With all that said, of course, creating narratives is optional and can be entirely omitted if you are not concerned with it. But I do recommend giving it a try, as it can truly give depth to your pieces, pushing them more into a real piece of art than just a model for a game. You might just discover the true spirit of the grimdark style.

Since 2015, I have spent many hours researching, testing, and developing obscure methods for miniature art to the benefit of the fans and members of the Grimdark Compendium. Some of these techniques have become mainstream, like the reductive technique using enamels that I introduced in my Deathguard course all the way back in 2016, while some remain lesser known, such as the soft pressing technique, which is a more recent development. 

Most, if not all, of these techniques are shown in detail on the Grimdark Compendium website, making it the best resource available to the miniature artists who are learning and mastering the Grimdark Style. 

Masterlist

Let’s start with the first steps of our massive Masterlist, following a logical order.
Starting from safety tools, to design, sculpting and kitbashing tools, to actual models and paints

+ Safety +

Painting miniatures is not a dangerous endeavor, however the paints, solvents and thinners we recommend in our video tutorials require a bit of precautions and safety measures.
In order to make your work space a safe place for you and your family, you must make sure to work in a well ventilated area, and that all these products don’t come near children or pets. Later on we will discuss mediums and solvents, but we’ll address the elephant in the room right here, right now. Alcohol 99%, Solvent based thinners, mineral spirits and enamel washes, or really any type of color sprayed and nebulized through an airbrush can be really dangerous and cause serious issues in the long term. And we’re gonna make heavy use of these in our tutorials.
However there’s nothing to worry about if you’re equipped with the right tools and follow very simple safety precaution rules.
First of all, touching these materials and solvents with bare hands or letting them touch skin can cause reactions in some people. Also, you never want to touch these products and then proceed to touch your eyes, handle food or edibles, without thoroughly washing your hands, but that’s just common sense.

+ Design Tools +

The Learn Grimdark course, now revisited and updated, is a ten-part series of videos that details the basic practices of the Grimdark painting style, and if you wish to learn even more, you can Subscribe with a Premium membership and check out the more advanced techniques.

Another great resource to help you find inspiration for your projects is Pinterest.
I recommend using Pinterest to gather images to use in the creation of concept boards.

Suppose you have a particular idea for your miniature project, something a bit different than building and painting the miniatures per the instructions.
In that case, concept boards are a great way to set the mood and tone of your projects and will help you shape your vision for everything from kitbashing/modeling and creating environments to color and weathering palettes. I detail how to do this in my Design Philosophy Masterclass found on the Compendium.

A quintessential part of this concept phase is taking your concept boards and reference images and executing the ideas successfully onto a miniature.
In the Design Philosophy Masterclass, I teach that instead of going straight to the miniature, we first render a series of tests and designs on what I call practice blanks, so now let’s start talking about the practical materials you will need.

I highly recommend you check out the course in its entirety to understand the way we use these products in different combinations to achieve very intentional, specific results, as well as reproducing surface finish variation based on the nature of each individual material.
This way you can dip your toes into the Grimdark Style and get yourself acquainted with the basics of grimdark.
What kind of products we’re going to use, how to use them and why.

Especially when using an airbrush, you want to be sure you’re using some kind of ventilation system or a spray booth depending on how frequently you nebulize paint, and especially if you’re working in a basement that has very limited air cycling.

I would not worry too much about this if you’re working near a window or a studio with good enough ventilation, but if you do this every day as a professional painter, you might want some hanging air filtering system, with inner and outer filters.

So let’s proceed by making sure your mouth, nose and eyes are protected.

These are the most basic items you will need to start out regarding safety precautions.
Next on the list are the more “virtual” tools, that we deem very useful in any concept and design phase for your hobby projects.

The Learn Grimdark course, now revisited and updated, is a ten-part series of videos that details the basic practices of the Grimdark painting style, and if you wish to learn even more, you can Subscribe with a Premium membership and check out the more advanced techniques.

Another great resource to help you find inspiration for your projects is Pinterest.
I recommend using Pinterest to gather images to use in the creation of concept boards. Suppose you have a particular idea for your miniature project, something a bit different than building and painting the miniatures per the instructions.
In that case, concept boards are a great way to set the mood and tone of your projects and will help you shape your vision for everything from kitbashing/modeling and creating environments to color and weathering palettes. I detail how to do this in my Design Philosophy Masterclass found on the Compendium.

