[Music] [Applause] hey everybody in this video we're going to be taking a look at something that's quite important when you're painting fantasy and science fiction armies but also something that's really fun as well and that is when you're painting characters to take a look at their melee weapons and do something a little bit different on the blades of those weapons to make them look magical or energized with some power inside them that sort of thing it's really fun to do and it's quite exciting as well because it really makes the characters pop out from the rest of your army and makes the force look amazing on the table top so in this video we're going to look at three different methods of doing these effects using swords and we picked out some miniatures from warhammer 40 000 for this from games workshop though it can be applied to anything you want to paint any sort of fantasy or any science fiction and also it doesn't have to be swords it can be spears axes blunt weapons like hammers it's really up to you but first of all we're going to take a look at a kind of molten metal effect on the blade then we're going to move on to a sort of shimmering effect and then finally we're going to go for a real energize with lightning cracking through the blade kind of thing it's going to be a lot of fun we're going to use some really cool bright colors we hope you enjoy it let's get to it [Music] [Applause] [Music] the first sword effect we're going to take a look at is to go for a hot kind of fiery glow from molten steel so if you imagine a movie where you see a blacksmith forging a sword and it's still glowing hot so almost yellow on the inside going to oranges and then really dark and all the corners almost like a really dark brown that's the kind of thing that we're going for here so ideal for any army where you want to have a fiery theme so fantastic for things like salamanders from 40k or fire slayers from age of sigma but of course because it's got that sort of fiery hellish vibe going on here is perfect for any sort of evil army so brilliant for the bad guys and to do it what we need to do is first of all set up a nice bright red to be the starting point for which we can start to work the fiery effects on for this i've picked out some evilson scarlet from citadel which is a really nice bright red and it's got great coverage and i'm going to be applying it over an undercoat of mechanical standard gray which is my standard sort of go-to undercoat and it worked well over most undercoats the one thing to be careful of is if you're doing this over the top of black and if you are i recommend putting down the foundation of a deep red first of all something like a fist and red or corn red doesn't really matter but a good starting point for this color but anyway what we need to do is apply it thinly and smoothly over the blade so to do that we need to set up on the palette first of all for this i'm just using a regiment brush from the army painter for this initial base coat because we don't need any accuracy or anything just a good large brush to get that even coat on it and we need to apply as smoothly as possible because we need to avoid any texture catching on the blade because that'll start to get picked up as we add further colors to the effect so make sure you think that paint down your palette as ever with a little bit of water just testing it to make sure it's nice and smooth and you can see i've got a nicely smooth down here so that's ideal and with that prepared then what we need to do is apply it straight over the blade now when painting it on go for these sort of sweeping motions going all the way across to keep it as smooth as possible so all the way up like that covering the entire thing then let it dry completely and it is translucent but don't worry about it just let it dry then apply a second thin coat in the exact same way but this motion is intended to minimize any texture appearing on it so it's nice and smooth for when we move on to the next stage [Music] with that base coat done we now have a power sword that looks like it's come out of the 90s from some of the old codexes but we're not going to stop here because now we're going to start to really build up that fiery effect by going through oranges and yellows and things like that and when you get to this stage the first thing that you need to do is decide whereabouts the heat source is going to be on your sword because it can vary quite a bit in this case what we've got is a power node on the blade so if we take a look you can see it's this little little kind of bump that we've got just around about there so i want to be the source of the heat to give the impression the hottest point is around there but if you're painting a fantasy blade with like runes and things on it you might want to have it sourced around the ruins so it's like some evil spirit inside it it's really up to you whatever you choose to do though what you now need to do is to move on to quite a strong bright orange so here i've got some troll slayer orange and also for this what you're going to need as well is a wet palette because it's going to make it so much easier to keep the paint pliable as we start to build up this effect and what i've got here is a size one brush from artist opus but a medium layer brush is about the same from citra tail the choice is yours what you go for here what we're looking to do is to thinly start applying this color onto the blade to slowly build it up now this means it will require a bit of patience you can't jump too far into this because it'll be a little bit too stark and a bit too rough so what you need to do is expect to have to apply quite a few coats here and to get that paint really thin now this paint's quite good for this sort of thing because it's fairly thin anyway but still you can see i'm adding quite a bit of water to it to bring it right down to this sort of point and if we just need to test it now what we need to do is just get a small amount of the brush and thinly apply it onto the palette and you can see that's the sort of strength it's got it's very translucent so that's ideal for what we're looking to build up on the blade because the more coats we apply this the stronger that color is going to get and by applying lots of those coats then we can control where we want the color to be stronger so with that prepared then what i'm going to do is start applying it onto the blade and as i mentioned i'm looking for the hottest point to be around here and for it to get cooler the further out we go so for this first color this means actually applying it's quite a lot of the sword so i'm just going to bring it thinly all the way across like