The Army Painter Speedpaint: Pallid Bone

One Coat. Bone-Deep Colour.

Pallid Bone is a warm, desaturated ivory — the kind of colour that makes skeleton hordes, aged ceramics, and sun-bleached armour look convincing without hours of layering. As part of The Army Painter's Speedpaint range, it combines a base coat and shading wash in a single formula, flowing across raised surfaces and settling into recesses to create natural-looking depth in a single pass. The result is a bone tone that reads as finished straight from the pot, with room to highlight further if you want to push it.

How Speedpaint Works

Speedpaint is The Army Painter's answer to speed painting — a high-pigment, pre-thinned formula that does two jobs at once. Brush it over a white or light grey primer and it floods recesses like a wash while laying down opaque colour on raised areas like a base coat. No layering required to get a tabletop-ready result. Pallid Bone is particularly well-suited to undead armies, Chaos cultist robes, ancient stonework, horns, teeth, and any surface that should look old and worn. It can also be drybrushed over once dry to further lift the highlights if you want more contrast — the Speedpaint formula plays well with traditional techniques when used as a foundation.

Who Should Pick This Up

New painters who want their first skeleton unit finished and on the table fast will get excellent results from Pallid Bone straight out of the pot. Experienced painters batch-painting large undead forces will appreciate how quickly it covers bone surfaces without sacrificing depth. The colour is a genuine workhorse — bone, ivory, and off-white appear across nearly every faction and army, making this a useful addition to any miniature painter's palette regardless of game system. Works on plastic, metal, and resin miniatures from any manufacturer.