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hello everyone, I was just wondering if anyone knew of any good tutorials of how to acheive this greenish ghostly effect:

thanks in advance guys.

Wow, that's a pretty bad example of 'ghostly effect' imo.
But if you like it then paint a model green and drybrush it badly with white.
Ensure to leave mold lines on the model for the effect you are after.

hang on, I hae another example, a very better one.

Much better!
Undercoat black, white drybrush or a light spray of white, wash with thrakka green or equivalent then a final light drybrush of white.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Much better!
Undercoat black, white drybrush or a light spray of white, wash with thrakka green or equivalent then a final light drybrush of white.

Just did an entire army in this effect. Had much better results with:

Prime white
Coat in Nihilack Oxide
Wash in Coelia Green Wash
Dry Brush with entherium blue (or close grey)

knocked out 71 Dwarves in a single night with this process.

thanks guys i knew i was making it more complicated than it had to be.

Nihilack Oxide is a GREATTTT way to get this effect. When you coat it over white it still acts as a wash but you get that pastel-green you're looking for. I put it in my airbrush. Like I said, knocked out 71 miniatures in 4 hours. Super easy and quick process with perfect results. I keep looking over my hordes of dwarves because they look so awesome all packed together rising from their tombs

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Much better!
Undercoat black, white drybrush or a light spray of white, wash with thrakka green or equivalent then a final light drybrush of white.

I think a black undercoat is unnecessarily fighting yourself. Start with a white undercoat, do a couple of layers of green wash (or maybe just 1, I dunno until I've tried it ). For the green wash you could use that Nihilakh Oxide, I've never used that colour myself, but it looks to fit the bill, make sure it's thin enough that it acts like a wash. If you then want them to pop a bit more, highlight with white. I'd stay away from drybrushing unless it's a miniature with a ton of detail (drybrushing works better on surfaces with a lot of texture rather than big flat surfaces or flowing robes, etc).

Before doing the wash you could also try spraying the model with a gloss varnish, this will force the wash in to the crevices more and leave the raised surfaces cleaner. I recommend applying the undercoat by spray as well to make sure that you have a nice smooth coat free of brush strokes for your wash to go over.

Les has done a cool Mortis Engine vid. There's a bit starting around 7:07 where he uses steel wool to create a smokey effect, and in general there's a method for creating ethereal glowie green ghouls in there:

thanks guys. Surprisingly this is actually for an eldar army I'm starting. All guardians and aspect warriors ae going to be ghosts, and much of the army will be wraith constructs, with a single spiritseer being the only actual living thing in the army.

I love the idea of it being eldar, although the wraiths seem strange. I mean they are constructs with ghosts inside of them, not actual full on ghosts.

oh whoops, the wraiths will be painted differently. that is, like a gemstone statue.

Sounds fantastic. Good luck!

I've seen a good one done this way.

1) Black basecoat.
2) Drybrush entire model with a very dark grey (Paine's grey or P3 Coal Black) heavily.
3) Drybrush the entire model with a dark grey (a 50/50 mix of the previous color and Shadow/Codex Grey), starting heavy on the top and lightening as you go down the model. The bottom sixth should be very light.
4) Repeat 3 with pure Shadow/Codex Grey, but with a quicker fade. You should stop before reaching that bottom sixth, with the last sixth being very light.
5) Repeat with Fortress Grey, again with a quicker fade - just under the halfway point should be very light, stopping at the bottom third.
6) Drybrush the top half with Space Wolves Grey, last sixth should be very light.
7) Drybrush the top third with an off-white or eggshell.
8) Very gentle drybrush with white, concentrating on the top sixth.
9) Wash with Tharka Green. Multiple coats may be needed.

This creates a definite 'fade' between the upper part of the model and the bottom, for a good ghostly effect.

I haven't tried it, but this might work as well.

1. Spray model with black spray, be quite thorough, make sure the crevices and all are black.

2. Spray model white, this time focus on the upper portion of the model and only spray downward in quick passes. You should end up with more white on the raised surfaces than the crevices.

3. I'd probably spray with a satin or gloss varnish at this point.**

4. Wash with Nihilakh Oxide.

I reckon that could turn out good.