that on that side and thinly on this side too now you can see this first coat doesn't make a big difference but it does dry pretty quickly so that's ideal for what i'm looking for here because i want that sort of smooth transition building up as we go along so what you do is just let that dry and you can see it dried pretty quickly so now i can go in for the next coat to start to apply it a little bit stronger on here and the more coats of this you apply the stronger you're going to see that orange is going to become so it's just a matter of once again thinly applying it on there and there we go it's drying pretty quickly so now we can go in for another one and focus a little bit more now as i'm doing each coat of this you see i'm just leaving the red still showing at the tip of the sword around there because that's going to be the coolest point as we go further away from that node so as i go on to the third coat now you can see the orange is starting to really pick up so there we go so what i'm going to do now is just carry on doing this building it up looking to focus the orange so by the time we get to around about here on the blade is going to be solid troll slayer orange [Music] so here we go i've applied around about six thin layers onto there and you can see the orange is built up nicely and if you look i've got that sort of gradient building it up because of that almost stepping method i've been doing and that the first coat was around about there all the way down to the very base the sword then the next one was a little bit further down and further down to the base and then the next one was a little bit further so this way we've got that gradient happening along there but as we've done this now what i want to do is just point out something that is going to happen throughout the course of this and that this is a natural kind of process as you're doing it it's very organic so you're going to have to adjust as you go along so often what you'll want to do is go back a stage to make a few adjustments and that's what i want to do now because i just want to re-establish a little bit of that red so this is the beauty of having the wet palette because you can have all these paints usable throughout this whole process it can just as you need to and you can mix if you want to as well and so what i'm going to do now is go back to that evoson scarlet and just do a little bit of that and i've still got my orange on the palette and in fact i'm just going to get a little bit more on there because i think i might need it because what i want to do is just mix these a little bit so i'm going to get a bit of the orange and a small amount of the red bear in mind this kind of red is a much more powerful color than the orange you see just how small amounts i put in there and just how strongly changed the color i want to go a little bit further towards the red to get a very very warm kind of fiery color just there like that and then what we do with this is kind of go back over areas that we've done with that glazing technique only this time what it will do is help filter the colors together a little bit and build that gradient so it's very easy to do by just again getting that paint to that thin point like that in fact just a tiny bit thinner there we go and then taking this back over where we started so in this case what i'm looking to do is just to ease the transition at the very tip of the sword you can see there's a slightly rough line on there and i just want to glaze over that so all you do is just paint this over that transition like that and you can see it just helps ease them together now we can also use this to control where we want to make the blade a little bit redder and in this case i'm looking to go for the kind of cutting edge because i want to keep the bit of redness on that part so it's just a matter of running down that edge very gently like that same on the other side and then also i'm just going to bring it a little bit down from the tip of the sword as well so just a short distance down to this part as the steel gets thicker and it's going to be just a little bit cooler now again you can play around with this as much as you like bring in a bit more red in if you want to but remember it's always about that patience just slowly building it up and bearing in mind you can always come back to do more of this later on if you want to [Music] and there we go i made those few adjustments and also strengthened the orange ever so slightly more as well and you can see i also introduced a little bit of red at the very base of the blade as well and so it's really just a matter of slowly building this up like that to get that gradient and just keep adjusting it as you go until you're happy with it and so what we're going to do now is take it further by moving more towards yellow and we want to go to a really bright yellow here so i've got some flash gets yellow but i still have translate orange on hand because as you can see there's quite a difference between these two colors so what i'm going to do is kind of mix them together and build up through that until i end up with just flash gets yellow on its own so what we'll do first is get this set up and you can see i've got the translator orange still there i'm just going to add just a tiny bit more to that and what i want to do is mix them together and you can see i'm creating the gradient on the palette here so we're going from the yellow all the way through to the red that we want and what we need to do is just adjust it to get to a kind of a very orangey yellow is what we're looking for here so i'm just going to bring a bit more of the trouser orange in so what i'm looking for is this sort of color here so i've got that prepared and then i also just want to mix a little bit of this because i think i'm going to be going into this fairly soon so now we've got a very kind of warm yellow going on there so there we are got a nice variety of tones so the application of this is largely following that same sort of technique as just thinly glazing it on only as we go further and further we want to be just a bit more controlled as to where exactly we're placing the color we can see i'm preparing that mix i've got there in the same way as i did earlier i'm just making sure it's really thin there on the palette so very translucent and that makes make sure too there's not much on the brush and this time when applying it as we're focusing more towards the node rather than painting it everywhere on the blade i'm looking to kind of paint it more towards the middle of it so i'm looking at painting this sort of area here and then on the other side this kind of area here going to around