Another great tool to use to build concepts is MidJourney.
I use this all the time to pump out tons of images to help me design environments.
You can use it in other ways, but I particularly like it for developing basing or diorama ideas. 
A quintessential part of this concept phase is taking your concept boards and reference images and executing the ideas successfully onto a miniature.
In the Design Philosophy Masterclass, I teach that instead of going straight to the miniature, we first render a series of tests and designs on what I call practice blanks, so now let’s start talking about the practical materials you will need.

+ Processing Tools +

Practice blanks, in their simplest form, are pieces of plasticard or styrene. We can use them to develop painting and weathering recipes, modeling ideas, and even environmental concepts. 

What we want to do with these blanks is to figure out the precise steps for color and weathering recipes or the aesthetics of our environments. All the mistakes we will make during this miniature project should happen here during this design phase so that we can sit down with the miniatures and our designs and start kitbashing building bases, or painting; we can execute all that without worry and just focus on enjoying the process. 

Plasticard or Styrene material, typically used for scratch building, comes in many different shapes and forms and can be used to create just about anything you can think of.

For testing color and weathering recipes, I recommend .020-.040 8×10 sheets that you can process down to smaller 3×1 rectangles or 3×3 squares. For environmental designs, you can use plasticard, styrene, acrylic rods, square tubes, transparent styrene sheets, or pre-textured architectural materials to create anything you can imagine. This is an excellent tool for design and scratch building, and I highly recommend having a healthy stock of this material readily available.

While working with materials like these, you will also want to have good measuring and cutting tools and straight edges.

There are a lot of Exacto kits out there to choose from, but I wouldn’t break the bank of this particular set of tools. If you are like me, you will probably go through many blades rather quickly, so I suggest a kit with many blades and different blade types, a cutting mat, and a straight edge.

Now that we have our design materials and the tools to process them, let’s go ahead and discuss various glues.

+ Glues +

I suggest always having three variations of glue on hand—a plastic glue like Tamiya, a CA Glue like Starbond, PVA glue, low-temperature hot glue, and a low-temperature gun.

Plastic glue melts the plastic pieces together, creating a solid weld and thus the strongest, most reliable hold.

PVA glue, or white glue, we most often use to soak and apply different cloth and paper materials, but it is very handy for anything sprinkly like grass, dirt and basing materials in general. Modge Podge works similarly, and in our experience creates stronger bond if you are looking for that.

CA glues are best for resin miniatures and also work on plastic. If you are using CA glue, I also suggest having a bottle of Zip Kicker or Instaset that will instantly set the glue upon contact.

Hot glue guns are always useful to have around, and even more so if you are making larger bases or dioramas. I particularly like the glue guns with copper attachments that allow you to be a bit more detailed with the application.

+ Assembly Tools +

Another way we can assemble our miniature is through the patient art of pinning. 

This technique uses tiny brass or copper rods to create a sort of armature that helps with sub-assembly painting or even sculpting and pose adjustments. 

This is an interesting way to approach assembling miniatures and is one I am heavily considering due to its benefits and the possibilities it can unlock.

If you want to give pinning a try, then you will also need a good pin vise. 

My pin vice/hand drill sees a massive amount of use due to the wiring bits I like to use when kitbashing. So, I opted for a decent quality vice and one that can use a plethora of different-sized bits. 

Another thing to mention here is a sticky tack or mounting putty. 

A lot of the time, I use tiny bits to create pilot holes for small-diameter copper wiring. 

This material is commonly used in kitbashing and converting and is a great way to cycle through bit combinations. It allows you to test different bits and poses quickly and is a solid precursor to pinning.

Now that we have talked about assembly tools and materials let’s move on to cutting, refining, and cleaning tools.

+ Kitbashing +

Of course, a good pair of snips is mandatory for this hobby, and Xuron is my go-to brand for miniature hand tools. Xuron makes a great pair of snips that cost about 7.00 USD. They are tough, can cut larger bits without breaking, and will last you a long time and even longer if you can sharpen them from time to time.

Another great tool to have for cutting plastics and resin is the Ultra Fine Saw Blade and the Wooden handle, which are sold separately. You can also find it under names like “Hobby Saw” or “Japanese Saw”, some of which are a single piece with both the blade and handle. This is an excellent tool that allows you to make precision cuts. Absolutely a must-have for the serious kitbasher.

