Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0: Howling Sand

One Coat, Full Effect

Howling Sand is a warm, dusty ochre that does the work of three painting steps in a single pass. Brush it over primed plastic, resin, or metal and watch it flow into recesses for automatic shading, settle across raised surfaces for a natural base tone, and leave subtle highlights on the highest edges — all before it dries. Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0 is purpose-built for hobbyists who want game-ready models without spending an entire evening on a single base coat.

What Speedpaint 2.0 Does

Speedpaint 2.0 is Army Painter's second-generation speed painting formula, refined for better flow control and improved reactivation resistance compared to the original range. It works like a heavily pigmented wash combined with a base coat — the paint self-levels as it dries, pooling in shadow areas while thinning across raised detail. Howling Sand lands particularly well on sandy terrain, bone armour, desert robes, leather straps, fur, and any surface that benefits from a warm, sun-bleached neutral. Once dry, the surface is ready for standard acrylic highlighting in minutes. No waiting for thick base coats to cure fully before your next brush hits the model.

Who It's For

New painters will find Speedpaint 2.0 one of the most forgiving ways to start — a single correctly applied coat produces results that look like several deliberate painting stages. Experienced painters use it for batch work and speed runs, getting squads table-ready quickly before returning to centrepiece models with more detail-intensive techniques. Howling Sand is a practical staple colour with broad applications across almost any army or system — desert and undead aesthetics especially, but also as a quick solution for bases, wooden textures, and parchment scrolls. Works on any miniature regardless of game system.

Specifications