Primal: The Awakening

Miniatures from the board game Primal: The Awakening.

These orders were for a single client who wanted the work done on a budget, so I had to cut down on time wherever possible while maintaining the appropriate quality. As a result, the miniatures are not painted as meticulously as they could have been.

I don’t have step-by-step instructions for painting these miniatures, just general guidelines.

1. Desaturated Colors

The most important aspect for most miniatures in this board game was desaturating the colors to give them a suitably muted look, although this wasn’t the case for all of them.

To desaturate a color, I would add a color from the opposite side of the color wheel to the base color. For example, if I wanted to make a purple, I would add a bit of yellow with similar brightness, or to desaturate green, I would add red, etc.

You need to find the right proportions on your own.

2. Dry brush

Another technique that was extremely useful for quickly painting these miniatures was dry brushing.

It allows for fast highlighting of large areas of the miniatures without unnecessary blending. It’s especially useful on miniatures with scales, protrusions, and similar textures.

It’s important to choose the right brush moisture and the amount of paint on the brush.

3. Airbrush

The next essential tool was the proper use of an airbrush.

It was practically indispensable for completing the work within the required time and budget.

I often used the airbrush to apply the base color to the entire miniature and then did highlights as if doing a zenithal highlight.

I often combined the dry brush technique with the airbrush to achieve the desired highlights.

4. Oil Wash

Finally, something without which I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the required quality within the time constraints.

Oil wash was an absolutely irreplaceable tool for this painting project. It flows perfectly into recesses and can be easily removed from places where it shouldn’t be with a lint-free cotton swab dipped in turpentine.

Thanks to it, I was able to get good definition of individual elements and used it for effects, such as fire, by lightly touching the recesses first with a red wash with stronger coverage, followed by a yellow wash.

An oil wash can also be a great tool for desaturating colors. When you apply a red wash over green paint, the wash filters the light in such a way that the green becomes much less saturated.