To refine our cuts, I highly recommend having a good set of files. A kit that offers larger and smaller files is great as it will cover us for small plastic kits and even larger resin miniatures.

In addition to files, I also recommend sanding sticks. These are great little tools to have handy. They typically come in larger packs of various grits, anywhere from high grit all the way down to polishing sticks.

Another set of tools we will need in the kitbashing and converting phase is sculpting materials and tools.

+ Sculpting +

There are a variety of different putties I recommend for various uses, including Apoxie Sculpt, Milliput, and Greenstuff.

Apoxie Sculpt is a two-part modelling compound that is a great material to use in less refined applications like basic forms for dioramas or basic armatures for sculpting. It is inexpensive, and you get a lot of material for little cost investment.

Milliput is a great quality general-purpose epoxy resin. You can sculpt finer details with it. I like to use it most for detail sculpting on terrain and basing.

Greenstuff is probably the best-known and most-used two-part modelling compound in the hobby. It’s a great material to work with, has a proven track record, and you can sculpt just about anything with it, depending on your skill level.

You can also mix these together to gain different properties of each putty, like Greenstuff and Milliput etc. Experiment and find mixes that suit your sculpting needs well.

To sculpt, of course, you will need a plethora of sculpting tools. Now, to be honest, I don’t know much about sculpting, but I can say that there is an absolutely monstrous list of available tools from which you can choose. It can be pretty intimidating to try and figure out what tools you need or which ones you like or find useful.

In my experience, and while talking with the different sculptors I’ve come across in my time, people seem to develop a particular preference for specific tools, and I found this to be true even in my own case. So, I’ll suggest what I have done as a novice in sculpting. 

I purchased a few of the cheapest sculpting tool kits that I could find. 

Then, as I was practicing, I started to develop a list of sculpting tools that I found myself reaching for over and over. 

Over time, I found better-quality versions of those tools or tools that were similar or helped me to produce certain effects or textures that I liked. 

So, pick up some cheap sets of pottery carving tools, wax clay tools, different types of spatulas, dotting tools, etc, and see what you like to work with.

Use them and see what feels natural in your hand and is comfortable for you to work with, and then build out a tool kit from there.

Alright, so I do want to talk about bits and different kits and model ranges to utilize for miniature building and kitbashing. But, before I do, I want to talk about modelling materials or the mundane items that we use to create visual interest or items that can aid us in building miniatures with the grimdark aesthetic.

+ Painting Tools +

We have finally come to the vast list of painting tools and materials that we highly recommend and usually make use of in our tutorials. 

Let’s start with brushes. 

We rarely use expensive brushes except for more intricate acrylic passes or detailing work.
A good brush can last a long time if handled correctly, but with all the aggressive paints, thinners and solvents we use, we recommend using synthetic brushes for the more dirty work.
Royal & Langnickel are more than decent brushes for general applications. It’s good to have flat, round, drybrush and feathering brushes of various shapes and sizes.

Inexpensive brushes for basic applications of oils or enamel washes, as well as acrylic glazes or base coats are needed. Sizes from 00 to 3 will be what you’re looking for.
Most important thing is to keep the brushes separate, store them in different places. They do not mix well.

Make sure to check for nail art brushes of different sizes and shapes. Round, flat. 

If you fancy using more quality brushes, Winsor & Newton series 7 are a good choice.
These come in handy with detailing work and a job well done with acrylics.

To maintain your good quality brushes always as good as new, you must make sure they are clean and maintain a nice shape. Abteilung502 makes two brush conditioning products that do exactly this.

Let’s address airbrushes. Indeed a fundamental tool that will change the workflow of any painter, from applying primers, to enamel wash general passes, to filtering and OSL effects.

The iwata Eclipse HP CS is the ideal dual action airbrush I would recommend for any painter if they want to invest some money into something durable. Quality product indeed.

However if you’re just starting out, a cheap airbrush will do the job. 

You want to make sure you understand how it works, all the ins and outs of how they function, and how to assemble and disassemble them so you can maintain and wash them properly. Recommended size would be 0,3mm for any basic application to start out.

