Edge Highlighting Miniatures: Crisp Lines on Armour Plates

Edge highlighting is painting a fine line of lighter colour along the raised edges of a model, where light would catch. On the hard-edged armour that fills Warhammer 40,000 it does more for the finished look than any other single technique, because it draws the shape of every plate.

This guide covers how to hold and load the brush, which edges to pick, how to fix a wobbly line, and how far to take it before the model starts to look like a wireframe.

Why does edge highlighting work so well on 40k models?

Because the subject matter is armour. Power armour, battlesuits, tanks and carapace are all made of hard plates with sharp rims, and in real life a sharp rim catches a bright, narrow line of light.

Soft subjects — fur, flesh, cloth — do not have that, which is why they want layering instead. Most models have both, and most models want both techniques.

There is a second reason: edge highlighting reads at distance. A model on a table two feet away is a silhouette with some colour. Bright lines along its edges define that silhouette, which is why edge-highlighted models look sharp in a way that carefully blended ones sometimes do not.

How do you hold and load the brush?

The two things everyone gets wrong first.

Use the side of the brush, not the point. Lay the bristles almost flat against the surface so the tip's edge runs along the raised rim, and drag. Trying to dot along an edge with the very point of the brush produces a dotted line and destroys the tip.

Load light. Dip a third of the bristles, then wipe most of it off on the palette. A brush with a bead of paint at the tip will blob over the edge onto the flat surface beside it.

Then:

1. Thin the paint to a slightly transparent consistency — a hard opaque line looks drawn on.
2. Brace your hands. Elbows on the desk, model held in both hands, and move the model as much as you move the brush.
3. Pull the stroke towards you, in one confident motion. A slow careful stroke wobbles more than a quick decisive one.
4. Start and stop past the ends of the edge where you can, so the line does not fatten at the ends.
5. Work in one direction around the model, so the highlight stays consistent with your chosen light source.

Which edges do you highlight?

Not all of them. The point is to suggest light, and light does not hit everything.

Highlight:

• Upward-facing edges — the top rim of a shoulder pad, the crest of a helmet, the upper edge of a knee plate.
• Edges that define a silhouette — the outline of a shoulder pad against the arm, the leading edge of a blade.
• Corners, more brightly than the edges running into them. A corner catches light from two directions.

Leave alone:

• Downward-facing edges, which are in shadow.
• Edges buried between two plates.
• The inside of recesses you deliberately shaded.

A useful discipline: put the model under a single lamp from above and look at where the real highlights fall. Paint those.

What is two-tier edge highlighting?

The refinement that separates decent from good. Instead of one line at one brightness:

1. First tier: a mid-lightness colour along all the edges you have chosen.
2. Second tier: a much brighter, narrower line — often almost white — only on the corners, the sharpest points and the topmost edges.

The second tier covers perhaps a quarter of the length of the first. The eye reads the contrast between the two as real light, and the model gains apparent sharpness without every edge shouting.

How do you fix mistakes?

You will overshoot. Every painter does, and the fix is routine rather than a disaster.

• A line that strayed onto the flat surface: let it dry, then paint over the flat area with a thinned coat of the original basecoat, cutting the highlight back to the edge.
• A line that is too thick: same fix — encroach on it from the flat side with the basecoat until the line is the width you wanted.
• A line that is too bright or chalky: glaze over it with a heavily thinned coat of the basecoat colour to knock it back.
• A wobbly line: usually easier to remove and redo than to patch. Basecoat over it and try again with a lighter brush load.

Keep the original basecoat colour on the palette while you highlight, for exactly this reason.

Applying it across an army

• Space Marines are the archetype: every plate on the model has a defined rim, and two-tier highlighting on the shoulders, helmet, knees and gauntlets is the whole job.
• Necrons benefit enormously, because bright metallic edges over a dark wash sell the look of ancient machinery.
• T'au battlesuits have long clean edges — ideal, and forgiving, because the strokes are long and straight.
• Aeldari vehicles and armour have graceful curved edges, where the trick is a smooth long stroke rather than short strokes joined up.
• Tyranids and Orks need far less. A little on the chitin plates and blades, and let drybrushing do the rest.
• Cloth, hair and flesh — do not edge highlight. Nothing on a person has a sharp bright rim.

For a squad, do one tier across every model, then the second tier across every model. It keeps the brightness consistent and it stops you over-detailing the first model and rushing the tenth.

Paints to use

Pick a lighter, slightly cooler version of the basecoat for the first tier, and something close to off-white for the second.

Fenrisian Grey · Citadel Colour Layer

Administratum Grey · Citadel Colour Layer

Ushabti Bone · Citadel Colour Layer

Stormhost Silver · Citadel Colour Layer

What are the most common edge highlighting mistakes?

• Highlighting every edge on the model. The result is a wireframe. Choose the edges light would actually reach.
• Using the tip of the brush. Use the side, dragged along the edge.
• Too much paint on the brush. The line fattens and blobs at the start of each stroke.
• Too much contrast in one step. A near-white line straight onto a dark basecoat looks like a drawn outline. Use two tiers.
• Unthinned paint. Opaque highlights sit on top of the model rather than looking like light on it.
• Inconsistent light source. Highlighting the top of one plate and the bottom of the next reads as noise.
• Doing it before shading. Wash first, highlight second, or the wash flows over your highlights and dulls them.

Frequently asked questions

What brush should I use for edge highlighting?

A small brush with a sharp tip that keeps its point — a size 0 or 1 with good spring. What matters more than the size is that the tip has not splayed; a splayed brush cannot make a clean line at any size.

Should I edge highlight before or after washing?

After. The wash sets the shadows and would otherwise run over and dull the highlight lines.

Is edge highlighting realistic?

Slightly exaggerated, deliberately. It reads as light at tabletop distance, which is the point. Display painters often use softer, more subtle edges for the same reason in reverse — they are viewed close up.

What colour should an edge highlight be?

A lighter version of the basecoat for the first tier. Adding a touch of a cooler colour rather than pure white keeps it from looking chalky. For metals, a brighter metallic.

How do I get a steadier hand?

Brace both hands on the desk, hold the model rather than resting it, move the model into the stroke, and pull towards yourself. Also: stop when you get tired, because line quality falls off a cliff.

Can I edge highlight with a sponge or a drybrush instead?

Drybrushing gives a rougher approximation, which is fine on textured surfaces and wrong on clean plate. On smooth armour there is no substitute for a brush line.

What comes next

For textured surfaces where a brush line makes no sense — fur, stone, chainmail, rust — the fast equivalent is drybrushing.