Why does drybrushing look chalky and powdery on my resin minis?

The brush had too much paint on it. Resin surfaces are smoother than cast plastic and don't have as much texture to hold the paint. You need to remove more paint from the brush than you would for plastic models. If the result looks chalky, do a very light wash over the affected area to knock it back, let it dry completely, then drybrush again with an even drier brush.

Can I drybrush directly over primer without a basecoat or wash?

You can, but it rarely looks good as a finished technique. Without a dark basecoat and wash, there's nothing for the highlights to contrast against, so the model looks uniformly pale. Drybrushing over a wash is where the technique earns its reputation. Some hobbyists do a two-stage drybrush -- heavy with a mid-tone straight over black primer, then a lighter pass with a highlight color -- which skips the wash but still gives contrast.

What colors should I drybrush with?

Use a lighter version of whatever you basecoated. If the armor is dark grey, drybrush with mid-grey, then light grey. If the cloak is deep brown, drybrush with tan, then bone. The highlight color should be noticeably lighter than the basecoat -- one step on the color scale is too subtle to read at arm's length.

Should I drybrush before or after basing?

Drybrush the miniature before basing. Then base the miniature separately. Then drybrush the base lightly to match. Doing everything in one pass risks getting base texture paint on the miniature you just highlighted, or drybrush residue on a finished base.

Is drybrushing good for faces?

Drybrushing is not ideal for faces if you want a realistic skin look. The technique works by catching on random raised edges, which produces a speckling pattern rather than the smooth gradient you want on skin. For faces, layering -- applying progressively lighter paint in smaller areas -- produces a much cleaner result. Drybrush everything else on the model first, then go back and layer the face carefully.

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Drybrushing Resin Miniatures: Technique Adjustments for Smooth Printed Surfaces

Drybrushing works differently on 3D printed resin than on cast plastic. Here's how to adapt the technique for resin's smoother surface and still get sharp, natural-looking highlights.

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Drybrushing is the technique that makes beginners feel like they know what they’re doing, and it genuinely works. Load a brush with paint, wipe almost all of it off, drag it across the model, watch the raised surfaces catch light. Ten minutes of that and a miniature that looked flat suddenly has definition.

The problem specific to printed resin: the technique was developed for cast metal and injection-molded plastic, both of which have a slight surface roughness that holds the dry brush well. A well-printed resin miniature has a significantly smoother surface. The same technique applied unchanged produces a different result — the paint doesn’t catch as naturally, or it goes on too heavy, or the model looks chalky.

This guide is about those adjustments. If you’ve drybrushed cast plastic or metal before, most of this will be small tweaks. If drybrushing is new to you entirely, start here and skip the bad habits that come from learning on more forgiving surfaces.

Why Resin is Different

A 12K or 16K Saturn-class printer at 0.05mm layer height produces a surface that’s smoother than most cast plastic. That’s mostly a good thing — the detail reproduction is exceptional — but it changes how drybrushing works.

On cast plastic, the slight surface texture grabs dry brush paint even on broad flat areas. On resin, paint preferentially catches on the sharpest geometric edges: the tip of a sword, the raised edge of an armor plate, the brow ridge on a face. Broad flat surfaces catch almost nothing.

This isn’t a bug if you understand it. Resin drybrushing produces sharp, precise edge highlights where cast plastic produces a more diffuse, textural result. For hard-surface models — armored warriors, robots, vehicles — resin drybrushing looks excellent. For organic surfaces — fur, bark, rough cloth — you may want to supplement drybrushing with stippling or layering.

The main adjustment is brush dryness. You need to remove more paint than you would for plastic. When in doubt, remove more.

What You Need

Brushes:

A flat, stiff-bristled drybrushing brush (dedicated options from Army Painter or Citadel work well, or any old flat brush you’re willing to sacrifice)
A finer brush for targeted detail drybrushing

Paints:

Your established basecoat colors
Highlight colors — lighter versions of each basecoat, or a dedicated highlight color from the same range
Optionally: white to mix for final zenith highlights

Other:

Paper towels — a lot of them; you’ll go through several per session
Old palette or tile to load the brush

The Setup: Wash First

Drybrushing without a prior wash is possible but produces an underwhelming result on resin. The technique works by contrast — you’re adding light to surfaces that already have shadow. Without the wash defining shadows in recesses, the drybrush highlights have nothing to play off.