I must say that even if you have a top quality airbrush, your investment won’t be worth it without a good reliable compressor.

Master or Timbertech will do, as long as you can manually set up the PSI.
Some of these compressors already come with a base entry airbrush, so you get two birds with one stone. I can’t promise these airbrushes will last you very much, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Compressor is the most important part you want to get right to start out.

Airbrushes need to be handled and cleaned properly. So with either isopropyl alcohol 99%, mineral spirits (if you sprayed an oil/enamel wash) will generally do the job. 

When you disassemble one, take care in never accidentally hurting the tip of the needle, they are very sensitive. 

However it’s bound to happen sometime and there’s not much you can do except being prepared when the accident happens. 

There’s plenty of repair and cleaning kits for airbrushes. Just make sure the sizes are correct, and in general it’s preferable you use spare parts of the same brand of your airbrush, especially if you have a high-end one like Iwata. If you’re just starting out and you’re unsure of what you should use to thin down acrylics in your airbrush, you can try out a Flow Improver. It breaks down the paint and makes it flow nicely in your airbrush, of course you need to watch out quantities as you don’t want it either too watery nor too dense. It just comes with experience.

These are the most basic items you will need to start out regarding safety precautions.
Next on the list are the more “virtual” tools, that we deem very useful in any concept and design phase for your hobby projects.

The Learn Grimdark course, now revisited and updated, is a ten-part series of videos that details the basic practices of the Grimdark painting style, and if you wish to learn even more, you can Subscribe with a Premium membership and check out the more advanced techniques.

Another great resource to help you find inspiration for your projects is Pinterest.
I recommend using Pinterest to gather images to use in the creation of concept boards. Suppose you have a particular idea for your miniature project, something a bit different than building and painting the miniatures per the instructions.
In that case, concept boards are a great way to set the mood and tone of your projects and will help you shape your vision for everything from kitbashing/modeling and creating environments to color and weathering palettes. I detail how to do this in my Design Philosophy Masterclass found on the Compendium.

Another great tool to use to build concepts is MidJourney.
I use this all the time to pump out tons of images to help me design environments.
You can use it in other ways, but I particularly like it for developing basing or diorama ideas. 
A quintessential part of this concept phase is taking your concept boards and reference images and executing the ideas successfully onto a miniature.
In the Design Philosophy Masterclass, I teach that instead of going straight to the miniature, we first render a series of tests and designs on what I call practice blanks, so now let’s start talking about the practical materials you will need.

+ Processing Tools +

Practice blanks, in their simplest form, are pieces of plasticard or styrene. We can use them to develop painting and weathering recipes, modeling ideas, and even environmental concepts. 

What we want to do with these blanks is to figure out the precise steps for color and weathering recipes or the aesthetics of our environments. All the mistakes we will make during this miniature project should happen here during this design phase so that we can sit down with the miniatures and our designs and start kitbashing building bases, or painting; we can execute all that without worry and just focus on enjoying the process. 

Plasticard or Styrene material, typically used for scratch building, comes in many different shapes and forms and can be used to create just about anything you can think of.

For testing color and weathering recipes, I recommend .020-.040 8×10 sheets that you can process down to smaller 3×1 rectangles or 3×3 squares. For environmental designs, you can use plasticard, styrene, acrylic rods, square tubes, transparent styrene sheets, or pre-textured architectural materials to create anything you can imagine. This is an excellent tool for design and scratch building, and I highly recommend having a healthy stock of this material readily available.

While working with materials like these, you will also want to have good measuring and cutting tools and straight edges.

There are a lot of Exacto kits out there to choose from, but I wouldn’t break the bank of this particular set of tools. If you are like me, you will probably go through many blades rather quickly, so I suggest a kit with many blades and different blade types, a cutting mat, and a straight edge.

Now that we have our design materials and the tools to process them, let’s go ahead and discuss various glues.

+ Glues +

I suggest always having three variations of glue on hand—a plastic glue like Tamiya, a CA Glue like Starbond, PVA glue, low-temperature hot glue, and a low-temperature gun.

Plastic glue melts the plastic pieces together, creating a solid weld and thus the strongest, most reliable hold.

PVA glue, or white glue, we most often use to soak and apply different cloth and paper materials, but it is very handy for anything sprinkly like grass, dirt and basing materials in general. Modge Podge works similarly, and in our experience creates stronger bond if you are looking for that.

