How to drybrush miniatures, with paint ramps

What you need

• A dark basecoat and two or three lighter paints in the same colour family for the drybrush layers (the ramps below). Thick, cheap paint is fine; Citadel's Dry range and similar "dry" paints are made thick for exactly this, but any ordinary paint works.
• A drybrush: a soft, round, domed one gives smooth results, a stiff flat one gives a rougher, grittier look. Never use your good brush, as drybrushing wears hair out fast. See brush types and the best drybrushes.
• Kitchen roll or a paper towel to wipe the brush on, and a dry palette or a pot lid to load from (not a wet palette: the paint needs to be dry, not damp).
• Optional: a dark wash over the basecoat before you start, to deepen the recesses.

How we built the ramp

The colour wheel doesn't have a drybrushing technique in Ramps mode yet, so the ramps on this page are worked out the same way the Ramps techniques are. Your basecoat is the darkest step. The two drybrush steps climb a third and two thirds of the way from it toward lightness 82, losing saturation as they go (to 85% and 70% of the basecoat's), and the final dusting is 80% of the way from your basecoat to lightness 92, at a third of its saturation. The hue turns 15% of the way toward yellow by the final dusting (only a few degrees for most colours): the warm light that keeps the top layers from looking chalky.

The paint lists below then pick real paints the same way as the Ramps mode: for each step it finds the nearest paint among the ones shown on the wheel, by ΔE with lightness counted 1.6 times as much as colour (value contrast is what sells a ramp), and never uses the same paint twice. Only opaque paints are used: no metallics, washes, contrast paints, inks, glazes, primers or fluorescents. Each step is graded Close (ΔE under 6), Fair (under 12) or Loose.

Finding your own colours on the wheel

Until there is a Drybrushing technique, Ramps mode with Edge highlights and 3 edges builds a similar light ramp from any base colour: tap your basecoat and use the edges as your drybrush layers. Untick brands you don't want, or tick Matches from my paints only to build it from the paints you own.

Common mistakes

• Too much paint on the brush. If the stroke leaves a smooth line or a patch rather than dusty specks, wipe more off. It is the most common drybrushing mistake, and the easiest to fix: keep wiping.
• Going straight to white. A white final layer on a dark basecoat looks chalky and grey. Use a light, muted version of the colour, or a bone, and keep it small.
• Drybrushing everything the same. Keep the top layers to the parts that face up and out; the undersides stay darker, which makes the model read as lit from above.
• Using a good brush. Drybrushing splays and wears the hair. Keep a separate drybrush, or an old brush you have retired.
• Getting dust on smooth areas. Drybrushing looks great on texture and blotchy on smooth panels and faces. Drybrush first, then paint the smooth parts, so you can tidy up any stray dust.

The best paints for drybrushing, brand by brand

Each ramp below is built the way the Ramps mode builds one: the target colours above, then the nearest opaque paint in each brand for each step. ΔE says how far each paint is from its target: close is under 6, fair under 12. Swatch colours are estimates, so test the ramp on a spare model first.