Zenithal Priming and Slapchop: The Fastest Way to Paint an Army

Zenithal priming is a way of spraying primer from above so the model arrives pre-shaded, with light on the surfaces that face the sky and shadow underneath. Slapchop builds on it: drybrush the zenithal model white, then wash transparent colour over the top and let the pre-shading show through.

Together they are the fastest route from bare plastic to a tabletop-ready army, and the difference between painting five models an evening and painting one. This guide covers how to do both, when each is the right call, and where they fall short.

What is zenithal priming?

"Zenithal" means from the zenith — straight overhead, like the sun at noon. Instead of priming the model evenly, you build three layers from three directions:

1. Prime black, from every angle. This is your shadow layer and it must be complete — every recess, the undersides, inside the cloak.
2. Spray grey from about 45 degrees above, moving around the model. This catches the upper surfaces and leaves the black in the recesses.
3. Spray white from directly overhead only. Do not move around the model for this pass. Only the topmost surfaces should catch it.

The result is a greyscale model with a believable light gradient already baked in: bright helmet tops and shoulders, mid-grey chest and arms, black under the chin and behind the knees.

An airbrush gives the finest control here, but three spray cans work perfectly well. The trick with cans is discipline on the final pass — one or two very light passes from straight above, resisting the urge to "even it out".

Why does zenithal priming help?

Because value — how light or dark something is — does more work than colour in making a model read at arm's length. A zenithal undercoat gives you correct values before you have applied a single colour.

That pays off three ways:

• As a guide. Even if you basecoat over it opaquely, you can see exactly where your highlights and shadows should go.
• As free shading, if you paint over it with thinned or transparent paint and let it show through.
• As a check on your build. Flaws you missed — mould lines, glue marks, gaps — are painfully obvious on a zenithal model, and you can still fix them.

What is the slapchop method?

Slapchop is zenithal priming plus a drybrush plus transparent colour. It is called slapchop because the drybrush step is deliberately fast and imprecise — you slap the paint on.

1. Zenithal prime as above: black, grey from 45°, white from overhead.
2. Drybrush the whole model white or off-white. Load a stiff flat brush, wipe almost all of it off on a paper towel, then sweep it over the model. This catches every raised edge and sharpens the contrast the primer created. Be quick and be rough.
3. Wash transparent colour over the top. Contrast-style paints, speedpaints or heavily thinned normal paint all work. One generous coat per area, letting it flow into the recesses.
4. Tidy up. Pick out metals, eyes and details normally, and add a highlight or two where you want the eye to land.

That is a whole model in well under an hour, and a squad in an evening.

When should you use slapchop, and when not?

Use it for:

• Horde armies. Forty Ork Boyz, a Tyranid swarm, a hundred Guardsmen. This is what it is for.
• Textured, detailed surfaces — fur, robes, chitin, chainmail, scrollwork. The drybrush and the wash both have plenty to catch on.
• Getting an army playable quickly, with the option of going back and refining later.

Avoid it for:

• Large flat panels. Vehicles and T'au battlesuits are mostly smooth plate, where a transparent wash tends to pool and mottle rather than shade.
• Bright, clean, saturated schemes. Transparent paint over a greyscale ground reads slightly muted and grainy — great for grimdark, wrong for pristine white armour.
• Centrepiece models you want to look their best. Slapchop is a speed technique, and it looks like one next to a properly layered model.

Applying it to a Warhammer army

• Ork Boyz are close to the perfect slapchop subject: masses of texture, skin, cloth and rusty metal, and you need dozens of them.
• Tyranids work beautifully — the chitin plates take a wash naturally, and one contrast coat over a zenithal ground gives a usable carapace immediately.
• Death Guard benefit twice over, because the technique's slightly grubby, uneven finish is exactly the aesthetic.
• Space Marines are a mixed case. It works well on the soft details and the weapons, but the large curved shoulder pads and greaves usually want a proper basecoat.
• T'au battlesuits are the clearest case against: big smooth surfaces, so basecoat and highlight them instead.

A reasonable compromise for a mixed army is slapchop for the infantry and full basecoating for the vehicles and characters, which is also where the painting time is best spent.

Paints to use

Black, a mid grey and a white for the zenithal passes; a light bone or grey for the drybrush; then whatever transparent range you prefer over the top.

Chaos Black · Citadel Colour Spray

Grey Seer · Citadel Colour Spray

Corax White · Citadel Colour Spray

Terminatus Stone · Citadel Colour Dry

Grim Black · The Army Painter Speedpaint Set 2.0

What are the most common mistakes?

• Moving around the model on the white pass. This is the one that ruins it. Overhead means overhead; if white lands everywhere, you have just primed the model white.
• Too much grey. The 45° pass should leave obvious black in the recesses. If the model looks uniformly grey, the gradient is gone.
• Drybrushing with too much paint on the brush. Wipe more off than you think. If the surface looks chalky and streaky rather than sharp, you overloaded it.
• Flooding the transparent coat. Contrast-style paints need a controlled amount. Too much and they pool in the middle of flat areas and dry as blotches.
• Expecting it to fix a bad prime. Zenithal amplifies surface flaws rather than hiding them.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need an airbrush for zenithal priming?

No. Three spray cans — black, grey, white — do the job. An airbrush gives finer control over the transition and wastes less paint, but the technique predates hobby airbrushes being common and works fine without one.

Is slapchop the same as zenithal priming?

No. Zenithal priming is the directional undercoat. Slapchop is a complete painting method that starts with a zenithal undercoat, adds a hard drybrush, and finishes with transparent colour.

Can I use normal paints instead of contrast or speedpaints?

Yes — thin them heavily and add a flow-improving medium so they behave like a glaze rather than pooling. It is less convenient than a purpose-made transparent range but the principle is identical.

Does slapchop work over black primer alone?

Partly. You can drybrush white straight over black and wash colour over that, which is quicker still, but you lose the directional light and the result reads flatter.

Will slapchop models look out of place next to carefully painted ones?

Side by side and close up, yes. At tabletop distance and in a full army, much less than you would expect — which is the whole argument for using it on rank and file.

What comes next

If you slapchopped, you have skipped ahead: go on to washes and shades to deepen the recesses, or straight to edge highlighting to sharpen it. If you want full control over colour instead, start with a proper basecoat.