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Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone's seen any tutorials, pictures, or has done an army painted to look like it's moving about in the dark/night? I know there was a necron army that looked like it was in a cave, but I can't seem to find those pics anymore. Any tips or references?

Thanks!

Paint them normally but take really crappy pictures without a flash. Thats the way all my armies look.

I would say paint using darker tones and paint OSL into any parts which may 'glow' or emit some kind of light. Sorry that I cannot give advice any better than that, I'm not really a painting master But you could try searching OSL, I found this which may be worth of interest: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/404860.page

Paint the models really dark and use OSL on any light to make it contrast a lot.
TMP

I haven't seen any, however, I'd probably paint it normally, then do a layer of a mix of brown+black wash, to create shadows and faded /greyed colours of darkness.

Don't just paint things normally then wash them with a dark color. it will look like a muddy mess. You'll need to work with a completely different paint palette, focusing mostly on darker blues and greys. The note about OSL being important is right on though; it makes your army look like it's actually moving about in the dark instead of just wearing dark armor or whatever. Here's a classic Victoria Lamb diorama shot that illustrates much of what I'm talking about:

I can't find an official thread for these guys, but I found alot of great pics at this link.

http://warhammer-empire.com/warroom/army-specific-tactics/beating-the-bat/

I also have seen some for elves, I think Wood Elves, and for Dark Eldar. I remember someone saying they sprayed it black, did a quick shot of white from the topside of the model. It sort of gave a base for where the light would hit and worked from there. Basically, you'll work from black to various grey-blues and up to white. Then throw in some OSL now and again to really make it look incredible. Best of luck with it.

noneoftheabove0 wrote:
I also have seen some for elves, I think Wood Elves, and for Dark Eldar. I remember someone saying they sprayed it black, did a quick shot of white from the topside of the model. It sort of gave a base for where the light would hit and worked from there.

That's zenithal highlighting. It's a cool technique, and not limited to night time models!

Some pretty awesome pictures there. I think it'd be really hard to do for an entire table top army. Unless you want to do something totally insane like a night themed diaroma which has an army advancing forward at night, illuminated by the blasts around them, that way you could have the ground and terrain all lighting up along with the army to give it a night look... which would look awesome but would be insane to actually do.

I guess you could paint your army mostly in greys/blues and then maybe one in 3 or 4 models is illuminated by a scanner screen or the blast of it's own bolter/llasgun/etc, but I think a trick would be only having OSL on some models and having others in the dark, as OSL on all of them would look strange. Unless it's something like Necrons who have their Gauss weapons, but then if EVERY model has OSL it might lose the "night" feel to it and end up just looking like a grey/blue themed colour scheme rather than an actual "night" theme.

Brother SRM wrote:Don't just paint things normally then wash them with a dark color. it will look like a muddy mess. You'll need to work with a completely different paint palette, focusing mostly on darker blues and greys. The note about OSL being important is right on though; it makes your army look like it's actually moving about in the dark instead of just wearing dark armor or whatever. Here's a classic Victoria Lamb diorama shot that illustrates much of what I'm talking about:

Damn auspex needs a dimmer switch...

I think this is what you're looking for:

http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1691-twilit-skeleton-guide

Wow i never thought to try and make an army look like they're moving in the night. I hope you pull it off well! Be sure to post pictures and update us.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/albinoork's_Exodite_army

This guy did a night-time looking eldar exodite army using a pallette of deep purples and whites for moonlight. Hope it helps.

Crystal-Maze wrote:http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/albinoork's_Exodite_army

This guy did a night-time looking eldar exodite army using a pallette of deep purples and whites for moonlight. Hope it helps.

Very cool.

Before I realized that Marine was a statue, I couldn't fathom why someone would make a diorama of a guardsman hiding under a Space Marines crotch while it battled a genestealer.

Lol hahaha that's hysterical!!!

wrong thread

OSL isn't too hard to achieve IF you have an airbrush. It takes work the get that golden daemon OSL, but glowing eyes, light source effects etc. Are pretty simple. Generally light color + thinner + matte medium then it's all eyeball.

I would find more difficulty in sculpting painting the explosions, etc. To do a diorama of a night battle than the actual OSL effect.