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So, the Warhammer Meltagun's barrel is the focus of this. If I want my barrel to look like it's hot as hell and the heat comes from inside, I can assume that the little holes in the sides of it's barrels will have a brighter glow inside since they are closer to the center, right? Now should I also have the gun exit be very hot too or not? would the whole barrel be equally hot or would it's start (closer to the rest of the gun) be brighter since it had the heat pass there first? I want to paint the thing like the heat is making the metal shine, kinda like a lava blade or melting iron/. Either way, here's what I got so far and what I now want to go for. How to get that nice muted orange/brown?

Any advice and help appreciated much!

So for the melta you want a very concentrated glow in the holes themselves, because the outer sheath is like a heat shield, like you see on the exhausts of trucks. Personally I wouldn't have the glow of the tube super bright. I would keep it a bright orange, rather than white light. If you look at overheating cannon barrels, once they turn white they're about half a second away from melting or popping. I've attached a photo of some glowing barrels I've done. You can see how the orange contrasts quite nicely with the very dark elements of the barrels, and that even with a not particularly bright orange, you can get a nice effect even with the heat sheath over the top (see the autocannon sheath)

Then for the sheath I would keep it dark. You could maybe do a heat bloom effect on it to add a little interest.


I think youve gone too white on the end of those. You could have a super bright glow inside the barrel itself as if it was mid firing, but I would keep the pure white very concentrated in a very small point inside that barrel.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
So for the melta you want a very concentrated glow in the holes themselves, because the outer sheath is like a heat shield, like you see on the exhausts of trucks. Personally I wouldn't have the glow of the tube super bright. I would keep it a bright orange, rather than white light. If you look at overheating cannon barrels, once they turn white they're about half a second away from melting or popping. I've attached a photo of some glowing barrels I've done. You can see how the orange contrasts quite nicely with the very dark elements of the barrels, and that even with a not particularly bright orange, you can get a nice effect even with the heat sheath over the top (see the autocannon sheath)

Then for the sheath I would keep it dark. You could maybe do a heat bloom effect on it to add a little interest.


I think youve gone too white on the end of those. You could have a super bright glow inside the barrel itself as if it was mid firing, but I would keep the pure white very concentrated in a very small point inside that barrel.

Thank you so much!

Ssaltman wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
So for the melta you want a very concentrated glow in the holes themselves, because the outer sheath is like a heat shield, like you see on the exhausts of trucks. Personally I wouldn't have the glow of the tube super bright. I would keep it a bright orange, rather than white light. If you look at overheating cannon barrels, once they turn white they're about half a second away from melting or popping. I've attached a photo of some glowing barrels I've done. You can see how the orange contrasts quite nicely with the very dark elements of the barrels, and that even with a not particularly bright orange, you can get a nice effect even with the heat sheath over the top (see the autocannon sheath)

Then for the sheath I would keep it dark. You could maybe do a heat bloom effect on it to add a little interest.


I think youve gone too white on the end of those. You could have a super bright glow inside the barrel itself as if it was mid firing, but I would keep the pure white very concentrated in a very small point inside that barrel.

I have managed to improve it to the point I'm really happy with how it looks! Here's the results so you can see it too!

Nice work man, looks way better already!