How much does it cost to paint miniatures? A question that many people ask, rightly so, because there is a general belief that this is an expensive hobby. But is it really so? Let’s try to clarify and understand how much money is really needed to start painting miniatures.

How much does it cost to paint miniatures?

I hear from many places that this is a wasteful and expensive hobby. I think a clarification must be made first of all. Miniatures are a hobby that encompasses many: playing, collecting, painting.

Board games and wargames

First of all, therefore, we need to clarify: when it is said that this is an expensive hobby, which of these aspects are we talking about? Because it makes all the difference in the world to understand it. To play a wargame, such as Warhammer 40,000, you need to buy many miniatures, often with a high cost, but you don’t necessarily have to have them all to start with. For example, you can opt for Kill Team, a small-team skirmish game derived from Warhammer 40,000, which allows you to play without having to own dozens and dozens of miniatures. Or you can decide to buy a used army. Therefore, to play a wargame it is not always necessary to spend hundreds of euros for the miniatures of the moment. Not to mention that before playing games of thousands of points, you can also organize games with a few hundred points …

Collecting and painting miniatures

This is instead an aspect that has to do with time and your desire to complete a collection. If you are not interested in playing, but you like to paint and collect the miniatures you make, nothing prevents you from spending as long as you want, even years. You won’t be in a hurry to complete the army in time for the next tournament and you can choose when and how to invest in new miniatures.

Now let’s talk about the topic that interests me the most: how much does it cost to start painting miniatures? My answer in one word? LITTLE. Yes a little. Because you don’t have to start with a hundred colors, twelve brushes and 6 cans of primer. You will need much less equipment to understand if you like this hobby. Just calibrate your first purchase on the miniatures you’ve chosen to get started. Very often it starts because someone has given us a game with miniatures, or because there is a friend who have introduced us to this hobby.

So why spend a lot of money? A few colors, 5 or 6, a medium-sized brush, a primer will be enough. That’s all. Total expenditure? I am sure that for all this you can easily stay under 50 €. Many? I think not, especially if you compare this hobby to other activities such as sports or a subscription to a streaming service. Also because with 6 colors and a brush you can go on for a very long time.

Spending or investment?

So you tried and liked painting miniatures and decided that you want to “spend” more, I think we are no longer talking about spending but about investment. So the paradigm totally changes and at that point I don’t think it’s worth talking about money anymore. Seven years ago, I had given up on this hobby a bit. My brother had bought Zombicide at that time and he had decided to get my old colors out and try painting the miniatures. Given the indecency he was doing, I asked him to paint the whole box for him … over 70 miniatures! A nice Christmas present isn’t it? And do you know how much I spent on some color, a brush and a primer? € 40, and seven years later I still use some of those colors. Ah, and I finished painting Zombicide too…