Power Weapons and Lightning Effects

Hello again!

This tutorial is on how to achieve that power field glow on your power weapons complete with crackling lightning. This is a fairly simple technique and shouldn't take very long to accomplish. I'll be showing you how to do this on a Nemisis Greatsword from the GW Dreadknight kit for two reasons: first, it's large enough to show the details of this process for easier instruction, and secondly I had it handy since most of my other power weapons are in use. So, lets begin.

Just like the last tutorial, we start with a primed model. I use black for a lot since its a good, simple undercoat color to work with. The first step again here is the base coat. I used these colors for this example:

-Vallejo Gunmetal Grey

-Citadel Necron Abyss

 

From here it's simply just adding layers to build up the "edge" of the weapon and flesh out the Dreadknight colors. For the second layer, I used these colors:

 

-Citadel Chainmail

-Citadel Mordian Blue

 

The next layer is a wash. I wash everything but the blade so our blues don't get dulled down. It's just one coat of Citadel Nuln Oil Wash.

 

Our next layer highlights the edges of the Dreadknight arm and one more blue on the blade. I used a darker blue here so that there are some noticeable variations in the "power field" effect. This layers colors are:

 

-Citadel Regal Blue

-Citadel Mithril Silver

 

So, once everything is highlighted it looks pretty good. Now were going to do the "blue steel" look of the Grey Knights that are seen around a lot, so it's another wash for the metal parts. This time it's Citadel Asurmen Blue Wash.

 

Now we add another layer of blue to the blade and soften up the blue wash as well as staring the gold work. This layer I used:

 

-Citadel Enchanted Blue

-Citadel Mithril Silver

-Citadel Dwarf Bronze

 

 

Everything's highlighted up and the gold looks good. The hand and hilt of the sword are almost done, just one more layer of gold and it's good. The sword gets another layer as well and we start to see the "glow" of the blade at this step. This layer is:

 

-Citadel Ice Blue

-Citadel Burnished Gold

 

 

Alright, the hilt is done and all we have left is the gem and blade layers to do. The blade gets a special layer at this point, we'll be adding the corona layer for the lightning. This is very simple to do and only requires a steady hand. Take your brightest color up to this point, for this example it will be the Ice Blue, and thin it down to a "whole milk" consistancy then trace out where you want your lightning path to go. You can go brighter or darker depending on how much you thin the color, but a medium shade works best.

 

 

Now the final layer on this bad boy. The last layer goes on the very edge of the blade and along the path of the lightning staying within the corona layer. I also added a small dot on the jewel to give it a shine effect. The only color on this layer is Citadel Skull White.

 

 

At this point, just repeat on the opposite side and you're set. You can do the OSL effect from my first tutorial at this stage to make it pop, or you can simply just throw a gloss varnish on top to add to the effect, but that's entirely up to you.

 

 

 

Basic Techniques

This tutorial will cover basics of miniature painting, and of the some easier of the advanced techniques.

First, we start with a primed model. I paint my minis assembled, but you can paint assembled or glue everything after. I'm using the plasma cannon marine from Games Workshop's Dark Vengeance kit.

The first step after priming your model is to base coat it. Don't be afraid about being sloppy at first since you're going to clean it up as you progress. For this model, I used the following colors for the base coat:
-Citadel Dark Angels Green
-Citadel Mechrite Red
-Citadel Shadow Grey
-Vallejo Gunmetal Grey
-Citadel Codex Grey
-Citadel Dheneb Stone

After your base coat, you can start to see where your details are and the model takes on a little bit of personality. If this is as far as you want to go for "tabletop" quality, that's fine; the general ruling for most painting requirements is three colors and the base. Anyway, on to the next step: layering. I used the following colors for the first layer:
 -Citadel Scab Red
-Citadel Chainmail
-Army Painter Electric Blue
-Citadel Bleached Bone
-Citadel Nuln Oil Wash

If you noticed, I listed a wash in the last list of colors. The above photos show the mini before the wash was applied. Below is after the wash.
 

I wanted to give this guy a bit of character instead of the semi-static pose they molded him in, so I made the barrel of the plasma cannon glow as if he's charging up for a shot. Now onto the second layer. Make sure that you're being careful here not to get paint into the crevices the wash made apparent, this is the easiest way to keep those details dark without too much backtracking. The second layer colors are as follows:
-Citadel Dark Angels Green
- 1:1 Citadel Goblin Green/Citadel Dark angels green mix for the line highlights
-Citadel Ice Blue
-Citadel Red Gore
-Citadel Chainmail
-Citadel Dwarf Bronze
-Citadel Bleached Bone

Sorry for the blurry pictures on this one, I was trying to control the flash exposure manually. Anyway, he's coming along nicely now. You'll notice the Dark Angels symbol is a smooth shade of white now, that's due to a trick I learned a while back using a medium color as an undercoat such as Codex Grey. The line highlights are important because they make solid shades pop by accentuating the hard lines across the model. Now onto the next layer, this layer will help to clean up and brighten some of the dull spots on the plasma cannon as well as add some character. The third layer colors are:
-Citadel Tin Bitz
-Citadel Chaos Black
-Citadel Shining Gold
-Reaper Blood Red

Now the cannon is nice and bright and the barrel has carbon burn from use. At this step, I chose to do the Object Source Lighting or OSL from the plasma cannon coil. This is an advanced technique that seems daunting, but is actually really easy.

OSL is achieved most simply by drybrushing darker colors to brighter colors where the light would shine naturally. First step is to get your colors together. Since I'm using a bright blue, I'm going to use Ice Blue as the light source color. Here are the colors and appropriate mixes I used to achieve this:
-1:3 Citadel Chaos Black/Citadel Ice Blue for the darkest ring of light
-Citadel Ice Blue for the mid-range
-1:2 Citadel Skull White/Citadel Ice Blue for the areas closet to the light source

 I find this adds something to the model that just makes people go "wow", but if you're doing a full army with plasma and power weapons, it would be a lot to paint every one with OSL effects. My Dark Vengeance kit will be better than tabletop quality for show purposes, so I will be doing this effect across all the models. 

I digress, after painting the OSL I noticed the plasma cannon was missing something, so I added another layer for line highlights and a brighter shade of gold to the accents. The colors are:
-Citadel Burnished Gold
-Citadel Mecharius Solar Orange for the highlights