that node and letting it settle around it so sort of a bright color in the recess there that's because we want the blade to get cooler as we get to the cutting edge so once again if i start on this side i'm going to just thinly apply it into that area there and then thinly onto that part there now the exception to avoiding these kind of sharp points including that central ridge is as we get to the node what we need to do is have the impression that the heat from it is sort of overwhelming that slightly darker part that we've got in the middle so as we get to the middle we also want to bring it over that part there and down that side as well so you see it's going to become kind of much more orange in this sort of area around there so once again do another coat and you can see because i'm applying it so thinly it's drying very quickly but as i put the third coat on you can see the difference now really starting to happen it is getting warmer and warmer as i add further and further coats onto it so what i'll do now is bring a little bit of yellow into it so just a small amount there again on the palette just checking to make sure it's really thin so it doesn't become too much in one go so there we go and this then i'm going to start applying in this sort of area here so we get a slight hint of yellow going on there and on that side too and then just a little bit more in there and bring it in at that sort of point there so just down there and then again on that side so you can see this is nice controlled way of building it up but we also need to again bring it over that central part just there to build it up hotter and harder around there so now it's just a matter of basically just carrying on doing this slowly going more and more towards the yellow as you go until you get into a really strong yellow directly around the node [Music] i've finished building up to that yellow which you can see is solid just around the node and well i'm happy with that we've got a nice fiery effect going on there and just to finish it off make it a little bit hotter in the very middle now i'm going to introduce some white to it and here you need a pure white i've got some matte white from the army painter for this which you can see i've already got there on my palette and with this what i'm going to do is continue that gradient by first of all just mixing a little bit with the yellow to make it a very very pale yellow kind of color so we're looking at that sort of thing just there and this i'm just going to thin down as ever but i just want to introduce this around that and well on that node really just so it's the very hottest part of it so we're looking at this little part right in the middle just here so to very carefully apply this over that bit like that just very gently on there and then a little bit coming down that cable like that so just give the impression that this is the sort of the heat with that applied then i'm just going to go a little bit further to the pure white this time so now it's just matte white and this is just going to be just on the center of this part here [Music] now we've painted in the hottest part of the blade what we need to do is start setting up for the cooler parts and to do this we need to go towards brown so quite dark browns in the end but before we go there we need to sort of do it in between so it's going to be quite a reddish brown now for this what we're going to do is mix some rhinox hide with some evil sun scarlet and we can use that evil suns that we had earlier on just adding some random tide to it but for this because now we're going to more controlled areas and more finer detail i've switched to a smaller brush i have here a size zero from artistopus the equivalent from citadel is about a small layer brush so something like that really what you want is just something that's going to hold a good point to it so what we need to do is create the mix first of all by just bringing them together and you can see rhinox height is a very very strong color so bear that in mind as you're getting it ready what we're looking for is a brownish sort of red color so i'm just going to increase the amount of evil some scarlet in there and bring that into it and start going in between to mix up the color and we're looking for something kind of like this now as you apply it it doesn't have to be consistent you can change the tone a little bit as you go along but what we do need to do is make sure that we apply it gradually so it doesn't overwhelm too much in one go so once again i'm really going to thin that down to make sure it's diluted and under control so we can build it up by adding a few coats of it so bringing it right down to about that sort of point here now bear in mind if you just go straight from applying it like this it's going to be too much because there's too much load on the brush so use tissue to remove the excess so this way it's not going to run out of control and start going patchy or anything like that so with this what we need to do is start looking towards the parts of the blade that we want to be cooler which are generally going to be further away from the energy node so as we go around the edge what we want to do is kind of an edge highlight really but don't do it consistently just sort of dot it on like this so you see i'm being quite rough i'm using the side of the brush to get the edge but what i'm looking for is an imperfect finish really so it's a little bit rough you know a little bit good textured going along there we need to bring it all the way up to the very tip of the blade and then we need to bring down the center which is why we need this brush with a fine tip on it so once again what we want to do is start bringing it into this cooler area by just dotting it down the middle like that just allowing some little breaks in it just some little rough parts and going down to about this point where the heat starts to overtake the central ridge now that's that first coat on there and again we want to just bring it down this side as well so very gently just dotting it along letting it settle as it will and there we go so with that first coat applied what i'm going to do is just mix in a tiny bit more lineups hide into the mix and again make sure it's nice and thin on the palette and with this i'm just going to start repeating this process just being a little bit more delicate as i apply it so just gently dotting it on just running that same sort of process down like that so we get those little dark parts appearing all the way down same on that central ridge as well where we just want to bring it over and down this sort of area here now if you want to too you can start to introduce