CA glues are best for resin miniatures and also work on plastic. If you are using CA glue, I also suggest having a bottle of Zip Kicker or Instaset that will instantly set the glue upon contact.

Hot glue guns are always useful to have around, and even more so if you are making larger bases or dioramas. I particularly like the glue guns with copper attachments that allow you to be a bit more detailed with the application.

+ Assembly Tools +

Another way we can assemble our miniature is through the patient art of pinning. 

This technique uses tiny brass or copper rods to create a sort of armature that helps with sub-assembly painting or even sculpting and pose adjustments. 

This is an interesting way to approach assembling miniatures and is one I am heavily considering due to its benefits and the possibilities it can unlock.

If you want to give pinning a try, then you will also need a good pin vise. 

My pin vice/hand drill sees a massive amount of use due to the wiring bits I like to use when kitbashing. So, I opted for a decent quality vice and one that can use a plethora of different-sized bits. 

Another thing to mention here is a sticky tack or mounting putty. 

A lot of the time, I use tiny bits to create pilot holes for small-diameter copper wiring. 

This material is commonly used in kitbashing and converting and is a great way to cycle through bit combinations. It allows you to test different bits and poses quickly and is a solid precursor to pinning.

Now that we have talked about assembly tools and materials let’s move on to cutting, refining, and cleaning tools.

+ Kitbashing +

Of course, a good pair of snips is mandatory for this hobby, and Xuron is my go-to brand for miniature hand tools. Xuron makes a great pair of snips that cost about 7.00 USD. They are tough, can cut larger bits without breaking, and will last you a long time and even longer if you can sharpen them from time to time.

Another great tool to have for cutting plastics and resin is the Ultra Fine Saw Blade and the Wooden handle, which are sold separately. You can also find it under names like “Hobby Saw” or “Japanese Saw”, some of which are a single piece with both the blade and handle. This is an excellent tool that allows you to make precision cuts. Absolutely a must-have for the serious kitbasher.

To refine our cuts, I highly recommend having a good set of files. A kit that offers larger and smaller files is great as it will cover us for small plastic kits and even larger resin miniatures.

In addition to files, I also recommend sanding sticks. These are great little tools to have handy. They typically come in larger packs of various grits, anywhere from high grit all the way down to polishing sticks.

Another set of tools we will need in the kitbashing and converting phase is sculpting materials and tools.

+ Sculpting +

There are a variety of different putties I recommend for various uses, including Apoxie Sculpt, Milliput, and Greenstuff.

Apoxie Sculpt is a two-part modelling compound that is a great material to use in less refined applications like basic forms for dioramas or basic armatures for sculpting. It is inexpensive, and you get a lot of material for little cost investment.

Milliput is a great quality general-purpose epoxy resin. You can sculpt finer details with it. I like to use it most for detail sculpting on terrain and basing.

Greenstuff is probably the best-known and most-used two-part modelling compound in the hobby. It’s a great material to work with, has a proven track record, and you can sculpt just about anything with it, depending on your skill level.

You can also mix these together to gain different properties of each putty, like Greenstuff and Milliput etc. Experiment and find mixes that suit your sculpting needs well.

To sculpt, of course, you will need a plethora of sculpting tools. Now, to be honest, I don’t know much about sculpting, but I can say that there is an absolutely monstrous list of available tools from which you can choose. It can be pretty intimidating to try and figure out what tools you need or which ones you like or find useful.

In my experience, and while talking with the different sculptors I’ve come across in my time, people seem to develop a particular preference for specific tools, and I found this to be true even in my own case. So, I’ll suggest what I have done as a novice in sculpting. 

I purchased a few of the cheapest sculpting tool kits that I could find. 

Then, as I was practicing, I started to develop a list of sculpting tools that I found myself reaching for over and over. 

Over time, I found better-quality versions of those tools or tools that were similar or helped me to produce certain effects or textures that I liked. 

So, pick up some cheap sets of pottery carving tools, wax clay tools, different types of spatulas, dotting tools, etc, and see what you like to work with.

Use them and see what feels natural in your hand and is comfortable for you to work with, and then build out a tool kit from there.

Alright, so I do want to talk about bits and different kits and model ranges to utilize for miniature building and kitbashing. But, before I do, I want to talk about modelling materials or the mundane items that we use to create visual interest or items that can aid us in building miniatures with the grimdark aesthetic.

