How to Paint a Sci-Fi Squad Miniature

Beginner~60 min

Armored troopers are the backbone of every sci-fi tabletop army, and this guide teaches the efficient, repeatable system for painting a five-model squad that still looks crisp up close. Two principles drive the plan. First, assembly-line batching: every model gets each step before any model gets the next one, because one paint mix and one loaded brush stretch across five models almost as fast as one. Second, inside-out order on each trooper: the recessed undersuit and joints are the deepest layer, so they and the big armor plates get painted before the wash, and the fine bright work — edges, lenses, markings — comes last, on top, where nothing can spoil it. Unlike the grimy hordes this hobby loves, troopers want a clean look, so we'll shade with a targeted recess wash instead of flooding whole panels. Light source: overhead, so top edges get the highlights. The guide is written colour-agnostic — any bold armor colour works — with consistencies you can judge on the palette: milk flows and looks faintly see-through; single cream holds a crisp line.

Supplies Needed

•Black or dark grey spray primer
•A main armor colour — any bold, well-covering paint (mid blue, red, or green are the classics)
•A clearly lighter version of the same colour for edge highlights
•A near-black dark grey for undersuits and joints
•A gunmetal metallic for weapons
•A black or dark brown wash (any range's all-purpose dark shade — or thin black paint about 1:3–4 with water)
•One bright accent colour for lenses and squad markings (red, green, or orange), plus a dot of white
•A size 1 round for basecoats and a size 0 round with a sharp point for recesses, edges, and lenses
•Basing texture (texture paint, or PVA glue and sand), matt varnish, and two pots of water

Step-by-Step Instructions

Batch Prime the Squad

Stand the whole squad on a cardboard strip and prime them black or dark grey together: 20–30 cm range, short passes starting and ending off the models, rotating the strip so chest, back, and both sides of every trooper get covered. Priming is the undercoat that gives paint grip on bare plastic — and dark primer is the armored-model cheat code, because every joint, vent, and panel gap on a trooper is a recess that now starts life as finished-looking shadow. Check under gun barrels and chins, then let the primer cure 30 minutes before any paint. No spray space? Brush-on primer covers a squad too: thin it to milk and lay two thin coats per trooper, keeping each stroke moving so it never pools.

Tip: From here on, the batch rule: complete each step on all five troopers before starting the next step. It's dramatically faster and keeps the squad uniform.

Basecoat Every Armor Panel

First paint pass down the line: the large armor plates — helmet, chest plate, both shoulder pads, thigh and shin guards — on every model. This is where the hobby's foundational habit earns its keep: two thin coats, never one thick one. Thin the armor colour to milk and lay the first coat with the size 1 round in smooth strokes that follow each plate's surface; it will look faintly see-through, which is correct. Work down the squad, then return to trooper one (the first coat is dry by then — batch painting hides the drying waits) and lay the second. Flat panels advertise thick paint like nothing else on a model, so resist the urge to load the brush heavily.

Paint the Undersuits and Joints

Now the flexible layer beneath the plates: the ribbed bodysuit showing at the elbows, knees, waist, neck, and armpits of each trooper. One coat of near-black dark grey at milk consistency with the size 0 round is enough over dark primer — you're really just cleaning up armor-colour slop and re-establishing the darkness. Keeping the joints near-black makes the armor plates over them read as bright and dimensional by pure contrast; this is the inside-out order paying off, since tidying a joint now is trivial and doing it after edge highlighting would risk the finished plates.

Paint the Weapons

Down the line again with each trooper's rifle: the barrel and mechanical workings get gunmetal, shaken hard and used nearly straight from the pot — metallic paints hate heavy thinning. The casing and stock get your near-black grey. That two-tone split, metal where it functions and matte where it's held, is what makes a weapon read as engineered at arm's length. Do every model's metallic work in one sitting: metallic flake gets everywhere and migrates into other pots on a shared water pot, so finish it, rinse thoroughly, and move on.

Tip: Wobbles where gunmetal meets casing are fixed by re-cutting the line with the near-black — dark over metallic covers in one pass.

