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I'm wondering what would be the best way to paint up some models to have lenses like one sees on modern military vehicles.

something like these.

If you use GW paints -

Hard work painting the individual colours. Going to be hard depending on how small the lens is.

I'll try the gemstone paints, but I feel the basic lense painting technique doesn't quite capture the weird colour shift that modern optics have.

Maybe a drop of colour under the gem paints could achieve that...

I tend to use a metallic blue. But I mainly just kind of like metallic blue

How big are your lenses? Because if they are quite small the chances are you may end up with something that looks odd or messy. Some things don't translate well to miniature form and artistic license is required.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
How big are your lenses? Because if they are quite small the chances are you may end up with something that looks odd or messy. Some things don't translate well to miniature form and artistic license is required.

I will admit, it's for my Tau and their lenses rarely get that large.

Have you looked at GSW candy inks?

I haven’t personally seen anyone create exact effect you have shown

I think your best bet would be to try some coloured metallic and mix them on the lens. This might give something close to the effect pictured.

I think someone had a product for using on scale aircraft HUDs which shifted colours depending on the angle you looked at it from. I think to get that effect you either need to use pearlescent paints (think chameleon colour shifting paint on cars) or a very thin layer so that different wavelengths of light reflect in different ways (which is what happens on the real lens, they're probably anti-reflective coated for a specific set of wavelengths).

EDIT: This guy uses clear plastic sheets he got off ebay that colour shift pink to green depending on the angle, go to 13:35, maybe you could coax it over a curved lens with some heat?

https://youtu.be/5-hXQ-BjhPU?t=815

EDIT 2: This is the sort of effect you can get with iridescent paint. I've not used it personally, so not sure how easy it is to use. Tamiya sell spray cans that are designed for polycarbonate models, not sure how they'd go on plastic models, maybe try building it up in many thin layers so it doesn't attack the plastic? Don't know.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FsxJwSDx4g

Vallejo also do iridescent paints, again I have never tried them so no idea how well they work...

https://www.metrohobbies.com.au/products/vallejo-77092-eccentric-colorshift-galaxy-dust-6-colour-set-acrylic-airbrush-paint?variant=31201948827733

Have a look at the Turbodork colour shifts

For my lenses I just use the Gemstone paints
I have a great picture of my terminators that look like their eyes are glowing

Some of the modellers who paint real world stuff mostly use clear paints. These can either be GW contrast or the true Clear paints.

I think the drone controlled sponsons here are the best ways to paint most lens that are round and large enough for paint on highlights, some curvy ones like the one you see on the Devilfish cockpit require different highlight areas.



I went with red lens here, but you can choose any equivalent color you want;
1) paint entire lens dark red
2) paint circular lower right quarter medium red
3) paint orange over the medium red areas but leave the edges medium red
4) paint light orange over orange areas but leave edges orange
5) paint circular watery darker red over most areas, leaving lower right showing through
6) paint white dot on top left area with your smallest detail brush and let dry
7) paint on brush on GW Gloss over entire area and let dry

 Big Mac wrote:

I went with red lens here, but you can choose any equivalent color you want;
1) paint entire lens dark red
2) paint circular lower right quarter medium red
3) paint orange over the medium red areas but leave the edges medium red
4) paint light orange over orange areas but leave edges orange
5) paint circular watery darker red over most areas, leaving lower right showing through
6) paint white dot on top left area with your smallest detail brush and let dry
7) paint on brush on GW Gloss over entire area and let dry

I do something very similar minus the gloss varnish step and it looks great.

The basic concept is that you have a point of light coming in at the top left (the white dot) and it's refracting diagonally through the whole gem. So the top left crescent of the gem (aside from the dot) is dark, the middle of the gem is a midtone, and the bottom right crescent of the gem is very bright, especially at the centre of the crescent.

I just painted all the eyes on an arachnarok spider using this method and he's so scary now I'm too intimidated to go back into my lounge.

You can use a blue/green color shift paint over black undercoat and then put a gloss clear coat over top.

3 steps including the black "primer" and you will get the actual colors in your source picture.

If you want you can use some grey paints to make the "brighter" areas and highlights. But I honestly don't think its needed.

The fastest way I found is to paint each lens with its base color.
Then, after your final varnish coat, just a little gloss varnish on all lenses does the job for me.

http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/chameleon-acrylic-paints/844-chameleon-borealis-green.html

Looks good on that car body, but how well will it work on a 3mm lens?

 Rybrook wrote:
Looks good on that car body, but how well will it work on a 3mm lens?

As long as the lens isn't flat, I'm guessing it would look pretty good, as it's more about the angle the light hits it rather than the amount of surface area. Might be interesting to see what an additional layer of gloss over that would look like, too.

 Mr Nobody wrote:
I'm wondering what would be the best way to paint up some models to have lenses like one sees on modern military vehicles.

Darren Latham's tutorial for painting gems and eye lenses might be useful, but that's more about creating glassy depth rather than interesting reflections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXELxU44uSY&t=994s

I’d be interested to see how well colour shift works on a small space, my attempts haven’t gone well but I’m no master painter like some of you peeps.

I have only really had success using an airbrush on object the size of an SM shoulder pad or bigger. But when they work they are mega.

Just make sure you paint it over black so that you get the most color to show through. The lighter the base the more the color bleeds through and the less color shift effect you see. Unfortunately no color shift paint looks anywhere near as good in picture as it does in person. So... yeah you are dealing with sub par examples on a forum.