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Four guides we point every beginner to first — which paints to buy, how to use them, and how to learn the games we stock.

Two Thin Coats

The Two Thin Coats range is designed by the Duncan Rhodes Painting Academy, the team behind some of the most popular painting tutorials online. We stock them because the triad approach solves the problem most paint ranges ignore: what colours actually go together.

Each triad gives you a shadow, midtone, and highlight that are designed to work as a set. No colour theory required. No guesswork about which shade is lighter or darker. Pick a triad, follow the steps, and get a result you're happy with.

The paints are a close colour match to Citadel and Army Painter ranges, so you can follow along with hundreds of existing tutorials using Two Thin Coats instead.

If you want to paint miniatures without decision fatigue, this range was built for you.


How the triad system works

Every Two Thin Coats colour belongs to a triad; three paints that progress from dark (shadow) to light (highlight). To paint a surface, there are two approaches you can try:

Classic:

  1. Base coat with the Shadow
  2. Apply the midtone, avoiding the recesses and undersides
  3. Edge highlight with the Highlight colour.

Alternative:

  1. Base coat with the midtone (the middle colour in the triad).
  2. Apply the shadow to recesses and undersides.
  3. Edge highlight with the light colour.

That's the core technique for the entire range. Once you've done it with one triad, you can do it with any of them.

Where to start

If you're painting a specific army or scheme, look for triads that match your base colours. For a first purchase to test the system, we'd recommend:

Orc Flesh triad: a good all-purpose green that demonstrates the shadow-midtone-highlight system clearly.

Space Blue triad: the workhorse blue for Space Marine armour panels.

Warm Brown triad: useful across almost every army for belts, pouches, boots, and straps.

Or browse the full range, every triad is labelled with its colour family to help you find what you need.

Pairs well with

For the best application experience, a Red Grass wet palette keeps Two Thin Coats workable for longer and helps you thin them to the perfect consistency. The Tesseract Mini Studio brushes will hold plenty of paint and keep a great point for painting details.

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184 products
Yellow Flame
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Yellow Flame £4.25
Skulker Yellow
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Dragon's Gold
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Dragon's Gold £4.25
White Star
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White Star £4.25
Ivory Tusk
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Ivory Tusk £4.25
Elven Skin
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Elven Skin £4.25
Dwarven Skin
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Dwarven Skin £4.25
Death Reaper
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Death Reaper £4.25
Platinum Crown
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Flesh Wash
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Flesh Wash £4.25
Plate Armour
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Plate Armour £4.25
Demon Red
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Demon Red £4.25
Royal Cloak
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Royal Cloak £4.25
Mythril Blade
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Mythril Blade £4.25
Dust Bowl
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Dust Bowl £4.25
Talisman Green
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Cursed Blue
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Cursed Blue £4.25
Trooper White
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Trooper White £4.25
Spartan Bronze
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Orange Flare
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Orange Flare £4.25
Ethereal Green
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Boar Hide
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Boar Hide £4.25
Dwarven Iron
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Dwarven Iron £4.25
Griffon Claw
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Griffon Claw £4.25