Apply your wash, let it fully dry, then drybrush. This is the correct order. If you’re working in sections (armor, then cloth, then skin), wash each section and let it dry before drybrushing that section.

On resin specifically, wash dryness matters more than on cast plastic. Resin is denser and holds heat less, so even after 30 minutes a wash can still be slightly wet in deeper recesses. If you drybrush over a wash that isn’t fully dry, you’ll smear it. Minimum 45 minutes after washing. An hour or more if your room is warm or humid.

The Technique

Step 1: Load and remove

Load the brush by dipping just the very tips of the bristles into paint. Not halfway up — just the tips. Then wipe the brush on a paper towel in long strokes. Keep wiping. For cast plastic, you wipe until the brush leaves a faint residue. For resin, go one or two wipes further. The brush should leave almost nothing on the paper towel.

Test against your hand: drag the brush across your skin. You should see just a whisper of color. If you can see it clearly, wipe more.

Step 2: First pass

Drag the near-dry brush lightly across the model surface. Use short strokes in multiple directions — this prevents a directional streaking look and gets paint into raised edges from every angle. Keep the strokes light. You’re not trying to cover anything; you’re letting the brush catch on geometry.

After the first pass, assess. The raised surfaces should be slightly lighter. If you can’t see any change, reload and go again — still dry, just one more pass. If it looks too heavy or chalky, you went too wet.

Step 3: Build up

Two or three light passes build a better result than one medium pass. Each successive pass brightens the raised surfaces slightly and sharpens the definition of the highest points.

For the final pass: mix your highlight color with a small amount of white (about 1:4 white to highlight). Remove paint from the brush even more thoroughly than before. Apply only to the very topmost raised surfaces — the very peaks, not the mid-raised areas. This final focused pass creates a sense of directional light.

Specific Surface Types on Resin Minis

Hard armor plates and geometric surfaces: Where drybrushing on resin excels. The paint catches cleanly on the sharp plate edges and almost nothing on the flat faces. The result looks like edge highlighting without the tedious edge highlighting work.

Cloth and soft surfaces: Moderate results. Folded cloth has enough texture variation that drybrushing reads naturally. Smooth flat cloth areas (tabards, cloaks) may look chalky if you go too heavy. Keep the brush very dry on smooth fabric.

Fur and rough organic texture: Drybrushing is excellent here, but only if the detail was sharp coming off the printer. Well-printed fur catches dry brush beautifully. If the fur detail is slightly soft from print settings, stippling with a sponge or brush tip will produce better texture.

Faces: Avoid drybrushing faces if you want a painted look rather than a tabletop-batch look. Drybrushing specks paint randomly on raised surfaces, which on a face means random patches of highlight rather than the smooth gradient you see in well-painted miniatures. Layer faces instead.

Stone and terrain bases: Where drybrushing does its best work. Stone has genuine texture variation, and a two-stage drybrush — mid grey then light grey — on dark stone looks almost indistinguishable from blended layering at table distance.

Common Problems

Chalky, powdery result: The brush was too wet. The fix after the fact: do a very diluted wash pass over the chalky area, let it dry completely, then try again with a drier brush.

No paint catching, nothing changing: The brush was too dry, or the wash wasn’t dark enough to provide contrast. Try one more load-wipe cycle with slightly less wiping. If the wash was too light, do another pass of wash before returning to drybrush.

Streaky highlights: Brushing in one direction only. Go in multiple directions — cross-hatch strokes work well.

Highlighted the base and got it on the model: Do the model and base separately with different passes. Let each dry before moving to the next.

When Drybrushing Isn’t the Right Call

Drybrushing is a great technique for getting a lot of models painted quickly to a good tabletop standard. If you’re painting a showcase centrepiece, or a face you want to look good up close, layering produces a cleaner result.

The how to paint 3D printed resin miniatures guide covers layering alongside drybrushing and explains when to use which approach. For batch painting a warband or a dungeon’s worth of terrain, drybrushing is the right tool. For the one model you want on your display shelf, invest the time in layering instead.