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Hey guys, just a quick question really. I'm about to start working on my Legion of the Damned marines and I was just wondering if anyone knew any techniques to make them look more ghost like whilst keeping with the theme that they're normally painted up as? As in I want to keep them black with bones and flames, but with kind of an ethereal element to them, if that makes any sense?
Cheers in advance guys.

You could use green with lots of white in it (something along the lines of dark turquoise,scaly green) to get a really pale look with a greenish tint to it. You can use this on both faces and skulls alike when painting Lotd.

i dont know how easy this would be to do:

I thought it would be great using very small amounts of OSL (perhaps a ghostly pale blue) as a glow coming from the major joins in the armor along with the eyes and any other holes (battle damage, holes punched into the breastplate from the confilct that "killed" the marine etc...)

I've always wanted to do it but i am shocking at OSL!

I've never tried OSL, I've always been to scared to try, I suppose I could give it a go, a bit on the joints doesn't sound TOO hard.
Saying that though, I do like the idea of greenish bones though. Maybe A greenish glow at the joints could work?

Sounds great - the green glow would look very supernatural/warpish!

Maybe a test model to make sure it doesn't clash too much and let you get the appropriate shade of green down.

You may just inspire me to give OSL a go again, post pictures of the results, I would like to seem them!

I'll finish up my veterans, then I'll give them a go, I'll end up putting the pictures on the blog. Wish me luck!

If you do a search on YouTube for "how to paint coven throne," you'll come across a video from BuyPainted. In this video, he uses an airbrush to paint the very large Spirit Horde portion of the throne - if you've never seen the model before, it's like a ghost chariot full of ghosts and pulled by ghosts. The whole thing is ghostly.

If you don't have an airbrush (which also makes OSL super easy, btw), then greens or blues increasingly highlighted to white works well. Look at videos on how to paint the Tomb Banshee and Cairn Wraith from the VC line.

A GW employee once suggested to me that I base white and then cover with a green or blue shade. I've tried it and it works... but doesn't look that great.

To be honest. I think it will be difficult to mix in black with a ghostly look.

cast the troops in clear resin and then put a small light in the base under neath

Its a lot of work, but it would look cool. Then you could glaze them certain colors as well.

...and of course it would be illegal to recast, buckero0. Way to get a thread locked...

I think the most important thing for pulling off this kind of effect is making sure the OSL hits the base, so it looks like the marine is glowing a bit (or at least diffusing light).

I found a picture online which I think demonstrates this somewhat:



Obviously you would probably want a more toned down effect than this, and maybe not as blue. but you can see here how important the base is. These guys sure do look spooky.

Wow, that's impressive.

 Tangent wrote:
Wow, that's impressive.

Or is it? It does look great, but it also doesn't look too complicated. I think most of what you see can be achieved with simple and quick drybrush and washing and airbrush techniques. I think there might also be a bit of Photoshop going on here too. If you look at the front guy's spear there is some weird artefacting where it intersects the other guys knee. The red on the purity seals also looks like weird. Like it has be overpainted on a computer...

But it doesn't really detract from my point... The OSL on the base really carries the look, without it I think they would just look like Blue Knights.

I do like the look of those Ghost Knights, that's kind of the look I had in mind when the idea first appeared, cheers Smacks.
I'll try a few test models with the different ideas, and then take it from there. Thanks guys.

I hear you on the airbrush, but I've never seen drybrush look that smooth. The hammer on the left looks drybrushed, though.

i dont really get it, you want to keep the black armor, the bones, and the flames but you want to add an extra element of ghostlyness? my only guess would be highlighting the black with turquoise, ice blue and white... but i dont think it will look good...