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I have never had an army before that generally used a power-weapon aesthetic, and i decided to buy into necrons with the new shinies coming out and their lack of presence in my area.
The 2 super tall lanky walkers basically made me think Protoss Colossus, so i went with that scheme. I like the base, armor, under-armor, and blue effects but one thing i really, really hate...is my "psionic weapons"




i've repainted these blades several times and i simply cannot get the "Powersword" effect since i dont have an airbrush and despite watching several how-to videos for paintbrushes i cant seem to apply it to the wonky shape of necron weapons.

So, i need another idea. Something that makes you think its an energy weapon rather than just a blue-colored blade, which is kinda what i have right now lol. Anybody have any tips/examples?
edit: before anyone asks, the bases are just printed basetoppers i designed in tinkercad in like 30m. 3D printing ftw lol

Before you give up, try painting a sharp white highlight along the main edges? Like, all of the sharp edges and a little way down the obtuse ones?

I think you're really close to a serviceable power weapon effect.

Here are a few of mine if it helps:







I've found that a white line along the blade that gets progressively thinner generally looks pretty good. Depending on how crazy you want to get, a little lightning on the blade can add to the effect.

While it doesn’t give the NMM look, Contrast over a metallic looks sweet.

i may just try the contrast idea, maybe with an extreme edge-brightening too.
If i can get a quick way to make it look like its not the exact same thing the lights/cables are painted as i'd rather go with that since theres gonna be a lot of this type of effect lol.
Contrasts arent in my palette atm but fortunately my game store is on the way home from work lol

It creates a fun and easy effect. I painted some Stealth Suits with Gryph-Hound Orange over Chain Mail (silver) and it looks awesome.

For some reason the lighting in my lightbox kinda kills the look a little but in person this looks vaaaaaaaastly better.



Extremely white silver base with ultramarine contrast on top with Scalepaint's "Cobalt Blue" as the edges.

Thanks guys

Glad you liked it! I’ve been playing with lots of different contrast colours over metals.

My great grandmother had some... I want to call it “burnt copper” artwork and a gold basecoat with cygor brown just completely reminded me of that. You can get a lot of neat effects by combining metallic bases with contrast.

It’s great for necrons, as you can add colours to them while maintaining the metallic look.