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Always has a bit of a pet peeve with Space Marine Power Weapons. Especially swords and Lightning Claws.

Resisting to my last breath painting them boring BLUE (they are NOT lightsabers, no matter how much I want them to be) I've looked at doing black blades with "lightning" effects. But that doesn't look much like a sword blade.

What's the best way to get a Power Weapon effect with a proper metal blade look?

Maybe paint just the edges in your power field colour of choice, and leave the centre metal-coloured.

tried that. it looks ok.....but still wondering if there are any techniques I haven't tried

You could always use some blue, green or red washes to give it a colored hue but still retaining that metal look.

I never really trust washes. Just as it's looking nice and shiny you put an Asurmen Blue wash on it and suddenly it's dull as.....

A lot of the power weapons I see have the electrodes on the blade. Have you tried painting the blade some crisp metal color and adding lightning effects coming form the electrodes?

Something that might be more subtle- source light the soldier's hand around the power weapon in the hue of choice, but leave the blade regular (or maybe special) metal colored. That could look cool, but it might be hard to really pull of. I have yet to paint a power weapon, so that's how much it's worth. cheers!

For my Space Wolves I use a:
Metalic/Gem Blue for Frost Blades
Metalic/Gem Red for Power Weapons
Metalic/Gem Green for Force Weapons

I have experimented with using necron abyss foundation and then doing a boltgun or mithril (can't recall which one) drybrush.



Sorry the pic is so blurry my camera isnt the greastest at close shots. I have 2 others in my gallery if you want to see a different angle and with out the flash

I paint mine Boltgun Metal, then was with Asurmen Blue and then highlight with chainmail.

Same as above.

In both my WE and Chaos Space Marine armies, all my magical weapons are washed blue.

Corennus wrote:Always has a bit of a pet peeve with Space Marine Power Weapons. Especially swords and Lightning Claws.

Resisting to my last breath painting them boring BLUE (they are NOT lightsabers, no matter how much I want them to be) I've looked at doing black blades with "lightning" effects. But that doesn't look much like a sword blade.

What's the best way to get a Power Weapon effect with a proper metal blade look?

That's the rub.

You can either get a good power weapon effect by gradually building it up as you'd paint anything else(armor, etc) or you're going to have to use weird combos of metallics and standard colors or the standard wash a metallic.

You have to remember the background on power weapons and lightning claws to really do it well either way. They're not, as you said "lightsabers" however they're also not "lightning weapons".

They're weapons sheathed in an energy field(usually). How do you really represent that with painting? Do we know exactly how close the "energy field" is to the weapon?

Best way I've found is to simply figure out a good contrast color that you can use for your weapons(honestly, in this case--I've found a green or purple look spectacular) and their blades.

Basecoat the weapon with that color, then gradually mix it with more and more and more white until the very tips and edges are the absolute lightest you can get them.

I personally highlight the edges of the blade with my chosen color (scorpion green, warlock purple, ice blue, or blood red work best) and then lightly feather the edges of the blade with the color. This is simple, quick, and easy to do.

I do a similar effect on swords.

Reminds me of a similar effect created on Tau stealth suits. Perhaps you could apply this to something smaller like a weapon. http://www.miniwargaming.com/content/MZGwmil1A8Gv

Also reminds me of a technique I read in the "How to paint citadel tanks" (page 41) book where they washed an area many times to create a waterlike effect. Would certainly work with something like that on a weapon.

I like the way Thamor did his, can you elaborate on how you did that?

Cant find the guy i was looking for, but he paints up BT's.

His power weapons are done in purple, but painted in a non metallic metal style, making the blade look like crystal.

Ill keep digging about to find it, but it does look amazing.

I love the way GW did the blades on the sang. guard models...

I mimicked the effect but with shades of red... looks sweet if you ask me. Then i dry-brushed them with some silver to make them look metallic and focused on the edges to actually make them look sharp.