Pin Wash the Recesses Only

Time to shade — surgically. A wash is thin, dark paint that flows into recesses and settles there, painting your shadows for you; but flooding it over a whole trooper would dull those clean panels we just built. So we use a pin wash, which places the shadow only where it belongs. (No bottled wash? Thin black paint about 1:3–4 with water until it flows like ink, plus the barest trace of dish soap stirred in with a soap-dipped toothpick tip — never a full drop — and it pin-washes just as well.) Load just the tip of the size 0 round with the wash (bottled ones come at skim-milk from the pot), touch it to one end of a panel line, and watch capillary action race it along the groove — follow it, feeding more wash where it stops. Work every panel gap, vent, and joint on each model, plus a touch around the weapon details. Let each model dry 10–15 minutes.

Tip: If wash escapes onto a flat panel, lift it immediately with a clean, damp brush. If it dried there, reapply the armor colour over just the stain — keep it mixed on the palette for exactly this.

Edge Highlight the Armor

Now the pass that makes a squad pop from four feet away. An edge highlight is one fine line of lighter paint drawn along a hard edge — it works because that's what real light does, catching corners and ridges first, and trooper armor is nothing but corners and ridges. Thin the lighter armor colour to single cream (thick enough to hold a crisp line, fluid enough to flow), load the size 0 round, wipe it to a clean point, then turn the brush sideways and draw the side of the tip along each edge in one confident stroke, letting the edge itself guide the line. Ration it deliberately: helmet rim, both shoulder-pad edges, and the top of the chest plate — the edges facing our overhead light — on every model. Four crisp edges per trooper beats twenty shaky ones.

Tip: Too-thick line? Repair from inside: repaint the flat of the panel with the base armor colour up to the line, shaving it thin from below.

Paint the Lenses and Visors

The focal point of every trooper is the visor slot or lens cluster on the helmet, so it comes late, after all the broad work. With the size 0 round, fill each visor with your bright accent colour at milk consistency — two thin coats so it glows solid against the dark helmet. Once dry (2–3 minutes), touch a single tiny dot of white into the same corner of every lens in the squad: that consistent 'reflection' is what makes five helmets read as active, powered equipment rather than painted plastic. Any slips onto the helmet wipe away with a damp brush if caught wet, or get one dab of armor colour if not.

Add Squad Markings, Base, and Varnish

Unify the unit: on the same shoulder pad of every trooper, paint one simple mark in the accent colour — a stripe, chevron, or numeral, laid with the size 0 at single cream so it stays crisp. Matching markings are what turn five painted models into one squad. Then batch the bases: texture across each base top (clear of the feet), dry fully, dark earth or urban-grey basecoat at milk, a quick wash, 10–15 minutes, then a light drybrush of a paler tone, and a clean black rim on every base. Finish with matt varnish misted over each model from 20–30 cm (or brushed on in two thin, one-direction coats) — gaming squads get handled constantly, and varnish is what keeps those edge highlights on the model instead of on your fingertips. A drop of gloss on each visor afterward makes the lenses jump.

Tip: Paint one trooper through every step as a test model before committing the squad to a scheme — changing your mind after one model costs minutes; after five, an evening.

Pro Tips

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Bold, saturated mid-tones (blue, red, green) cover reliably over dark primer in two thin coats — pale yellows and whites are famously stubborn, so save them for accents.
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The clean-squad look lives or dies on the pin wash: shadow in the recesses, none on the panels. Patience with the size 0 here outperforms every other minute you spend.
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Uniform basing does as much for squad cohesion as the paint scheme — same texture, same tones, same rim colour on all five.
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Matte armor with gloss lenses is the classic material contrast: one drop of gloss varnish per visor, nothing more.

Related Techniques

Edge Highlighting Two Thin Coats Washing Basing

Paint This With Your Own Paints

This system works for any squad — a personalized guide goes further and maps every step to your exact models and the paints on your desk. Generate yours before the next squad hits the painting table.