some little imperfections on the flat of the blade as well and to do this i'm just going to shift a little bit back towards the red for it but here what we're aiming to do is just adding a few little scratches onto things so for example just along here there's some little lines just introduced to give those little imperfections on the flat of that metal [Music] i've added that first batch of scratches and things on there and i've also cooled down the edges now and you can see the little variety of reds we've got on there is just because i was mixing the rhinox height and evil suns as i went along so every time i did another coat i changed color slightly and just do the same thing but now i've gone to rhinox hide on its own and this is for the very coldest parts of the blade so this is the same sort of technique only just a bit more delicately applied so that edge highlighting just to get the really dark parts to get a real strong a strong contrast there between the brightest parts and the darkest parts and i'm also gonna take it down the side of the blade too again just focusing on parts i've already got that darker color on and just pushing it a little bit further on those parts when it comes to scratches on the blade you can again if you want to just go over one or two of these just to make them have a little bit more contrast so for example this large one we've got here just adding a bit of the darker color to it same with this one just here we can see it's just a matter of taking your time with it and just being steady as possible which is where a brush like this really does help out now like any kind of weathering bear in mind when you're doing these scratches on the blade it is possible to get carried away with it because it looks really cool but when you're happy with it stop there because it's much harder to take these away than it is to add a few more [Music] i've finished dotting on that rhinox hide and there we go the molten steel sword is complete and so you can see doing this is really about first of all building up that gradient and doing this is quite an organic process where you will have to go back and forth between the colours just to adjust until you're happy and that's where having a wet palette really comes in here it's very important to have that help you play around with the colors until you are happy with it but then to really sell the effect it's about adding that colder brown on top of it so you give this sort of parts where it's a little bit cooler and when doing this remember it's like weathering so be careful not to go overboard just carefully dot the lines on just having that control just slowly building it up with the different tones on there before finishing off the dark brown but when you are happy with it stop there just so you don't go overboard because it's much harder to take that effect away than it is to add a little bit more [Music] [Applause] [Music] the second method we're going to take a look at is to create a more sort of shimmering effect on the blade so almost crystalline in a way and doing this you can really do it just about any color that you want but for our example what we're going to use is some shade greens which look particularly nice very sort of almost ever real and perfect for eldarians or elven things stuff like that but for this what we're going to do is start out liking the previous video by establishing a nice base coat then glazing on the top of it to build up the tone now for this kind of thing i personally like to go for a darker color as a starting point and gradually work my way up through light colors but some people prefer to start light and then work their way down the reason why i prefer starting with dark is because i find it's just a little bit more forgiving because when you're going from the light and working dark on top of it they can be very strong very quickly so doing the way around i'm doing here i just find it's easy to control but the choice really is yours and i do encourage you to try it out and see what you prefer but for this what i'm going to do is start out with a really deep jade green so what i've got some inky by darkness and what we want to do is just establish that really smooth base coat first of all so i've gone back to that regiment brush to apply this and what we're looking to do is just like with the previous method get that really smooth finish to it so this is all about making sure the paint's nicely thinned down and to go into this expecting a few thin coats but to apply the paint in that sort of sweeping motion to avoid brush marks appearing so once that paint is thinned down all you got to do is paint your blade and here we go this time we've got one from howling banshee what we're looking at is the blade along here so all i'm going to do is start at the base and just work my way up that smooth motion to get that even finish there like that then let it dry and apply a second thin coat in the exact same way [Music] i've built up that smooth coat of incubi darkness and so now we're going to move on to really building up the color and making it lighter and what we need to at this point decide where that's going to be on curved swords like this i find it's nice is to have the brighter colour kind of following the crest of the blade around about there which means we're going to be doing that side and on the back of the blade we're going to be doing the opposite so that means at the base on this side just here so what we need to do is step towards the lightest top colors that we're going to be using here and the first one i'm going to use is going to be some cover like green now for this what i'm going to do is start glazing it thinly onto the blade building it up with successive layers to make the color stronger more direct to where we want it by just doing more steps in those areas where they want the color to be stronger now it's quite forgiving doing this so don't worry about it becoming too strong or anything going wrong just can easily adjust if you want to which we'll show you as we go along but what we need to do is to set up for this and the trick to doing it is to be applying the coats as well as thinly as possible so that means really thin them down on your pallet and having the wet pallet really helps out here because we can keep the paint pliable for a long time and you can see what i'm doing is just gradually adding a bit more water into the mix and just testing on the palette and then what we're looking to do is to get it so that when we apply it it'll be really thin now at the moment the color is a little bit too strong for what i want so i'm just going to put just a bit more water in there and then we'll