How to Paint Fallout Miniatures: A Wasteland Warfare Beginner Painting Guide

Quick answer

Paint Fallout: Wasteland Warfare miniatures in six steps: clean and assemble, prime grey or brown, block in base colors, wash for grime, drybrush for wear, then seal and base. Keep your palette limited to rust, olive, tan, and steel, and paint in batches of three to five figures so you finish a crew instead of stalling on one model.

Fallout miniatures reward a scruffy, weathered look, which is good news if you are new to painting. You do not need perfect blends or a huge paint collection to make wasteland raiders, super mutants, or power armor look right. You need a sensible order of operations and a palette that matches the setting.

This guide walks through the process in the order you should actually do it, with the mistake to avoid at each stage. It applies to Fallout: Wasteland Warfare figures, Fallout: Miniatures resin characters, and the terrain that ties a board together.

What you need before you start

A starter kit covers almost everything here: a hobby knife, fine files or sanding sticks, super glue, spray primer, a few synthetic brushes in sizes 0 and 2, a cheap drybrush, a palette, and a sealant. For paints, you can do an entire wasteland crew with a grey primer, a dark brown wash, a bone or tan, an olive green, a rust orange, a steel or gunmetal, and black and white for mixing.

Skip expensive detail brushes for now. Fallout figures are chunky and readable, so a size 0 and a size 2 will handle eyes, straps, and armor panels. Buy a can of matte varnish too, because resin and plastic both chip at the table edge.

• Work in a well-ventilated area and let spray primer dry fully before touching the model.
• Keep a damp paper towel nearby to wipe brush ferrules and avoid paint drying in the ferrule.

Step 1: Clean, assemble, and gap-fill

Wash resin parts in warm soapy water and let them dry completely. Resin often carries mold release agent that repels primer and paint. Trim flash and mold lines with a hobby knife, then dry-fit every part before gluing. Fallout: Miniatures sets are multi-part resin and require assembly, so check the fit of arms, weapons, and heads before committing to glue.

Fill visible gaps with a little super glue and accelerator or a tiny amount of epoxy putty. A rough seam will show through paint far more than a slightly soft detail will. Once assembled, glue the model to its base so you have something to hold.

• Common mistake: priming before the model is fully dry. Water trapped in a joint turns into bubbling primer.
• Checkpoint: hold the assembled figure at arm's length. If a gap is obvious now, it will be obvious after painting.

Step 2: Prime for the wasteland

A mid-grey or brown primer is the safest choice. Grey keeps colors true, while brown gives leather, skin, and rust a warm undertone. Spray in short bursts from about 20 to 30 centimeters away, rotating the model, and stop before the surface looks wet. Two thin coats beat one heavy coat every time.

If you live somewhere humid or cold, spray in a garage or shed and bring the models inside to dry. A dusty or fuzzy prime coat is almost impossible to fix cleanly, so test the can on a spare piece of sprue first.

• Common mistake: spraying too close and filling in fine detail like fingers and weapon sights.
• Checkpoint: you should still see mold lines and detail clearly through the primer.

Step 3: Block in base colors

Work from the inside out: skin, then clothing, then armor and gear. Thin your paint to roughly the consistency of milk and apply two thin coats rather than one thick one. For a raider, that means tan or olive clothing, brown leather, and steel for weapons. For power armor, a dark steel or blue-grey base reads well before you add rust.

Do not worry about neat edges yet. Basecoating is about establishing where each material lives on the model. If you slop paint onto a neighboring area, you can correct it in the next step.

• Common mistake: painting eyes and small details first. Save those for last.
• Checkpoint: step back. Can you tell what each part of the model is made of from across the table?

Step 4: Wash for grime and shadow

A dark brown or black wash does most of the heavy lifting on Fallout figures. Brush it into recesses, folds, and armor panel lines, then wick away pools with a clean damp brush before they dry. This gives you instant shading and a dirty, lived-in look that suits the setting.

For super mutants, a green or olive wash over green skin adds depth without extra mixing. For power armor, a brown wash over steel suggests rust and old oil. Let the wash dry completely before moving on, because drybrushing over wet wash smears it.

• Common mistake: flooding the whole model. Wash should sit in recesses, not on flat panels.
• Checkpoint: if a flat area looks stained rather than shaded, clean it up with a damp brush before it dries.