+ Painting Tools +

We have finally come to the vast list of painting tools and materials that we highly recommend and usually make use of in our tutorials. 

Let’s start with brushes. 

We rarely use expensive brushes except for more intricate acrylic passes or detailing work.
A good brush can last a long time if handled correctly, but with all the aggressive paints, thinners and solvents we use, we recommend using synthetic brushes for the more dirty work.
Royal & Langnickel are more than decent brushes for general applications. It’s good to have flat, round, drybrush and feathering brushes of various shapes and sizes.

Inexpensive brushes for basic applications of oils or enamel washes, as well as acrylic glazes or base coats are needed. Sizes from 00 to 3 will be what you’re looking for.
Most important thing is to keep the brushes separate, store them in different places. They do not mix well.

Make sure to check for nail art brushes of different sizes and shapes. Round, flat. 

If you fancy using more quality brushes, Winsor & Newton series 7 are a good choice.
These come in handy with detailing work and a job well done with acrylics.

To maintain your good quality brushes always as good as new, you must make sure they are clean and maintain a nice shape. Abteilung502 makes two brush conditioning products that do exactly this.

Let’s address airbrushes. Indeed a fundamental tool that will change the workflow of any painter, from applying primers, to enamel wash general passes, to filtering and OSL effects.

The iwata Eclipse HP CS is the ideal dual action airbrush I would recommend for any painter if they want to invest some money into something durable. Quality product indeed.

However if you’re just starting out, a cheap airbrush will do the job. 

You want to make sure you understand how it works, all the ins and outs of how they function, and how to assemble and disassemble them so you can maintain and wash them properly. Recommended size would be 0,3mm for any basic application to start out.

I must say that even if you have a top quality airbrush, your investment won’t be worth it without a good reliable compressor.

Master or Timbertech will do, as long as you can manually set up the PSI.
Some of these compressors already come with a base entry airbrush, so you get two birds with one stone. I can’t promise these airbrushes will last you very much, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Compressor is the most important part you want to get right to start out.

Airbrushes need to be handled and cleaned properly. So with either isopropyl alcohol 99%, mineral spirits (if you sprayed an oil/enamel wash) will generally do the job. 

When you disassemble one, take care in never accidentally hurting the tip of the needle, they are very sensitive. 

However it’s bound to happen sometime and there’s not much you can do except being prepared when the accident happens. 

There’s plenty of repair and cleaning kits for airbrushes. Just make sure the sizes are correct, and in general it’s preferable you use spare parts of the same brand of your airbrush, especially if you have a high-end one like Iwata. If you’re just starting out and you’re unsure of what you should use to thin down acrylics in your airbrush, you can try out a Flow Improver. It breaks down the paint and makes it flow nicely in your airbrush, of course you need to watch out quantities as you don’t want it either too watery nor too dense. It just comes with experience.

The reductive technique is one of the best, well known and valuable applications to render the grimdark style. You should know exactly what we’re talking about, but in case you don’t, we’ve got you covered with a Youtube video on the Grimdark Compendium channel, where my buddy Dark Ages explains the ins & outs of it, using Isopropyl Alcohol 99% and Mineral Spirits. There is also a newer video on reductive technique from Black Chalice Studio. Either will work, as they cover the same bases. Of course our Learn Grimdark course also extensively explains the reductive technique so we still recommend watching it.

A decent blow dryer will help dry out the layers of paint much faster and optimize your working time. I feel this tool is ESSENTIAL. It can be cheap though, we don’t have to break the bank on this one, but definitely want to have it in our work room.

Stainless steel cups are perfect when mixing colors or thinning down washes.
Easy to clean, reusable and efficient. 

And a wet palette is useful to keep your acrylics usable for days without drying out.
It lets you have full control of your acrylic paints for smoother, thinner applications. 

Wash bottles will make your painting life easier, without the need to open lids everytime. Just make sure to write with a good marker what you’re putting in there. Water, mineral spirits, alcohol 99% are all transparent!

Sometimes when working with bigger projects like terrain or scenery or exercising on practice blanks, we advise to use spritz bottles.