try that next to it so that's looking a little bit better it's a little bit weaker so i'm happy with that so the idea here then is to apply it as thin coat so just use a tissue to remove excess paint load up fresh and then the motion we're looking to do is to follow the crest of the blade up across there so i'm going to be starting around about this point down here so quite far to the base of the blade and then i'm just going to follow the cutting edge all the way up and then off across like that now that motion is important because if you stop and pull away you'll deposit more paint so what we need to do is to do that motion so that that doesn't really happen so on the back of the blade i'm going to be doing the opposite starting around here i'm having to go at this angle just because the helmet being in the way but we just want to follow it all the way down and again sort of swoosh away from it like that now if you apply it thinly enough you can see it dries very very quickly even though we can't see a great deal happening but that's okay because as we add more steps onto this we'll build up the color so once again i'm going to apply it on the cutting edge going all the way up to the end and then swooshing away like that and on the back you want to do the same thing on the opposite side so starting about there following it all the way down to the base and then away like that so what i'm going to do now is just carry on doing this back and forth just making sure each time it's dry before i do the next one just making sure the tip of it just gets dry and there we go that's enough so i expect this to take quite a few coats but you can see every time i do another coat the green just gets a little bit stronger so it's just a matter of having patience taking your time and building it up [Music] so i've applied lots of those glazing layers and you can see now built up the blade to have cobalt green effectively solidly up to this sort of point here and this point down here and by applying each of those coats successfully in that sort of step motion so each time just getting a little bit more focused towards the tip of the blade so first one there second one there third one there all the way up to the tip we've got that nice transition happening on either side however sometimes you might get too stuck a transition and i think on this bit here it's just a little bit too stark so what do you do in that case well it's very simple what you do is just take one step back to the previous color and just glaze that back over that transition so in this case that means returning to inky by darkness which i still have on the palette and with this i'm just going to glaze it back over so it's just a matter of reactivating some of that paint just making sure it's that really thin consistency that we want so whenever glazing you know just testing on the palette to make sure it's translucent like that and then it's getting a small amount and just applying it directly over that transition so remember the sweeping motion this time i'm going to be going back that way so i want to start around about here and just take it over like that and we need to do is this two or three times and that will be fixed right up [Music] and with that we've now built up our first transition of the green and so what we need to do is just take it further so now it's time to step to an even lighter green in this case it's going to be cyber right green and apply that in the same sort of way glazing it on successfully building it up with those steps that are going to be getting smaller and smaller to make the color brighter towards the tip of the blade and the base of it on the black so we need to set up just like we were doing with cabela's green earlier so a little bit of cyber right green on the palette and then remember thinning it down so it's really really smooth and well really thin as well so we get that glazing effect so we can just build it up now remember this is going to be quite organic so really it's uh depends on how thinly you apply this it will determine how many coats you need to do but you just need to keep on going at it building it up and remember if it does become too much or you get too sudden a transition you can always step back to the previous color to glaze over it to ease it back together but you just need to prepare your paint by getting it like that make sure there's not loads on there and then you just got to start applying those thin coats so in this case i'm starting on the cutting edge and remember the motion is that sweeping motion so now we're going to be starting around about here as we get to cover that green solidly and just going all the way up to the tip of the blade and then going beyond it now remember that is really important if you stop there what you'll get is a big blob of paint appearing on the end of the blade and so that sweep is important to just carry it on to get the smooth transition on the back of the blade same is true again just angle so you can access it easily look for where it's cobalt green solidly and begin the process at that stage so we're looking at there back to the tip of the blade a little bit further up this time so about there and then once again all the way up to the tip and then same on the other side and just keep on going until you get solid cyber bright green appearing around about this sort of area and around about that kind of area there [Music] and here we have the sword of that cybrite green built up but at the moment it's not quite bright enough for what we want here so i'm going to go one step lighter now with some more glazing this time using some gauss blaster green and the application is going to be just the same but now we're just focusing those stages further and further towards the top and the base of the blade so what we need to do is set it up just like before adding plenty of that water into there make it nice and thin and like before what i'm just going to do here is just thin it down and keep testing on the palette and you can see now it's really jumped up for those darker colors so it's quite bright now but as long as we apply it thinly it'll get a nice gradual gradient going to the lighter color so once you've got that thinned and ready we're going to do is start focusing towards the tip of the blade and again each step just needs to be slightly smaller than the previous one just going higher and higher so in this case we're looking at around about here going up to the tip remember that sort of sweeping motion then down here we want to go about this distance down to the base so there like that just building it up until we've got that full bright color at the very tip and