Citadel Paints

Citadel Base Paints – The Perfect Start to Your Painting Journey

Citadel Base paints are high-quality acrylics designed specifically for applying the first, foundational layer of color to your models and miniatures. They form the cornerstone of the Citadel Colour painting system, developed by Games Workshop. Their primary function is to provide solid, uniform coverage over a primed surface, regardless of whether you've used a white, black, or colored spray primer. Thanks to a very high pigment concentration, these paints offer excellent opacity, often allowing you to achieve a smooth and even coat in just a single application. This significantly speeds up the painting process, especially for entire armies of miniatures. They leave a matte finish, which creates the perfect surface for further work, like applying shades with Shade paints or adding highlights with Layer paints.

How to Use Citadel Base Paints Effectively?

Applying paints from the Base range is simple and intuitive, making them an excellent choice for both beginners and experienced modelers. Before use, it's recommended to shake the closed pot vigorously to mix the pigment thoroughly. While you can apply the paint directly from the pot with a brush, for best results, it's advisable to transfer a small amount onto a palette (like a wet palette) and thin it with a bit of water if necessary. This will help you achieve a smoother coat and prevent obscuring the fine details on your miniature. Base paints are a key element of the "Battle Ready" painting method, which consists of applying a base color followed by shading with a Shade paint, enabling you to prepare your models for gaming quickly and effectively. The extensive color range of Base paints lets you find the perfect starting shade for every piece of armor, clothing, or skin on your character.

Citadel Layer paints are a key component of the Games Workshop painting system, specifically designed for the layering technique and creating smooth highlights on models. These are high-quality acrylic paints with a slightly thinner consistency than Base paints, making it easy to apply thin, successive layers. Their formula is slightly transparent, allowing colors to blend naturally and create smooth tonal transitions. They are the perfect solution for adding depth to your miniatures, accentuating details like armor, fabric folds, or musculature, and bringing every model to life.

How to Use Citadel Layer Paints?

Applying Layer paints is simple and intuitive, even for beginner hobbyists. For the best results, apply them over a previously laid coat of Citadel Base paint. After applying the basecoat, use a lighter shade of Layer paint on the raised areas of the model, leaving the darker base color in the recesses. Thanks to a wide color palette, where many colors come in several shades, you can easily create gradual transitions from shadow to light. These paints are also excellent for the 'edge highlighting' technique—painting just the edges of details—which further enhances the model's contrast and definition.

The Complete Citadel Painting System

Citadel Layer paints are water-based, non-toxic, and safe to use. They can be applied with a brush directly from the pot or after slight dilution with water on a wet palette, which allows for even smoother transitions. They are an integral part of the Citadel Colour system, working perfectly with Base, Shade, Dry, and Technical paints. This provides hobbyists with a complete and coherent set of tools to tackle even the most advanced painting projects on plastic, metal, and resin models. Whether you're painting a Warhammer army or a single display miniature, Layer paints will help you achieve professional results.

Citadel Dry paints are a specialized range of thick, pigment-dense paints designed for the painting technique known as drybrushing. This is one of the simplest and fastest methods for achieving a highlighting effect and emphasizing the raised details on miniatures and models. Thanks to their unique, thick consistency, these paints are perfect for applying over an already painted surface, creating realistic highlights and enhancing the texture of armor, fur, stone, or terrain.

How to Paint with Citadel Dry Paints?

The drybrushing technique is incredibly simple, even for beginner modelers. Simply load a small amount of Citadel Dry paint onto a special drybrush (characterized by its stiff, flat bristles). Next, wipe the excess paint off the brush, for example on a paper towel, so that only a small amount of dry pigment remains. The final step is to gently and quickly sweep the brush across the painted surface. The paint will catch only on the raised elements, creating natural-looking tonal transitions and highlights.

Application and Compatibility

Citadel Dry paints work perfectly with other products from the Citadel Colour system. They are an ideal complement to Base paints and Layer paints, allowing you to achieve a comprehensive and multi-dimensional finish on your model. Using Dry paints as the final highlighting stage helps to bring out the final contrast and give the model life. For proper and effective painting with this technique, a suitable, durable brush that can withstand the intense friction against the model's surface is essential.

Citadel Shade paints are specialized washes that allow you to quickly and effectively add depth to your models and precisely define their details. Thanks to their very thin consistency, they easily flow into all the nooks and recesses of a miniature, where they create a natural, realistic shadow effect upon drying. They are a key component of the Citadel Colour painting system, most often applied over a Base coat.

How do Citadel Shade paints work and what are they for?

The formula of Citadel Shade paints is designed so that the pigment flows off the raised areas of the model and pools in its recesses. This makes shading incredibly simple and eliminates the need for hours of color blending. It's an ideal solution for both beginners who want to achieve great results with minimal effort and for experienced painters who value speed and consistent effects. Using a wash is one of the easiest ways to make a model look less "flat" and give it a three-dimensional character.

