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I was thinking about repainting the energy part for my plasma guns. Ultramarines with blue energy coils looks good and all but I think it's a bit too much blue. So I figured I might as well just ask to see everyone's plasma guns! Bonus points is you got Ultras!

Ultramarine blue is a bit dull, I use enchanted blue as base, the highlight with ice blue, and edge with the next lighter blue grey(etherium blue or similar).

 Big Mac wrote:
Ultramarine blue is a bit dull, I use enchanted blue as base, the highlight with ice blue, and edge with the next lighter blue grey(etherium blue or similar).

I do basically the same. The extra touch I do for plasma is paint the front cowling gold.

It's worth noting that blue has never been any sort of 'standard' for plasma. Prior to the 5th edition Grey Knights codex, they were generally shown as either bare metal or green. The studio Ultramarines had a mix of both, with the 6th edition codex starting to show some with blue, but also still having examples in green and bare metal.


Which is a long-winded way of saying - if you don't like the blue on blue, green is perfectly cromulent for Ultramarines.

No 28mm to shoff off on, but i have done some energy weapons on Titanicus titans.



They where done using the no longer existing GW glaze line, but i have read that if you thin down contrast paints, you will get the same effect as a glaze. (have not tryed it myself since i still have a fair amount of glazes left)

For the blue i started with a good coat of pure white, then applyed one layer of glaze, then a very light coat of white drybrush.
The yellow was one good coat of pure white and two layers of glaze.

I use an old metallic green with the soulstone green technical paint on top for a glossy look. Sometimes I’ll drybrush a silver on the metal before the gloss. Nothing too fancy.

Plasma pistol on a recent alpharius commission. Orange is the complimentary colour for blue so I chose to do my coils in that colour.

A few reference pics from me - not great quality, but you can see that adding a bit of a green glaze to the blue can change the colour dramatically, or orange works really well imo

On Obsidius Mallex, I used the yellow contrast paint and did a cuppla coats over a white highlight - very simple and worked pretty well

Hopefully of some use!

I guess I'm weird cuz I never paint any glow fx on my minis. All my power swords and plasma weapons are glowless. I always liked to imagine that the light fx these weapons generate are just brief flashes, kinda like muzzle flashes of existing firearms, therefore I don't see a point in painting them onto the models.

I do kinda like the look of a glowing weapon.. when done right. However IMHO 99% of the stuff I see looks off

I use blue for my blood angels, green for ultramarines

I found that a transition from light red over orange to yellow looks pretty good in combination with dark violett. I could see it working with blue:

I did red myself. Flesh Tearers red, mixed with Medium and then drybrushed for a highlight.

Plasma coils is something I just haven’t been able to get the hang of

All of these plasma guns look great! I think I'm gonna go with green for the coils my Ultramarines.

Teehee, I went with fluorescent on my Mallex



Must get around to finishing that off sometime

Here’s my take on the volkite pistol

I play Dark Angels, so plasma is kind of my thing. Here are a few examples of my plasma glows:




Blue glow really works for these as it contrasts nicely with the red weapon casings and the dark green armor. YMMV of course.