very base of the blade [Music] and there we go we've got the gauss blaster green on the blade as well and so now we can move on to the next phase of painting it which is no longer going to be glazing but instead some edge highlighting now to give that sharp finish to it and for this we're going to start out by using some gauze blaster green again but then after that we need to push a bit further on some parts so here we need a pure white i'm going to use some matte white from the army paint for this finally what we need to do is a little bit of black for some fine lining around the base the blade and depending on the blade that will vary as to what parts you do here but for this what you need is a pitch black so here i'm going to use some matte black also from the army painter but first of all what we need is that gauze plaster green and to apply this switch to a finer brush now so i've actually changed to that size 0 from artistopus but really any sort of smaller finer brush that holds a good point we'll do here so a small layer from citadel for example anything you're comfortable with and with it what we need to do is set ourselves up as if we're going to be edge highlighting so thin that paint down just testing on the palette not as thin as we had it before but still make sure it's flowing easily from your brush and remember you can always test it on the palette see how well it's coming from there that's not quite thin enough just yet so i'll just add a touch more water to that that's feeling much better now i'm getting there we go better flow from the brush as i tested on the palette there so with this first of all what we need to do is an edge highlight going around the outside of the blade all the way around so approach it with the side of your brush and just very gently skim along following it all the way down so you get this really bright color going all the way down to the base now notice the motion i'm doing here is again that similar sweeping motion and it's to ensure a smooth line going all the way down now it probably will be a little bit translucent so all you do is apply one coat let it dry and then do a second coat in the same way this includes on the reverse as well so again just make sure it's nice and comfortable in your hands just turn the model as you need to and go all the way around the other side so there we go let's do that second coat on the front of the blade just to make it a little bit stronger so again do the side of the brush and just skim your way all the way down that blade to get that highlight there like that now with this done we then got what is probably the trickiest part about painting this kind of effect which is to paint that highlight that goes down the middle of the blade now when doing this mistakes might happen but don't worry about it first of all it's just a matter of making sure you're nice and steady and then very gently just following it all the way down those smooth motions to get that smooth highlight down that central ridge now if you do make a mistake all you need to do is go back to the relevant color of the part you've gone over and just apply it on that small area as long as you're painting this highlight on in this controlled manner it becomes very easy to fix up because any mistakes will be very small you can see it's just a matter of following it all the way down to the base of the blade [Music] i'm happy with that edge highlight but before we move on to the next color what i want to do is just add a few lines on here to give the impression of light shimmering within the blade and to do this i'm still using gauze blaster green and i've thinned it out just a little bit more and what i'm looking to do is just a few little lines almost pointing up towards the tip of the blade going from the middle so very gently in areas like that just to give that little impression of light refracting on the inside of the sword [Music] next up we need some matte white and this is first of all an edge highlight focused on the parts that we glaze with gauze blaster greens that means towards the tip of the sword so very gently on here and then on the reverse too remember just turn the model to make sure you're comfortable as you're doing this kind of thing so you're nice and steady as you apply that color same as well on the back down here it went a little bit lighter and then what we need to do is just add some dots of this where we get these little refractions of light on the center of the blade just little dots where it meets the middle so we're looking at areas such as just here and just here [Music] and then finally what we need is some thin down matte black and with this what we're just going to do is just redefine the darkest area where the saw blade meets the hilt so in that case it's going to be just in here just running it into that deepest recess just key it out now in this case you can see it's pretty simple but on other swords it can be more complex like if there's runes or anything like that just use this color there just to help give them a little bit of definition [Music] and there we go with that the shimmering crystalline blade is complete and as you've seen doing this is really once again about steadily building up those glazes to get that transition of the color to a nice gradient from dark to light really smoothly and remember you can always go back to previous colors to adjust it should you need to now this kind of technique you really can play around with it you can really do any color you want and if you're anything like me you'll like to start from dark and go to light because you like that control you can get though some people do prefer to go from light to dark and you can get some really popping colors in doing that so i do recommend you try it out you can also play around with the colors too and try and go from one color to another so for example a really deep purple to a really light blue so what i recommend you do is just have fun with it and see what you can come up with [Music] [Applause] [Music] the third and final method we're going to take a look at is to do a sword where energy is crackling through the blade almost like lightning and this is going to be great for anything that you want to have a magical feel so warrior wizards for example or anything with a lightning feel going on there but also it's great for heroic troops because it looks really heroic so fantastic for space marines which is what i'm going to be doing for my example just here and this can once again be done in any color that you want by just following along the same steps but in this case we're going to go for a bluish kind of colour and what we need to do is start out