leap ahead of the pack:
- Thin your paints. The mantra is two thin coats, not one thick one. Thick paint fills detail and dries lumpy; thin paint flows and stays crisp. A wet palette keeps everything workable for hours.
- Undercoat properly. Match the primer to the plan — light (Wraithbone or Grey Seer) for Contrast, black for speed and drama.
- Look after your brushes. A decent detail brush that you actually clean will out-paint a scruffy one every time. Ours live in the brush range.
What to buy first
Do not buy the whole wall. To paint your first model to a solid tabletop standard you really only need a spray undercoat, a couple of Base paints for your main colours, one bottle of Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil, a lighter Layer paint for highlights, and a metallic for weapons. That is five or six pots and you are away — all of them sitting in the Games Workshop paint range. Prefer to skip the matching game entirely? Three or four pots from a single Tone Pro ladder will shade and highlight one colour for you. Building a whole Warhammer 40k army? A pot or two of the right Contrast colour will get a unit table-ready in a single evening.
There is no secret pot that paints the model for you — but there is a system, and it is a genuinely good one. Learn what each type is for, use them in the right order, and thin your paints. Do that and even your very first miniature will look like you meant it.
Further reading: pick your first force with our beginner's guide to Warhammer 40k Space Marines, weigh up the two big games in Warhammer 40k or Age of Sigmar?, or get the lowdown on the newest paints in our Warhammer Tone Pro guide.
