How to write a miniature paint recipe
What to record, step by step, so the next squad you paint matches the last one.
You finish a squad, put it on the shelf, and six months later buy another box to go with it. Which red was that? Did the armour get one wash or two? A paint recipe is a written record of how you painted a model, step by step, so you can paint the next one to match. It takes a minute per step to write, and it saves a great deal of guessing.
What to write down
A useful recipe records, for each step:
- The area of the model: armour, cloth, skin, metal, leather, base.
- The paint, by its full name and range, so you can buy it again.
- The technique: basecoat, layer, wash, glaze, drybrush, edge highlight, stipple.
- How you thinned it, as a ratio of paint to water or medium, such as 1:1 for a glaze-like layer.
- Anything else that matters: the brush, how many coats, "recesses only", "let it dry overnight".
Start with what came before the paint: the primer, its colour, and whether you sprayed or brushed it. A white undercoat and a black undercoat give the same colours a very different result.
An example
Here is the armour from a recipe for a made-up army, the Iron Vanguard, written the way you might keep it:
| Step | Paint | Technique | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brushwright Grey Primer | Spray | Two light coats |
| 2 | Copperleaf Ember Red | Basecoat | Two thin coats, 1:1 with water |
| 3 | Brushwright Night Wash | Wash | Recesses only |
| 4 | Copperleaf Ember Red | Layer | Tidy up the raised areas |
| 5 | Copperleaf Sunset Orange | Edge highlight | Top edges only |
Write it as you paint, not after
Memory is very good at forgetting the step that made the difference. Keep the recipe open next to you and add each step as you do it. A quick photo after each step is even better: it shows how heavy the wash was or how far the highlight went far more clearly than words can.
Split it by area
One long list for a whole model is hard to follow. Group the steps by area (armour, then cloth, then metal, then the base) and you can reuse just one part. The metal recipe from one army might be exactly what another one needs.
Try it on a test model first
Before committing a whole squad, paint one model, or even a spare shoulder pad, and write the recipe as you go. Adjust it until you're happy, then paint the rest from the written version. If the test model looks right and the recipe matches it, every model after it will too.
One recipe for the army, others for the special models
Most armies need a single theme recipe that sets the colours everything shares. Characters, vehicles and centrepieces can then have their own recipe on top, for the parts that are only on them. When you add a new squad you start from the theme, and the army still looks like one army.
Share it
Recipes are some of the most generous things painters share. If someone in your club asks how you did that weathering, a written recipe answers them better than a description from memory. And your own recipes, kept together, become a reference you'll come back to for years.
How Hobby Double helps
Hobby Double has recipes built in: each step has the technique, the paint (or a mix of paints), the thinning ratio and notes, and a recipe can cover one part of the model, a whole project's theme, or a single unit. Steps pick their paint from your collection, and copying steps from your library builds a new unit's recipe from the armour and base recipes you already have. Make a recipe public to share it with other painters, or show a project's theme on your public profile.
Paint and army names in the examples are made up for this article.