The Army Painter’s Speedpaint 2.0 guide unlocks glazing and richer effects

Beyond the one-coat myth

Speedpaint 2.0 still does what the label promises: it can lay down vibrant color, shading, and highlights in a single stroke. That is the hook, and it is real. But the useful part of The Army Painter’s guide is that it refuses to stop there, because the best value in this paint line is not just speed, it is control.

That is the myth worth busting. If you only treat Speedpaint 2.0 as a quick tabletop finish, you are leaving a lot of utility on the bench. The guide frames it as a tool you can push into glazing, tinting, smoother transitions, and selective cleanup, which is exactly where it starts saving time on army projects without looking sloppy. The Denmark-based company has also positioned the range for painters of all skill levels, which makes sense only if the line can do more than one job.

Why glazing is the real unlock

The guide’s central recommendation is glazing, and that is the point where Speedpaint 2.0 stops being a shortcut and starts acting like part of a real workflow. Thin it down, lay in translucent layers, and you can tint underlying colors instead of covering them completely. That lets you deepen shadows, shift hue, and smooth harsh jumps between tones without going back to a full repaint.

This matters because glazing is one of those techniques that sounds advanced but pays off immediately on the table. A quick glaze across armor plates, cloth folds, or bone can make a batch-painted unit look intentional instead of merely finished. In other words, Speedpaint 2.0 is not just for rushing to the last step, it is for making the last step look better.

How to use Speedpaint as a glaze

The practical move is simple: use less paint and more intent. You are not flooding the miniature, you are steering color into the areas that need depth or warmth. The guide makes the point that application method changes the final look, and that is the difference between a muddy all-over coat and a controlled effect that actually enhances the sculpt.

That is where Speedpaint 2.0 becomes worth more than a traditional one-coat product. A controlled glaze can unify a rough batch job, push recesses darker, or make a highlight feel more natural after drybrushing or layering. If you already know how to clean up edges and place highlights, Speedpaint stops being the final answer and becomes a force multiplier.

Speedpaint Medium is the piece that makes the system work

The other half of the equation is Speedpaint Medium. The Army Painter describes it as an innovative resin medium designed to thin Speedpaints to the desired consistency, which is exactly what you need if you want glazing and tinting to behave. Without it, you are improvising with consistency; with it, you are deliberately changing how the paint flows and settles.

That distinction is important for time management. If you want quick army results, you do not want to spend half the night correcting pooling or fighting tide marks. Speedpaint Medium gives you a cleaner route into translucent layers, so the paint stays useful when you want subtle effects instead of full saturation.

When medium saves time, and when it does not

Medium saves time when you are using Speedpaint to tint an existing base color, deepen a shadowed area, or smooth a transition you already blocked in. It does not save time if you still have to clean up every panel line because you overloaded the surface. The advanced use case is efficient because it reduces rework, not because it magically makes careful painting unnecessary.

That is the real dividing line in the guide. If you are already comfortable layering, drybrushing, and doing selective cleanup, Speedpaint Medium slots neatly into your process. If you are not, the paint will still work, but the results will depend on the same fundamentals that govern any other finish-quality workflow.

The current range is built for more than beginners

The expanded Speedpaint 2.0 lineup makes the same point in product form. The Complete Set 2.0 is marketed as 90 colors total, including 23 original colors, 44 newly developed colors, 10 metallics, and 12 colors designed with input from Dana Howl, Watch It Paint It, and Goobertown Hobbies. It also includes an extra-large 100 ml bottle of Speedpaint Medium.

That is not how a company packages a one-note product. The Starter Set 2.0 gives you 10 unique colors, including 5 new colors, plus a free basecoat brush. The Most Wanted Set 2.0 includes 24 unique colors, 13 of them new, plus 2 metallics, 1 Speedpaint Medium, and a free basecoating brush. The Mega Set 2.0 goes bigger still, with 50 bottles total, 46 colors, 3 metallics, and 1 bottle of Speedpaint Medium.

What those set contents tell you

The range tells you how The Army Painter wants you to use Speedpaint 2.0: not as a single-color crutch, but as a system. The metallics, the included medium, and the creator-influenced colors all point toward broader utility across armies and styles. You can build whole force collections around the line, or cherry-pick the colors and tools that support a more controlled workflow.

That creator feedback also matters. When a product line is shaped with input from Dana Howl, Watch It Paint It, and Goobertown Hobbies, it usually means the company is listening to how painters actually use the paint, not just how it looks on a shelf. The result is a range that is better suited to practical tabletop problems, especially when you are trying to get a lot of models to a consistent standard.

Where the time savings are real

The guide is strongest when it talks about painting pressure, not painting theory. Most people buy speed paints because they want to get through a pile of shame faster, and Speedpaint 2.0 absolutely serves that job. The trick is that the best time savings come when you use it inside a fuller process that already includes primer, highlights, and cleanup.

That is the honest answer for army projects. A quick Speedpaint pass over a well-primed miniature can get you table-ready fast. But if you want a force that looks sharp at arm’s length and survives close inspection, you still need to plan for some finishing work. Speedpaint 2.0 helps most when it replaces multiple slow steps, not when it is expected to do everything alone.

The Caverns of the Frost Giant example shows the ceiling

The guide’s Caverns of the Frost Giant example from Steam Forged Games helps prove the point. It is not locked to one brand ecosystem or one game system, and that matters because it shows the method working on a real model, not just in abstract theory. The example pushes the idea that Speedpaint 2.0 can handle more ambitious pieces when you use it with intent.

That is the strongest takeaway in the whole piece. Speedpaint 2.0 is still fast, still forgiving, and still friendly to painters who want results without a giant setup. But the real upgrade is that it can now live comfortably inside a more serious workflow, one that uses glazing, controlled thinning, and selective cleanup to turn speed into finish quality instead of a compromise between the two.

If you are trying to move models from the pile of shame to the display shelf, that is the kind of speed that actually matters.