In this video I’m joined by my dear friend Jakob Villien — the guy who originally taught me how to use oil paints on miniatures — and we sit down for a proper mythbusting chat while painting the same model (Oda from Scientific Models). The whole point is to take oils off their pedestal a bit. There’s so much mystery around the medium, and I wanted to show that even two people who both “paint with oils” can have wildly different approaches: I start with a thinned pre-glaze/wash that I wipe back to tint the surface, while Jakob goes in much more opaque and undiluted, mapping colors directly. We dig into the big misconceptions: “oils are super toxic,” “oils can’t do details,” “oils are always faster,” and “drying time ruins everything.” My take is pretty simple: don’t eat it, don’t smear it on your skin, and keep the lid on your dilutant — the danger stories are often overblown, and we probably do worse stuff like licking brushes or airbrushing metallics. We also talk shine (your eyes have to adjust), brushes (old ruined kolinskys become blending heroes), and why I still like acrylics for eyes: fast opacity, sharp separation, and no wet-into-wet fading. Oils are incredible, but they’re not magic — they’re just another tool, and you can absolutely mix mediums on the same miniature.