with a nice deep dark colour once again and in this case i'm going to use some staggered on scale unscaled greens it's got a hint of green in it don't be full by the name though it is going to look blue by the time that we're finished with this so what we need to do is start out with that base coat and once again we're just looking for that really smooth finish the entirety of the blade so i've gone back to my regiment brush for this and it's just a matter of just getting it thinned down as ever with a little bit of water so it's really smooth and then thinly applying it onto the blade of those multiple thin coats to ensure it's really smooth for what i'm gonna do on top so it's gonna bring the paint right down to about this sort of point here and then it's just a matter of applying it to the sword and those smooth sweeping motions so we just want to make sure we apply it all the way up like this with once again two or three coats [Music] with that base coat built up we're now going to move on to start to edge highlight it straight away and we want to go very bright here but to do it the first thing that we need to do is set up the initial highlight which is going to be thousand suns blue so not vastly different from what we've got here already but what we're going to do with this is a fairly broad edge highlight so as we get to lighter colors and narrow them we're going to start to get a real sharp effect as we get close to the edge of the blade so we need that thousand sun's blue and to apply it i've switched now to my size zero brush from artists opus but for this if you want to go citadel you're looking at a small layer brush anything with a good point note really and what we want to do is as ever get the paint thin down for edge highlighting so we're looking for that smooth flow from the brush the thickness of the paint doesn't matter so much here for the actual you know for obscuring really what we can always do is apply a few coats to really build it up but just make sure it's flowing really well so you get a smooth application onto the miniature so this is looking pretty good so what we need to do is start out with the outside edge and for this kind of thing i'll go in with the side of the brush to begin with to get that initial line that we want to go all the way around the outside so all the way along there but we do want this highlight to be a little bit broader than we normally do so to do that kind of thing what i'm actually going to do rather than going at about 45 degrees is just bring the brush a little bit flatter like this so this way it's making large contact and we can bring that line a little bit further into the blade now when we get to that central ridge what we need to do is that line running down the middle so in this case it's going to be a case of just following it straight down and for this again we just want a slightly broader highlight than we normally would do for an edge highlight so just allow the color to go a little bit on either side to get that fairly thick line going down the middle [Music] and there we are that fairly broad highlight's been applied but what we need to do is take it much further now going right up to white so here we're going to start out with some arrowman blue as another edge highlight then some batteroff blue and then finally some matte white to finish it off but first of all what we need is aeroman blue and for this edge highlight we're going to be retracing our steps only this time we need to make the line narrower so just more selective really start making it lighter towards the very edge of the blade and the very center of it too so we just need to get that paint set up once again for edge highlighting just testing it until you're happy and once you are happy then what we're looking to do is to start out again on the outside edge of the blade now remember on the previous step i was fairly flattering the blade to get that sort of thicker highlight on the edge in this case i'm turning more towards that 45 degrees so that as i apply it the line is thinner and you can see now i'm getting that gradient going from darker in the middle getting lighter the further out we go when you get to that central ridge it's a matter of painting that line down the middle once again but this time just making that line thinner and in the middle so very gently down here [Music] next up we need some bahar of blue once again edge highlighted on and this time we want an even finer line so approach it in this kind of skimming motion just lightly working your way down so we get that nice fine line going all the way down there and then also we want to get that central line once again as neatly as possible do the finest line you can down the very middle [Music] and then finally you're ready for a pure white so here i'm using some matte white from the army painter and with this once again we need to edge highlight it but not all the way this time instead what we're going to do is just concentrate towards the end of the sword so we're looking at this kind of area around here just steadily building it up with one or two coats just to make it brighter at the very tip and also if the sword has any kind of features going down that stand out such as these little spikes you also want to get these two to make them appear a little bit sharper so just a bit towards the end of those there now when it comes to that central ridge this time we don't want to go all the way down instead again just focus it towards the end of the sword so we're looking at this sort of area around here with once again one or two thin coats then also for the power node i just want to make that brighter as well the brightest point just needs to be in the very middle of this area here [Music] and with that we then finish the edge highlighting and to be honest with you you could just leave the blade here if you want to but what we're going to do is take it further by adding that sort of lightning effect to give the energy running through the middle of it and this is once again going to be one of those things where really you have to make a call on where you want the source of the energy to be in this case it's going to be that power node on the blade but if you're doing something fantasy with runes on you might want to do it from them or the hills of the sword the choice really is yours once you have decided to what to do for this and where it started out what you need to do is return to thousand suns blue only this time when the glazer on the area where the power is coming from and this is just sort of setting up a slightly lighter color in that area so as we move on to the lightning we've got something to build from so we