The Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0: Pastel Indigo

One Coat, Real Depth — Pastel Indigo

Pastel Indigo is a soft, desaturated blue-violet that punches well above its subtle name. As part of The Army Painter's Speedpaint 2.0 range, it behaves like a traditional wash and a base coat at the same time — flow it over primed plastic, resin, or metal, and it settles into recesses to create instant shading while leaving raised surfaces lighter. The result is a finished, layered look with a single application. No wet blending required. No three-stage highlight process. Just a loaded brush and a few minutes of drying time.

How Speedpaint 2.0 Works

Speedpaint 2.0 improved on the original formula with reduced reactivation — the paint is less likely to lift and smear when you apply a second coat or a varnish over the top. That makes it a better teammate with traditional acrylics than its predecessor. Use Pastel Indigo as a full speed-painting solution on cloth, ghostly armour, or pale magical effects, or layer a standard highlight colour on top once it's dry for a more refined finish. It works especially well over a white or light grey primer, where the pigment can shift from near-white on the peaks to a cool mid-violet in the shadows.

Who Should Pick This Up

New painters will find Speedpaint 2.0 one of the most forgiving entry points in the hobby — the self-shading formula does a lot of the technical work automatically, making it straightforward to get models looking table-ready fast. Experienced painters keep colours like Pastel Indigo on hand for quick-turn batch painting on rank-and-file infantry, or as a tonal underpainting layer beneath finer work. The soft, muted character of this particular shade suits undead, wizards, spectral creatures, ice-themed armies, and any colour scheme that calls for a cool, desaturated lavender rather than a bold saturated purple. It is equally at home on a Warhammer Age of Sigmar horror warband as it is on a science-fiction alien or a Warmachine mechanika unit.