Basic Terminology
Blend – Creating a transition between two colors.
Highlight – Applying a brightened color or shade on what would be the raised or brightest point on a model, i.e., the tip of a sword or a raised fold on a dress.
Shade AKA Lowlighting – Applying a dark color in recessed or otherwise dark areas of a miniature, i.e., the inner folds of a dress or piece of cloth.
Basing – Detailing the base of the miniature.
WIP Work in Progress.
Principal Techniques
Priming – Not to be confused with basecoating, priming is applying a special formula of paint called Primer to a model, primer typically is made to adhere to a model’s bare surface and provide a uniform color and surface to paint on.
Basecoating – The base color that an individual part on a model will be, such as a medium-blue for a blue jacket, which will then be shaded using a dark blue and highlighted with a light blue.
Layering – Using multiple thin coats that get successively smaller and smaller in the surface area they cover to build up a smooth blend and rich color.
Washing – A wash is a very thin mixture of paint, typically with flow-improver added, that is used to apply over an entire surface, intended to fall into any recesses on the model and provide shading.
Conditional Techniques
Black lining Painting a very thin dark line between different parts of the miniature to create more definition. Also known as dark lining, shadow lining, color blocking and recess shading (though it isn’t always put in recesses).
Edge Highlighting – Using a lighter color to trace the edges of the different parts of the model to make them stand out more. Using the side of the brush is easiest when possible.
JALMM – Just A Little Metallic Metal, when actually using non metallic paints is too hard.
OSL – Object Lighting, using paint to simulate light that would be emitted from an object such as a flame or lamp.
NMM – Non Metallic Metal, the use of colors without metallic pigment to achieve a metal looking finish, typically using black and white.
TMM/MNMM – True Metallic Metal/Metallic Non Metallic Metal, the opposite of NMM, using metallic pigmented paint to achieve a metal looking finish.
SENMM – Sky Earth Non Metallic Metal, using various colors to achieve a highly polished metal look with non-metallic paints, i.e., painting something to look chrome.
Glazing – Using an extremely thin layer of paint to gradually build up a smoothly blended color on a model or even to tint or alter colors already on the model.
Wet Blending – Applying new paint to still wet paint and blending the two colors together and create a mid-tone as a transition between the previous two colors.
Dry Brushing – Painting or highlighting a surface typically using a flat, wide brush with almost no paint on the bristles.
Overbrushing – Generally, using a normal paint brush with a small amount of paint on the bristle and only brushing over the raised areas of a model, sometimes with the side of the brush, similar to dry brushing.
Sketching/Flatting – Applying colors roughly without concern for blending or achieving even coats in order to plan out your colors as well as shadows and highlights.
Stippling – Painting with lots of tiny dots of paint rather than brush strokes.
Stipple Glazing – Painting with lots of dots of really thinned down paint to create a smooth gradient.
Value Sketching – Painting with whites, greys and blacks to set the highlights and shadows before adding color.
Rendering – The process of painting a thing.