How to apply Citadel washes and which colors to choose?

Application is very simple – just apply the paint with a brush directly onto a previously painted surface. You can cover an entire element (e.g., armor, cloth) or apply it precisely only to select areas (a technique known as pin washing) to emphasize panel lines or rivets. The range includes a wide palette of colors, with the most popular being Nuln Oil (perfect for shading metallics and cool colors), Agrax Earthshade (great for creating a dirty effect and shading warm colors), and Reikland Fleshshade (indispensable for painting skin). With them, you can achieve professional-looking shadows on any part of your miniature.

How to Use Citadel Contrast Paints?

Citadel Technical Paints – Realistic Special Effects

Citadel Technical paints are a specialized line of products from Games Workshop, designed for adding realistic and unique effects to models and miniatures. Unlike standard Base or Layer paints, the Technical range allows you to achieve advanced results without having to mix multiple products. In this palette, you'll find ready-to-use solutions for creating effects like rust, verdigris, fresh and dried blood, grime, slime, and even cracked earth on your miniatures' bases.

Key Products in the Citadel Technical Range

This category includes a wide range of paints with specific purposes. Among the most popular are the texture paints, such as Agrellan Earth or Martian Ironcrust, which crack as they dry to simulate parched earth. Weathering effects like Typhus Corrosion (grimy streaks) combined with Ryza Rust (a dry rust pigment) allow for realistic aging of vehicles and machinery. Want to add gruesome details? Blood for the Blood God creates the effect of glistening, fresh blood, while Nurgle's Rot perfectly imitates disgusting slime. The range also includes key mediums like 'Ardcoat, a gloss varnish for protecting and adding shine to details, and Lahmian Medium – a colorless fluid for thinning paints without losing their properties.

Who Are Citadel Technical Paints For?

Paints from this range are an ideal choice for both beginners and experienced modelers. They simplify the process of creating complex effects that would normally require extensive knowledge and experimentation. With them, you can easily give your armies a unique character, enrich your miniature bases with interesting details, or apply realistic weathering to your models. Whether you're painting futuristic soldiers, fantasy monsters, or historical vehicles, Citadel Technical paints will open up new possibilities and allow you to take your work to a new level of realism.

Citadel Air Paints – The Ready-to-Use Airbrush Solution

Citadel Air paints are a specialized line of acrylic paints from Games Workshop, designed specifically for airbrush users. Their greatest advantage is their perfect consistency – they come pre-thinned, meaning in most cases, they are ready to use straight from the bottle without any need for additional thinning. This is a huge convenience, especially for beginners in airbrushing, but also for experienced modelers who value their time and consistent results. These paints are based on the popular Citadel color palette, making it easy to maintain color consistency with models painted using traditional brushes and paints from the Base, Layer, or Shade ranges.

The primary purpose of Citadel Air paints is to quickly and efficiently apply smooth basecoats and create seamless tonal transitions (blending) and shading on larger surfaces, such as vehicle armor, monster wings, or terrain pieces. They make painting armies for wargames like Warhammer 40,000 or Age of Sigmar significantly faster. Although optimized for airbrushing, their thinner formula also makes them excellent for brush painting when using techniques like glazing or applying very thin, precise layers of color.

How to Use Citadel Air Paints?

Before use, the paint should be mixed very thoroughly, preferably by shaking the bottle vigorously for several dozen seconds. It's also a good idea to use stainless steel mixing balls, which, when placed inside, significantly aid this process. Citadel Air paints perform best over a primer applied with a spray can or an airbrush. They allow for smooth, thin layers that do not obscure model details. The wide color range, including both base and layer colors, gives modelers great freedom in their projects and helps them achieve professional results in less time.

Citadel spray primers are a key element in every modeller's arsenal, for both beginners and advanced hobbyists. They allow for the quick and even application of a base coat on miniatures, preparing them for further painting. The main purpose of a primer is to provide excellent adhesion for subsequent layers of acrylic paint, which prevents them from rubbing off or chipping. Citadel sprays are the ideal solution when working on larger projects, such as entire armies for wargames (e.g., Warhammer 40,000 or Age of Sigmar), large vehicle models, monsters, or terrain pieces. Thanks to them, you save a lot of time compared to applying primer by hand with a brush, while achieving a smooth and uniform surface without any brush strokes.

How to Effectively Apply Spray Primer?

To achieve the best results, proper preparation and application are key. First and foremost, always use sprays in a well-ventilated area or outdoors, on a calm and dry day. Avoid painting in conditions of high humidity or extreme temperatures. Before use, shake the can vigorously for about two minutes to ensure the pigment is well mixed. When painting, hold the can approximately 20-30 cm away from the model and apply the paint in short, smooth strokes. It is better to apply two thin coats than one thick one. If some nooks and crannies remain uncovered after the first application, wait for the paint to dry completely before applying another coat. This technique will help you avoid runs and loss of detail on the miniature.