Big Walk Painting Station: Paintbrush and Colours Guide

Updated 2026-09-03 · Steam Big Walk

The Big Walk painting station is the Customization Room in the starting area, and despite the name it is not a puzzle at all. The community Fandom wiki redirects the title "Painting Station" straight to "Customization Room", so both names describe the same half-walled hut with an easel, a paintbrush and a wall of paint swatches. Nothing there awards a gourd or gates progression, which is why the Fandom page calls a visit completely optional. The one place where painting does pay out is a second, later salon inside the tunnel system, which is where the Big Makeover achievement triggers.

Where the Customization Room is and what it looks like

Fandom places the room in the Starting Area, close to where every group begins, and lists its purpose bluntly as painting your friends. It is described as a medium-small structure missing some of its walls, with green, red and yellow panels, half a red roof, a white easel and paintbrush tucked into a corner, and a grid of paint swatches covering one wall. That wall is the important part: the Paintbrush page notes the brush can only be used properly here, because this is where the paint actually is.

Because the room sits in the opening area, most groups find it long before they understand what gourds or keys do. The route through towers and gourds is covered on puzzles.

How the paintbrush works

The mechanic is short. Hold the brush, click a swatch to load a colour, then click the body part you want to change on another player.

Detail	What the sources say
Item	Paintbrush, listed on Fandom as aimable and a tool, and explicitly marked as not helping progress
Where it lives	On the easel in the Customization Room; the brush needs that room's paint wall to work
Swatch count	21 paint swatches on the wall, per the Fandom Paintbrush page
Loading a colour	Interacting with a swatch while holding the brush recolours the brush tip
What you can paint	Another player's head, torso or legs, chosen by where you click on them
Colour use	The loaded colour disappears once you apply it, so you re-dip for each body part
Painting yourself	Not possible in the base game, which is why Fandom warns you are at the mercy of your friends

The three-section body is confirmed from the other side too: the Steam guide "Change Your Appearance and Big Shiny Achievement Location" describes avatars as head, upper body and lower body, with colours randomised the first time you log in. That is player-written rather than a developer statement, so treat the randomisation detail as player-reported.

The self-painting limit surprises people. Two players are needed for any change: one stands still, one aims. That matches the rest of the game, where a second person is also required to fit a backpack or a belt.

Why the painting station is filed under puzzles

Community lists group the painting station with Big Walk's puzzle rooms, but the reward structure is different. Gourds come from puzzles, and filling every gourd slot in one place produces a key, which is filed down at key filers before it opens a bridge, the lift system, the tunnels or the trains. The Customization Room produces none of that.

Room type	Reward	Needed to finish the game
Standard puzzle rooms	Gourds, which convert into tower keys	Yes
Customization Room	Cosmetic recolouring only	No, described as completely optional
Tunnel salon	The Big Makeover achievement	No, but it is one of the 12 Steam achievements

If you are hunting collectibles, the painting station costs nothing but time. The item list, including the gourd, the key and the brush itself, sits on items.

Big Makeover: the salon in the tunnels

This is the only painting spot with a payout attached. Big Makeover is one of the 12 achievements listed on the official Steam store page, and it is not hidden, unlike Big Goodbye and Big Game.

Getting to it is gated. Players report that you first need the tunnel system open, which means finishing the Yellow Tower run: five gourds, one key, five filers, then the Yellow Door. From there the community 100% achievement guide gives player-tested directions to a salon inside the tunnels, near the Red and Blue connection and close to the area players call the Rave: over a green bridge, then down red stairs the guide author compares to an Escher drawing, into a purple space holding the salon.

The trigger is specific: pick one of the three shiny colours along the bottom of the selection, then have another player paint it onto you. As in the starting room, you cannot apply it yourself. The separate "Change Your Appearance" guide points to the same station and repeats the tunnels prerequisite, though it calls the reward Big Shiny rather than Big Makeover; the Steam list uses Big Makeover, so that is the name used here. Both guides are player-written, and no official source describes the salon's location. The full route is on achievements.

Twenty-one swatches or twenty-four colours?

One discrepancy is worth flagging. Fandom counts 21 swatches on the Customization Room wall, while a Thunderstore modding tool refers to the game's own 24-colour palette with reward-only colours included. The likeliest reading is that the starting room shows the freely available shades while the shiny ones live at the tunnel salon, which fits the achievement guide's description of three shiny colours at the bottom. No official source confirms either count, so both are recorded as found.

Mods that change how painting works

Several Thunderstore packages touch painting. Counts and versions are from Thunderstore on 3 September 2026, and every capability listed is the author's own README claim rather than something this wiki verified.

Mod	Downloads	Version	What the README claims
gugger/ColorSelf	3,359	1.0.11	Head, torso and legs colours picked from the game's own palette and reapplied each session, using the same networked look change the salon uses so unmodded players see them
jangles/PaintYourself	707	1.0.6	Paint your own body by holding a salon paintbrush, facing a mirror and clicking the reflected body part; affects only your character
SixSevenBrigade/Item_Debug	871	1.1.4	A modder's tool that recolours head, torso, legs or the whole body from the palette, reward-only colours included, plus custom RGB mixing that is local to you

ColorSelf's README is careful about the reward palette: shiny entries are offered only once Steam confirms you have earned the shiny-colour achievement, there is no opt-in toggle, and having a shiny painted onto you unlocks nothing. Installation follows the usual IL2CPP route on mods, and similar packages are compared on visual mods.

Has any patch changed painting?

Not according to the developers. Across the official Steam announcements from 1.4.8 on 7 August 2026 through 1.5.1 on 28 August 2026, House House never mentions the paintbrush, the Customization Room or the salon. Nearby fixes exist, such as completed challenges no longer needing a second completion after reloading in 1.4.9, but nothing cosmetic. Every patch is summarised on patch notes. How appearance is stored between saves is not confirmed yet.

Sources and last check

Checked 3 September 2026. The room description, its Starting Area location, the 21 swatches, the head, torso and legs targeting, the brush losing its colour after each use and the fact that you cannot paint yourself come from the community Fandom pages for the Customization Room and the Paintbrush at big-walk-game.fandom.com, which redirect the title Painting Station to the Customization Room. Those pages are community-written, not official.

The Big Makeover route, the tunnels prerequisite, the green bridge and red stairs landmarks and the three shiny colours are player-tested directions from the Steam Community 100% achievement guide, with the prerequisite repeated by the "Change Your Appearance and Big Shiny Achievement Location" guide; the two disagree on the achievement's name. The total of 12 achievements, and Big Makeover being visible rather than hidden, come from the official Steam store page. Patch details come from the House House Steam announcements for 1.5.1, 1.5.0, 1.4.10, 1.4.9 and 1.4.8, none of which mention painting. Mod behaviour, download counts and versions are from the Thunderstore pages and READMEs for ColorSelf, PaintYourself and Item_Debug, and are author claims rather than tested results.