How to glaze miniatures: glazing blends with water ratios

What you need

• A base colour and paints for one or two shadow glazes and up to four highlight glazes (the ramps below).
• Water, or a glaze or lahmian-style medium, which keeps thin paint from drying patchy.
• A wet palette to mix and hold the thinned paints.
• Kitchen roll or a tissue: wipe most of the paint off the brush before each stroke.

How the Ramps mode builds it

In Glazing mode, tap your base colour. The shadow glazes run evenly from 40% of your paint's lightness (never below 8) up to it, keeping 75% to 100% of its saturation; the highlight glazes climb toward a point 85% of the way from your paint to lightness 90, losing a little saturation at each step, and the final glaze sits at that point with half your paint's saturation. The hue doesn't change.

Each step shows a water ratio, like 1:4 💧 (one part paint to four parts water), and Save as recipe puts the water into each step's mix. With 7 steps the ratios are 1:5 and 1:4 for the two shadow glazes, 1:1 for the base, then 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 and 1:6 for the highlights; with 5 steps, 1:4, 1:1, 1:3, 1:4 and 1:5.

Lean the deepest glaze to the complement gives the darkest glaze a dark, dull version of the complement instead.

Every technique then picks real paints the same way: 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.

Using it on the wheel

1. Open the colour wheel and pick Ramps above the wheel, then Glazing blend under Technique (or open it straight in this mode).
2. Choose 5 or 7 steps; 5 steps leaves out some of the in-between steps for a quicker ramp.
3. Tap your base colour on the wheel, or in the neutrals list under it. If it's a metallic or effect paint, the ramp starts from the nearest opaque paint instead.
4. Untick brands and ranges you don't want, or tick Matches from my paints only once your collection is set up, to build the ramp from the paints you own.
5. Tap ↻ on a step to try the next nearest paint, then Save as recipe to keep the ramp, with the step notes above, in your recipes.

Common mistakes

• A loaded brush. Too much paint on the brush makes pools and tide marks; wipe it almost dry.
• Rushing. A glaze that isn't dry gets lifted by the next one. Let each coat dry.
• Glazing over a big area every time. Each coat should cover a little less than the last, so the colour builds where you want it.
• Expecting one coat to show. A thin glaze needs three, four or more coats; that is the point.

The best paints for glazing, brand by brand

Each ramp below is built the way the Ramps mode builds one: the same target colours, 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. On the wheel you can build the same ramp from any paint, or only from the paints you own.