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As the title says. Sometime in 2024 I will have time to finish my vintage Eldar collection and colour shifting paints would look good on advanced alien tech. Also what shifting colour would suit the Ulthwe craftworld best?

I recommend TurboDork as the #1 color shift (and tinted metallic) brand.

For Ulthwe, assuming you're trying to stick to their official scheme, I would substitute the wraithbone areas for Turbodorks Mother Lode, as its the only actually light/white-ish color shift thats really out there (as far as I am aware, anyway). The black areas are a bit harder and really comes down to your interpretation of it or what you want to prioritize.

If its important to you that it actually read as primarily being black, but you don't mind it shifting towards green, go with Dark Net.

If you prefer a shift towards purple instead of green Galaxia might be a good choice, but it doesn't necessarily read as dark/black as dark net does.

If you want to lean into the blue-tones of Ulthwe's accent coloration, Sky Rat might be a good choice.

If you don't mind stepping away from the concept of black entirely but still want it to read dark, you can maybe substitue in Cyberia or Wavelength , both of which bring in the blue tones but skew towards purple instead of black for the darker undertones.

Cyberia looked great on the Orko sample mini.

Are there painting steps to avoid when using these colour schemes? One thing is obviously to make sure you use the correct basecoat but are there more? Will the effect of the colour be diminished when using varnish in the end? Do you use as usual two thin coats (no pun intended) upon a basecoat and call it a day? Should you avoid building up on a shifting colour with a shade?

I don't have a ton of experience with color shift paints myself so I would not be a good resource for most of those questions. My advice is to follow turbodorks recommendations as to the base coat colors (some of these paints are meant to go over black, others over white, etc. The effect of going over the wrong color can be drastic and result in something very different from what you intended, ie a blue paint comes out white, etc). You will also probably want a vortex mixer to ensure the paint gets shaken/mixed probably as my experience is that it tends to settle and separate. I recommend you apply it using an airbrush in thin layers to get a solid smooth coat without obscuring details, too thick of a coat actually ruins the color shift. 6ou will probably want 2-3 coays on there, the more coats the more intense the color (hypothetically too many coats may diminish the shift effect so maybe dont overdo it). Likewise, brush line or spots where you put the paint in too thick can ruin the result, as these areas will shift differently from the areas surrounding them, which draws more attention to it as well as breaking up the minis shape in a way that becomes more confusing to the eye. A gloss varnish is recommended as it will stay truest to the original appearance. I've heard some say that matte varnishes dulls the colorshift, haven't tried it myself.

I've only used Turbodork ones before. I'd concur that you should follow their instructions about basecoats; if it says use glossy black, then use glossy black etc.

For me though, they are way to 'glittery'. The metallic particles are very noticeable, and while the colour shift effect is good, they aren't smooth enough for my tastes. YMMV though.

i've used greenstuff world and turbodork color shifting paints.

From the ones I have used, the turbodork ones see to have more of an effect. The effect for both is less than what I expected.

If you apply them onto colors other than glossy black you will get a different color many times, and sometimes there will be no color shifting effect at all.

I haven't worked with the TurboDork paints, but I have recently (for my Necrons) purchased a variety of colors from 3 different manufacturers: Green Stuff World Colorshift, Vallejo Shifters, and Scale Modeler's Supply Color Shift.

All were applied over gloss black, as was recommended. All were also applied with an airbrush (as someone noted earlier, they have a tendency to mess with the shifting when the thickness of application varies - you want a very even coat). All were applied with 3 passes/coats: 2 quick base coats, and a third slightly heavier coat. Airbrushes used were two double action models - one Iwata Eclipse HP-CS 0.35mm and the other a Harder & Steenbeck Infinity 0.2mm. Edit: also, all were mixed very well with a vortex mixer.

Overall, I would say the easiest to work with were the Vallejo colors. They provided the easiest, fastest results and the "grain" of the paint didn't make the surface look glittery, although you could look closely with magnifiers and see some. The paint didn't need thinning whatsoever when pushed through either airbrush, and cleanup was easy. I'm using at least two colors for different units. The downside of these is that they aren't reliably sold individually - you buy them in a pack of 5 or 6, so if you want multiple bottles of a single color you're either going to need to get lucky and find singles for sale, or you'll have to buy multiple sets and have some extra (which is likely what happens when you find solo bottles for sale). There was some overlap in color palettes.. technically they are different, but they are close enough that unless they are side-by-side you won't really notice any difference.

Green Stuff World's offering disappointed me, but I really can't say I messed around with them much to get it right. They went on very glittery with noticeable grain. It was more like a glitter paint than a color shift. It also was more of a bugger to push through the Harder & Steenbeck, but that doesn't surprise me and you might not need such a fine needle for your application (I don't for mine, I was just testing). I also didn't see a huge shift factor, and perhaps I don't have them over the correct base-coat. You can buy them easily and individually.
But the glitter factor wasnt what I was looking for, so in the end I moved on to the next manufacturer.

I was the most impressed with the SMS (Scale Modeler's Supply) Color Shift paints. First word of warning is that they are enamels, not acrylics like the previous two. This means your cleanup and stuff is going to be more involved than the others. But with that pain in the rear comes a wonderful result. They are smooooth, I can't see any grain even with magnifiers. They also have a richness and depth of color I didn't get with the other two. I particularly like the Color Shift Extreme Eclipse, it looks very black until you see a curve where it gets deep red and goes to a red/orange at the extreme edge. It's actually rather subtle, although I have a friend who says it looks very red to him with very little black. I really want all the colors, and want to find reasons to use them (currently thinking power weapons on my marines). Coverage was a dream. The downside is that depending on where you're at, they might be difficult to come by. I couldn't find them here in the USA, I had to order them from Australia. I also didn't feel the "Lava" color really did a good job, it looked like a rich bright gold (I was hoping for more yellow to orange). But the wait was worth it.

Just remember that "highlighting" really isn't a thing with chameleon/color-shift paints. You might be able to do a gloss black base, then do some edge highlighting with gloss grey or gloss white and see how that turns out, but many of these paints require a gloss black basecoat and as another poster said, over-coverage can kill the chameleon effect, as can going on top of light-colored base coats. I might do a test model at some point when I have the bug, just to see what happens if I do extreme highlights with gloss black/white before putting on the chameleon, I just don't think its going to work like one would wish.

I hope this helps.

I’ve only used green stuff world but had good results. Build up thin layers over a gloss black primer (which they do) with an airbrush. Not tried with a hairy brush.

I've used GSW and Turbo Dorks colour shift paints for my Dark Eldar army. With 3 separate colour schemes relating to the crystals on their bases. Wych Cults are red to green, Kabal is blue to red, Covens are green to blue. Bloody marvelous final product after I used the Necron green wash to flood the crevices of vehicle surfaces and guns. Highly recommend. In all cases I mixed more then 1 paint. I found, for instance, using 2 types of red to green paints helped get a more interesting finish. I'm an air brush noob but I found that you almost can't put too many light coats on, my case 25+. Also Laser Face is awesome.

Here’s an old WIP photo as an example of blending GSW colour shifts. I think the thing with these types of paint is to experiment.