+ Paints +

All right, so we have most of the utility tools to work with and perform the most basic paint applications. So let’s see the actual paints, divided into acrylics, oils, enamels, weathering products and pigments, before we go on and talk about basing.

Honestly, saying it cut-and-dry, I find the difference in acrylics is only about brand, consistency and finish. Citadel, Vallejo model color, AK 3rd Generation, Pro Acryl, Scale75, they’re all good.

As far as Surface Primers go, we honestly recommend Stynylrez Badger.
They are self leveling, perfect coverage, consistent every time. We find they’re simply the best.

Speed paints, Contrast paints. I’m not a huge fan of using them for base coats, but they definitely can have some uses for glazing and filtering, manually and with airbrush. 

As for acrylic washes Citadel Shades are what you’re looking for. Some of those hues are crucial to get the grimdark style right, for how we see it.

Now let’s talk about Oil paints. In almost every tutorial on the Grimdark Compendium, we use a particular brand of oils which is Abteilung502. This brand is designed for miniature art and contains a smaller percentage of linseed oil compared to other brands, this means that they’ll take significantly less time to completely cure.

Of the same brand Abteilung 502 we recommend their pigments line.
They are exceptional and can be diluted with water or mineral spirits for different effects. They come in an exceptionally wide range with realistic colors.

However, Vallejo pigments are good too.

Weathering can be done in multiple ways including via Chipping Fluid, sponging acrylics, dry-brushing etc.

When it comes to enamel washes and weathering products, the single most used product in the grimdark style has been AK Streaking Grime. The legendary AK0012.
Although you may know that the curious case of the Streaking Grime formula being changed multiple times without a single word of notice has left thousands of people dissatisfied with a different, and to my opinion, inferior product.

Varnishes are important to achieve surface finish variation.
It’s not so much a product for “protection”, as you would need at least a urethane or lacquer varnish for the paintjob to be really protected. 

So you definitely want an Ultra Matte, a Satin, and a Gloss varnish.

+ Basing +

Basing is an important step to render models in the grimdark style. The world beneath and around our characters must be represented accordingly to the narrative of a grimdark universe. So, putting an effort into creating cool, dynamic and interesting bases is time well spent. We want to make sure to use as many different types of textures and materials as needed, in order to recreate a scene that is atmospheric, and realistic looking.
Along with glues and sculpting putty, which we covered earlier near the top of the list, there are some products that can help us achieve cool effects.

Static grass and flock will bring much needed variety in nature, when required by the world and setting of your miniatures.
Different colors applied in layers will make it look so much more appealing. 

A Static grass applicator is almost mandatory for the majority of grass, and will make sure the grass fibers land straight and natural looking, on your dioramas and bases.

You can use Air Drying clay to make your own sandbags or bricks, or purchase them pre-made.

We definitely recommend using natural materials on your bases. Roots, twigs, birch leaves and anything cool you can find scavenging outdoors. 

However some miniature leaves can be also purchased. 

All sorts of cabling, old phone chargers, metal meshes can be used in tasteful ways to make industrial and decadent, futuristic gothic atmosphere. Additionally, Skulls are mandatory for the grimdark aesthetic. There’s no such thing as too many skulls.

+ Model Kits +

Here we are at the last part of our list. We are going to mention some of the model kits you can purchase to use for conversions, modifications and additions that we think would be cool to see kitbashed with the more common brands. 

1/48, 1/56 scale depending if it’s vehicles or characters will kinda work with the well known Warhammer miniatures.

Some of the historical miniatures can also be really cool additions. Scale is kind of tricky to nail, as most stuff is really small compared to Warhammer models, but from Echoes of Vermin’s experience 40mm scale models work very well with something like space marines.

Additionally we can’t leave out 3D printed miniatures, as they have become a widely spread resource of a variety of sculpts. They can be a source of different miniature sculpts, or just bits and pieces for conversion if you are handy with a saw or a slicing software. There are also a lot of people and printing services that can do that for you and get the models to your door.

+ Final Word +

And we are at the end of Grimdark Masterlist. This was meant as a dive into techniques, materials and philosophy used by the Grimdark Compendium in a comprehensive form that you can easily come back and refer to. Don’t be afraid to deviate from these techniques, as we encourage you to find your own way in the grimdark style, but these are still fundamentals you can built onto. Hopefully it has given you some insight and ideas. Take care, dark traveller.