Twelve models, twenty figures worth of paint
The default batch is eight 28 mm figures, three at 40 mm and one at 70 mm. Twelve models. Against a 28 mm reference they come to 20.37 reference figures of surface, because area follows the square of the height: the 40 mm ones are 2.04 each and the 70 mm one is 6.25 on its own.
That single 70 mm figure therefore eats as much paint as six of the 28 mm rank and file. Anybody who has primed a display piece after a year of infantry already knows this in their hands. The number is useful because it turns the feeling into something you can put on a shopping list.
The measurement is the page
Everything above rests on one figure: how much paint one model of a known height actually took. There is no way to supply that from outside. It depends on the paint, on how far you thin it, on whether you brush or spray, on the primer underneath and on how heavy-handed you are. Count the drops onto a wet palette for one model, or weigh the bottle before and after a session, and you have a number that is yours.
The defaults in the fields are placeholders. A drop is not a fixed volume either — dropper tips differ and thick paint drops larger — so the drop field takes a figure you got by counting drops into a syringe rather than one this page invented.
Waste is where airbrushes go
The default writes off 25 percent to the palette and the pot, which turns 14.26 ml of paint on the models into 17.83 ml to have ready. For brush work over a wet palette that is generous. For an airbrush it is optimistic: a cup holds a film of every mix that gets rinsed away, and small batches lose a much larger share than big ones because the loss is roughly fixed per mix rather than per model.
If you airbrush in short sessions, the honest way to find your figure is to mix a measured amount, paint until it runs out, count the models, and compare against what this page predicted for them.
Primer covers what paint never sees
The default primer figure is higher per coat than the paint figure, and that is not an error. Primer goes over the whole model including undercuts, recesses and the back of a cloak that no brush will ever visit, while a colour usually goes on a fraction of the surface. One coat of primer against two of colour comes out at 0.64 ml of primer for every 1 ml of colour with the defaults, which is 39 percent of all the liquid bought for this batch.
What it cannot see
Shape. Two figures the same height can differ by a factor of two in exposed surface — a robed wizard against a knight in full plate with a shield — and the page has no way to know which you are holding. The surface allowance field is the place to put that, and the way to calibrate it is to measure a second model of a different type and compare. Until then, treat the batch total as an order of magnitude that is right and a second digit that is a guess.
Questions people ask
How much paint does a miniature take?
Whatever you measure on one, scaled by the square of the height for the rest. Paint covers area and area goes as height squared, so a 40 mm figure takes 2.04 times what a 28 mm one takes and a 70 mm figure takes 6.25 times. The absolute figure has to come from your own measurement, because thinning, brush versus airbrush and coat thickness move it by more than the size does.
Why does one big model cost as much to paint as six small ones?
Because the ratio between them is squared. A 70 mm figure is 2.5 times the height of a 28 mm one, and 2.5 squared is 6.25. The mismatch between counting models and painting them is the whole reason a batch of mixed sizes cannot be estimated from the count.
How many miniatures does a 17 ml bottle paint?
With the default batch it works out at 11.4 of these mixed models per bottle at two coats, but that number is only as good as the millilitres per figure you fed in. Measure one model, put the real figure in, and the bottle count follows. Nobody can answer it from the outside because thinning alone moves it by a factor of two.
Does thinning paint make it go further?
Not on the model. Thinning adds carrier, not pigment, so the same colour coverage still takes about the same volume out of the bottle; you just apply it in more, thinner passes. What thinning does change is waste, and usually upward, because thin paint dries out on a palette sooner and an airbrush cup keeps a film of every mix.
Why is the primer figure higher than the paint figure?
Primer goes everywhere. It covers undercuts, recesses and the parts of a model no colour ever reaches, while a single colour normally covers a fraction of the surface. With the defaults, one coat of primer is 0.64 times the volume of two coats of colour, which makes it 39 percent of all the liquid bought for the batch.