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Hey there,

I'm not much of a painter, though I like the color scheme I've come up with for my new chaos termies (for the Fallen part of my Dark/Fallen Angels army):



I'm trying to decide how to do the power weapons. What kind of colors/blade effects.

I've seen a lot of good ones out there, but have never settled on a good one for my army.

Any advise or suggestions folks can give for techniques, and/or colors that would go well with my scheme, would be much appreciated.

Also, for reference, here's a shot of the main army color scheme:



Oh, and while I'm at it, the rest of my five-man Deathwing squad (these two seem to have mutated a bit more):




Apologies for the picture quality. I'm just starting, and had no tripod handy.

Woot, Army by Ragnar.

I'm thinking you could just continue the green you've worked into the plasma weapons for your power weapons.

As for technique to paint them, I really don't know. I know I'm partial to my new found way of painting them like I did with my Veteran marine.

What do you like? Lines? Lightning? Waves? Solid Color? It's really a personal preference thing. You pick it, and I can help you find a quick and easy tutorial for it ^_-. (I probably have it bookmarked x.x)

as you probably want something that will stick out from the color scheme of your guys right now i'd say do something along the lines of bright orange or purple/blue and have lightning or line effects up and down the weapons. also if your and good at it (i am not) do point source lighting. on power weapons and plasma that just makes the entire army look pretty as could be

personally id go for a neon blue

it would stand out from the rest of your color scheme, and try to progressively highlight to make it look like its glowing, or try source lighting though I have no experience with said technique

I agree with bast and amp.

something different from the green but not TOO eye catchy.

yea scratch my idea about the orange. that would look silly.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I think I'm leaning towards blue or green. Blue might be the best bet; it'd be a nice complementary color.

grey_death wrote:As for technique to paint them, I really don't know. I know I'm partial to my new found way of painting them like I did with my Veteran marine.

What do you like? Lines? Lightning? Waves? Solid Color? It's really a personal preference thing. You pick it, and I can help you find a quick and easy tutorial for it ^_-. (I probably have it bookmarked x.x)

I like your veteran a lot. Probably not lightning. Otherwise I'm open. Do you have any good shots/links to particularly nice/easy ones?

I'm with GD on this one - I'd start with DA green and highlight up to a nice bright fluorescent green along the edges and up the middle of the flat of the blade.

actually orange/red would be a nice color contrast to your solid wall of green. more yellow than red will really be eyecatching, but if you want more subtle you could hue your orange to more red.

with yellow orange edges and highlights it would clearly be a focal point of your army.

I'm voting for bright red/orange as color contrast.

Bright green is nice, but doesn't contrast with your green and bone.

Technically, I suggest a tinted metal, working with red/orange glaze.

I like the idea of red, but I think I like the blue some have suggested better, but I'd highlight it with white.

I'm leery of red, but some kind of yellow/orange might work.

I'm still leaning toward the blue. I think it would make a nice contrast (like my Librarian/Sorcerer) but not clash too much.

Bear in mind I also need to paint a daemon prince (the GW models with dragon wings added) and his big runesword. I think I'm going to do his armor in the same bleached bone scheme, so something that looks good on an even larger scale would be ideal.

Aaron, you got some easy tutorial links for me?

Hrm. I really thought I had a lot of that stuff still bookmarked. Apparently I don't x.x. Here is one that sort of helped me start to move away from the every day power sword you see around all the time. It started making me think of alternative ways to get a nice powerful effect on a rather dull part of the models.

Here is the pic that inspired me to paint my power weapons the way I do now. And here is a photo of my veteran in case you might have not seen it for a bit ^_-.

Lightning, if you use it sparingly, really doesn't look bad. It's when people use it too much and it takes over the model as well as distract you from the detail that it starts to look garish and tacky. For a lightning tutorial I redirect you to B&C.

Btw, sorry I hadn't gotten back to you earlier with some of this stuff. I was working all day yesterday ^_-, lives to save and such, you know the deal!

Are your terminators marked to a particular god? If so, making power weapons in highlights of their colors might be a nifty way to single them out.

Otherwise, I vote a fiery red-yellow blend to make them pop out in what is otherwise a very cool color scheme. I don't know of any great examples off hand, but I liked the way Saint Celestine's sword came out in my Sisters thread. I was shooting for a fiery look, such that one might think "maybe the sword shoots fire?"
Usually I do my power swords in blue, but on my marine chaplain I found it didn't stand out as well as I had hoped against his blue and white armor, which is why I advocate contrasting colors here.

The ice blue used in Lemmingspawn's Iron Warriors might work too, since it will be a very light blue against the darker cream and green.

Me Im partial to a blue ink with lightning down it but I woudl think something close to a liche purple with some inking might look really nice matched up with that DA green and bleached bone

Some additional thoughts

Good stuff.

I like Lemmingspawn's ice blue stuff, but to some extent I've associated that particular look with Frostblades.

I do like your look better than the lightning motif. Do you have a quick & easy version as opposed to your "need lots of glazing" technique?

I think the next closest would be successive highlighting. Base color then mix base color with highlight color 70/30, then 50/50, then 30/70, then just highlight color. This wouldn't give you a super smooth finish, but would mimic the effect. Remember to leave more and more of the color under showing as you highlight. The final highlight should be limited to the top edge, point and 'power' lines.

An even easier way would be to paint a solid dark color, highlight 50/50 somewhat thicker on the top edge, tip and lines. Then final highlight thin on the top edge, tip and lines. This will save some time as you won't have to deal with any blending/mixing of paint.

Note: I haven't tried either of these methods. So it might not work as well as I think. Though this does give me an idea for a future tutorial ^_-.

Quic update- I finally got around to these again, after letting it percolate in my brain for a while as I worked on other models.

I finally went with very close to your last suggestion, working with a Storm Blue basecoat, Enchanted Blue middle, and Ice Blue highlight, with a final highlight of mixed Ice Blue & Skull White roughly 1:1. I did them up shortly before bed last night and the color transitions looked a little rough, and my lines weren't as straight as I might like, but I was liking the general effect. I'm probably going to try wet blending a little or just adding a blue wash to smooth it out, but I will definitely post some pics in the next day or two.

Okay, I accidentally got a bottle of black ink instead of blue yesterday, so I haven't inked them yet. And the successive layers are pretty sloppy and I'm tempted to redo them, but I think they're looking pretty nice. This is more of a unit shot than a close up, but it gives you the idea.