I'm really not a huge fan of drybrushing as it makes the model look dusty, where as I think what you're going for is more of an ethereal look. Also drybrushing in a way that doesn't look streaky is actually surprisingly time consuming. If you do want to drybrush, I'd go drybrush -> wash -> drybrush -> wash until you are satisfied, as the washes help blend together the drybrushing (you'll be applying the wash lightly, more as a filter than a wash).


**The reason I'd spray with a varnish before washing is that I know from experience sometimes when you put a wash over a sprayed undercoat, sometimes it soaks in to the basecoat on the raised areas rather than in to the crevices like you'd expect. The varnish gives a smoother and harder surface to make sure the wash goes where you want it to go.

you need an airbrush. for my coven throne ghostly horses, i primered grey, then mixed that sort of ghostly lime green colour, sprayed the undersides, lightened it with yellows and white, then did the topsides making a nice blend from light to darker shade. then airbrush white onto the tips of the flames, and other small areas to bring it out. you really need an airbrush to achieve the nice blends to make this effective though.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
you need an airbrush. for my coven throne ghostly horses, i primered grey, then mixed that sort of ghostly lime green colour, sprayed the undersides, lightened it with yellows and white, then did the topsides making a nice blend from light to darker shade. then airbrush white onto the tips of the flames, and other small areas to bring it out. you really need an airbrush to achieve the nice blends to make this effective though.

You certainly don't NEED an airbrush, but it does make things easier. Actually, since the whole "End Times" thing I decided to google painting tutorials and found GW had done one for spirit hosts (on Nagash) jsut recently. Done entirely with a hairy brush and I think it looks pretty damned good, I'd struggle to paint something better even if I did use my airbrush. It's very hard to control an airbrush to do some of that really fine highlighting and shading like you can with a hairy brush.




Though this is a very time consuming way to paint them IMO, I can't argue with the resuits.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
you need an airbrush.

Nope. No thank you.

Im too much of a perfectionist. I can make decent brush blends but i only use them on things that are supppsed to look rough.. Drybrushing is a no no for me on things like this.. It looks garbage compared to airbrushed highlights. Ive seen the new GW undead creatures and in all honesty i thought the paintjobs in the WD were sub par.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Im too much of a perfectionist. I can make decent brush blends but i only use them on things that are supppsed to look rough.. Drybrushing is a no no for me on things like this.. It looks garbage compared to airbrushed highlights. Ive seen the new GW undead creatures and in all honesty i thought the paintjobs in the WD were sub par.

Ok...

Firstly, I'm looking at your gallery and thinking those in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, I'm not seeing stuff painted better than GW has done. (not that I'm a pro painter either, but I do think the tutorial GW put together is a good one for a new painter to learn some good techniques to create good looking models).

Secondly, the video I linked doesn't show drybrushing... I agree drybrushing is a situational blending technique and I mentioned earlier I would stay away from it when I want something to look ethereal. The video uses glazes to blend, you can create very smooth blends with glazing that are much more controllable than airbrushing. One thing you can't do with an airbrush, at least not easily, is blend to a point, which is quite often something you want to do.

http://blog.brushthralls.com/?page_id=4157


Thirdly, while I agree that an airbrush is an awesome tool and I have one I've been using for almost a year now, getting one isn't going to magically make you paint better than someone who knows what they're doing with a hairy brush.

I'm not saying don't buy an airbrush if you can afford to buy an airbrush, I'm just saying you can do some awesome things without one as well, you hardly NEED one for this type of painting if you know what you're doing, and if you're currently a mediocre painter you're probably better off mastering some more simple hairy brush techniques first (which, frankly, even if you have an airbrush, you will be using hairy brush techniques at times when an airbrush simply can't achieve what you want).

Sorry, rant over

Is it just me? To me the first two pics look like Bronze with heavy Verdigris on it..
Personally if I am doing the "incorporeal look" I tend to use more greys and blues..

But in all fairness I will be trying out a few different techniques..

1. I wasnt talking about your video.
2. I wasnt claiming to be better than GW, but i expected a higher standard.
3. I'm not a mediocre painter, and can do things just aswell with a regular brush, as i have been most of my life.