Not sure how to paint miniature tanks

Sunday, 20 September 2026

Not sure how to paint miniature tanks

I am still undecided how to paint model vehicles. Particularly the sorts of tanks and APC's that are used for grimdark future tabletop games.

The process I used the previous time that I painted tanks, was not entirely to my satisfaction. To find better ideas, I've been watching YouTube videos. Most are in some way similar to what I had already been doing, however they gave me some ideas.

For the most recent vehicles I did the following.

I started by airbrushing the base colour. I tried using a gradient on each side, but the wash obscured that, so for this process, it was a waste of time.

I painted in some of the details, before using a couple of washes. The undercarriage, wheels and tracks are washed in black. The undercarriage is in shadow, so it did not need anything else.

Behind airbrushed, front sepia wash

On the desert style vehicles I used a sepia wash for other colours a black wash is my preferred choice. The wash on the panels brings out the contrast however, it also changes the colour significantly. Not surprising. Pushing the wash about with a brush to get rid of the tide marks was not as effective as I had hoped. The result at this stage was still a little mottled. It gets fixed by the next stage.

An alternative I saw on one video was to use a cotton bud to clean off the outer surfaces of the panels more thoroughly. I did a test panel with the sepia wash and that looked tidier and nowhere near as yellow. Something I may consider for future use, but my feeling is that the dry brushing makes that a largely redundant process.

In both of the following photos, the model in the foreground is after it has had the wash applied. The model further back is after that has been covered with a layer of dry brushing.

For all of these models, I used a large dry brush to reinstate the base colour to the panels. The tip I got from several YouTube channels, and the change I made from my previous process, was to leave a little more paint on the dry brush and apply it in a circular motion. It takes a while but I think this works well. It covered the panels while still leaving enough contract.

The dry brushing leaves the edges of the tracks dusted in that colour. In some colours it is a good dirty effect, however for most it is necessary to tidy up the edges. Not too perfectly, another dirt colour usually looks good.

Adding in the final finishing touches is the quick bit to do. This included re-instating the colour on some of the pipes, edge highlighting a couple of areas and a touch of silver dry brushing to the edges of the tracks and other areas that would get worn.

With a darker base colour I do some slight edge highlighting of the panels with a dry brush, but I didn't think that would be noticeable with the sand colour.

As these are for tabletop use and are not display models, the final stage was to spray with a matt clear coat. I painted them over a number of weekends and evenings, so I am not sure exactly how long any of them took. It feels like they took a little more time than I would have expected, but that is probably just due to the size of the models.