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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
Ray Gun Glow
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Ray Gun Glow £4.25
Wyvern Green
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Wyvern Green £4.25
Wolf Grey
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Wolf Grey £4.25
Vampire Fang
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Vampire Fang £4.25
Sandstone
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Sandstone £4.25
Rust Orange
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Rust Orange £4.25
Runic Purple
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Runic Purple £4.25
Fanatic Orange
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Emerald Green
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Emerald Green £4.25
Berserker Red
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Berserker Red £4.25
Blue Glaze
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Blue Glaze £4.25
Yellow Glaze
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Yellow Glaze £4.25

Hydra Green
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Hydra Green £4.25
Hot Pink
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Hot Pink £4.25
Temple Stone
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Temple Stone £4.25
Fur Cloak
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Fur Cloak £4.25
Elysium Blue
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Elysium Blue £4.25
Dragon Fang
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Dragon Fang £4.25
Celestial Blue
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Amethyst Rayne
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Orange Glaze
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Orange Glaze £4.25
Overlord Brass
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Craven Yellow
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Craven Yellow £4.25
Hellspawn Red
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Hellspawn Red £4.25
Paladin Flesh
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Paladin Flesh £4.25
Ghoul Green
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Ghoul Green £4.25
Orc Hide
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Orc Hide £4.25
Neo Pink
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Neo Pink £4.25