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I'm starting to conceptualize the aesthetics for a future Warhammer army project. The core will be Tomb Kings, which is strongly themed as ancient Egyptian style undead - skeletons, mummies, animated statuary and the like.

That said, there are also several units that involve elements that are spirit/ghost/wraith-like. Most of the models in this style are painted with ghostly ethereal effect in a color palette in the blue to green range (google image search Spirit Hosts, Hexwraiths, or Mortis Engine to see what I mean).

Because my army is a desert theme, I want to stay away from this part of the color palette mostly. I'd like to achieve an ethereal effect in the red/yellow/brown range, but I'm not really sure how to do this without just making it look like fire. I'd probably be OK painting it in a way that is reminiscent of fire but I'd like it to be distinct too -- it should look unearthly.

Any advice or guidelines on how I might do this? I'm hand painting, not airbrushing for what it's worth.

I think it is an interesting idea but I don't think you can really get away from the fiery look. That's ok though, it works for ghost rider.

I think the only way you could do it and not make it look too firey is to use an orange.

That said, I actually think blue would be the best colour to use as it would offer really nice contrast to the typical colours of a desert theme army.

You could opt for a combination of purple/hot pink shades to give the energy effect in overall colouring. Other ideas might be Yellow or Orange, as suggested earlier, or if you opted for a deeper Red shade, to avoid being too Bright overall, but with bright vermillion or crimson to make it a straight Red effect which would avoid the Fire look in all honesty.

Purple?

Generally with ethereal stuff you want to go pale with your colours. So if you just go with a nice vibrant red and blend it to yellow, it's going to look like fire. If instead you can fade out the colours using light greys and whites you'll get a ghostly look rather than an "on fire" look. You might want to focus the reds and oranges around the eyes to make them look deeper.

Alternatively instead of going for the pale ghostly look you could go for more of a dark ghost look, where most of the model is black but you fade up to a vibrant red on the raised surfaces. I think this COULD work, but it's a look people commonly use in wargaming just to make models pop more, so as gamers we've probably trained ourselves to not associate that "dark with glowing edges" look with "ghostly" but rather "over highlighted".

AllSeeingSkink
Generally with ethereal stuff you want to go pale with your colours. So if you just go with a nice vibrant red and blend it to yellow, it's going to look like fire. If instead you can fade out the colours using light greys and whites you'll get a ghostly look rather than an "on fire" look. You might want to focus the reds and oranges around the eyes to make them look deeper.

Coincidentally I have just been trying this kind of scheme out on some bloodletters. Might help you to hit apon something:

Instead of pale, you could try having their bodies emerging from black swirly ghostliness - but that too might make them look like they were exploding/burning, which is probably as bad as red for the same reasons :(

Another idea: make the swirly ghostliness the same colour as your bases, implying they're materialising out of dust? (But that probably wouldn't work if you already have dust-coloured skeletons.)

Definitely something to try on some test models first...

The reason teal and blue are used is that those colours are complementary and contrasting (cool/warm) to the yellow / bone and desert basing.

Makes for good contrast, and good photography.

If you really want to avoid the teal/blue, you could run with red/purple, or even a saturated yellow, compared to the bone.

Hmmm, i'd say pick yellow ad a colour, but rather than saturated make it very desaturated and faded, bringing it to white at its edges.

Would help you stay away from the firey thing with red or orange...

Either that or make them seem like dust spirits. Dirty bron rags at the bottom, again fading to white on the rest of the model.

 space/-_-/faced\-_-\mate wrote:

AllSeeingSkink
Generally with ethereal stuff you want to go pale with your colours. So if you just go with a nice vibrant red and blend it to yellow, it's going to look like fire. If instead you can fade out the colours using light greys and whites you'll get a ghostly look rather than an "on fire" look. You might want to focus the reds and oranges around the eyes to make them look deeper.

Coincidentally I have just been trying this kind of scheme out on some bloodletters. Might help you to hit apon something:

I can't offer any guidance to the OPs question, but had to comment on these letters. Lovely job

 Clang wrote:
Instead of pale, you could try having their bodies emerging from black swirly ghostliness - but that too might make them look like they were exploding/burning, which is probably as bad as red for the same reasons :(

Another idea: make the swirly ghostliness the same colour as your bases, implying they're materialising out of dust? (But that probably wouldn't work if you already have dust-coloured skeletons.)

Definitely something to try on some test models first...

I like this idea. Brown to beige to lighter beige to white. Shouldn't look like fire

Alternatively just use grey to white instead of blue to white. It won't contrast too much with anything else