Step 5: Drybrush and highlight wear

Load a drybrush with paint, then wipe almost all of it off on a paper towel. Lightly drag the brush across raised edges: shoulders, helmet rims, weapon barrels, and armor plates. A lighter version of your base color adds a worn highlight, and a touch of silver on metal edges suggests chipped paint and exposed steel.

Keep drybrushing restrained. The technique is fast and forgiving, but too much turns a model chalky. If you overdo it, a thin wash can pull the surface back together.

• Common mistake: using a wet brush. If paint is not almost gone from the bristles, you will paint streaks.
• Checkpoint: highlights should catch edges, not cover whole surfaces.

Step 6: Base, seal, and finish the crew

Texture the base with sand, small rocks, or a textured paste, then paint it brown and drybrush it tan. A simple base ties a warband together and hides any mess around the feet. Add a few tufts or debris for interest, but keep it flat enough that the model still stands stably.

Finish with two thin coats of matte varnish. Let the first coat cure before the second. Once sealed, the model is ready for the table, and any chips from play can be touched up with the original base color.

• Common mistake: skipping varnish. Handling during games wears paint off edges fast.
• Checkpoint: paint in batches of three to five figures so you finish a playable crew before starting the next one.

Simple color schemes that work

You do not need a huge palette. Raiders look right in tan, olive, and brown leather with steel weapons. Brotherhood-style power armor reads well as dark steel with brown rust washes and silver edge highlights. Super mutants want olive or yellow-green skin, brown leather straps, and steel or scrap-metal weapons.

Terrain follows the same logic. Concrete greys, rust browns, and dusty tans keep a board cohesive. If you are painting objective markers or vault pieces, pick two or three colors and repeat them across every piece so the table looks like one place.

• Write down the exact paints you used for each scheme so you can match reinforcements later.
• A single accent color, like rust orange or faded blue, helps characters stand out from the board.

The six-step painting order

1. 1. Clean and assemble: Wash resin, trim mold lines, dry-fit parts, and fill gaps before any paint touches the model. Checkpoint: no visible seams and the figure sits flat on its base.
2. 2. Prime thin: Use grey or brown primer in two light coats from 20 to 30 centimeters, rotating the model as you go. Checkpoint: detail is still crisp, not buried under paint.
3. 3. Block in base colors: Paint skin, clothing, then armor and gear with thinned paint, working from the inside out. Checkpoint: materials are readable from across the table.
4. 4. Wash for shadow: Apply a brown or black wash into recesses and panel lines, wicking away pools before they dry. Checkpoint: shading sits in the recesses instead of staining flat panels.
5. 5. Drybrush edges: Drag a nearly dry brush over raised edges with a lighter tone, adding silver to metal for chipped paint. Checkpoint: highlights catch edges only, not whole surfaces.
6. 6. Base and seal: Texture and paint the base, then apply two thin coats of matte varnish and let each cure. Checkpoint: the model survives handling and matches the rest of your crew.

Fallout picks worth painting

• Fallout: Miniatures - Hammer, Lvl 50: This set contains one 32mm scale high-quality multi-part resin miniature with a plastic base. It requires some assembly and is supplied unpainted. A single character like Hammer is a good first resin project: you practice cleaning, assembly, and painting one larger figure before committing to a full squad.
• Fallout: Wasteland Warfare - Terrain Expansion: Objective Markers 2: The set adds wasteland objective markers representing trinkets, weapons, chems, and junk that are universally useful in the post-apocalyptic ruins. Objective markers are fast, forgiving paint jobs that teach drybrushing and weathering on small surfaces before you apply those skills to miniatures.
• Fallout: Wasteland Warfare - Terrain Expansion: Vault Atrium Pack STL: This upgrade pack expands an existing Vault Design Starter Pack with new options for balustrades and stairs. If you print your own terrain, painting vault interiors in clean greys and whites gives you a deliberate contrast to the rust and grime of the surface wasteland.
• Fallout: Wasteland Warfare - Factions of the Wasteland Bundle: This is a pre-order with shipping expected to start November 2026, and release dates are subject to change. Orders containing pre-order items ship once all items are in stock. If you plan to paint a full faction, order early and expect the whole shipment to wait on the pre-order item, so buy your paints and brushes separately.

Start with one figure, follow the six steps in order, and keep your palette to rust, olive, tan, and steel. Once the first model is sealed and on the table, batch-paint the rest of the crew and your wasteland will look consistent in far less time than you expect.