just need that thousand sun's blue but this time as i mentioned what we're going to do is glaze it on so it's just a matter of really thinning it down on your palette so good amount of water it's mixed in there and then really importantly make sure you apply it thinly in those thin coats to build the colour up so what we need to do then is just get it down to about the correct point so just a touch more water i think and this is looking pretty good and then it's just a matter of making sure there's only a small amount in the brush i'm happy with that so we can start applying it and we're looking at this area then around the node so what i want to do is apply it onto this kind of area here very thinly so that nice thin coat around that part just letting it dry and if it's applied thinly enough it'll dry very quickly and you can see it's dry now so i could start moving into the next coat and i'm just going to build it up until i get a soft thousand suns blue surrounding that area [Music] i've built up that glaze with a thousand tons blue and you can see it's giving now a subtle glow around the node but we need to push it a little bit further before we go into the lightning so now we need to do the same thing using some aroman blue so once again glazed on but focusing it now more closer to where the energy source is going to be but applying it's going to be just the same as what we were doing so once again just getting it really thin on your palette just really adding that water to it and checking to make sure it's really smooth and then really importantly make sure you're only applying a small amount at once so this is going to be again just a case of focusing it around that central node so just being a little bit tighter around it this sort of area just around here and as is the case with this glazing and all these kind of techniques we've been doing just build it up until you're happy and if it does end up jumping too much in one small area you can always go back to the previous color just to glaze back and even it out before you move on to the next stage [Music] we've now finished building up that glow around the node so we can move on to the next stage which is to add the lightning on top and for this we're still going to use some aroman blue to get started with and what we're looking to do here is use this as the initial layout for the lightning with some fairly broad highlights speaking in comparison to how sharpie's going to be but then over the top of that we're going to add some lighter colors to really focus it so we get that gradient much like we did with the edge highlighting so what we need to do is to set up for essentially free handling and so this is a lot like getting ready for edge highlighting we're looking for that similar consistency where it flows well from the brush but we want to overload the brush that runs out of control so on your palette it's all about just making sure you thin it down to this sort of point here just testing it to make sure it's flowing well and you can always test on the palette just see how it runs from your brush that's pretty good so i'm happy with that now for this definitely make sure you go for the finest brush you have access to because you want a really fine tip here so i'm again still using that size zero from our sopas this cereal equivalent would be a small layer brush but anything that holds a really good point will do for this what we want to do is start painting these little sharp straight lines which are going to be more concentrated around the energy node so around the source of the lightning what we want to do is start adding these little lines on which of course we won't see very strongly against it because that's what we're using for the glazing here but as we get further away from it we're going to start seeing that blue appearing as we draw out from it more and more so it's just a matter of just adding these little lines on adjusting as you need to now the first coat is going to be a little bit translucent but don't worry about that because this means it's nice and easy to fix using staggered on scale green should you need to so once you've painted it on and you're happy with it just go over a second time just to make the color a little bit stronger before you move on to the next stage [Music] once you're happy with those lines of lightning the next thing to do is to make them brighter and so what we now need to do is return to some bahroth blue and then matte white once again to really make them pop and we're starting out with bataroth blue which i'm applying using the same brush same kind of technique but what we need to do is just make the lines finer than what we had in the previous stage and we are going to be largely tracing over what we had previously it's just to kind of make it a little bit brighter and because we had that fairly broad highlight originally what this is going to do is just give that nice sort of graduation of color making it brighter to get further towards the middle of each piece of the lighting so just to make sure your paint's thin for that free handling so approach it as if you're going to be edge highlighting with a kind of consistency and when you're happy with it and you've got that fine tip on the brush we just need to start looking for those lines and going over them so really brace your hands here as steady as possible and just take your time here just looking for them and just tracing along now you don't have to go over every single line but you do want to go over most of them just to get a brighter line just in the middle of each one just taking your time doing two coats if you need to just to build up the color and make it nice and bright and remember as you get further down towards the energy source just make the lines a little bit more intense so it appears that the effect is stronger around about this area [Music] once you're happy with the bright color you're then ready to move on to your pure white so here i'm using matte white and with this for the further out parts away from the node what we're looking to do is just little dots this color wherever these lines intersect so these little brighter points just very gently dotting it on taking your time being as steady as possible to build up those little specks of color now as you get further down towards the node what we need to do is just make this more intense so as you get to these little sort of intersections just bring it out a little bit into the surrounding area so you get more of kind of little stars really just so it goes a little bit whiter as you go around this area now it's just a matter then i've just taken your time and building it up and if you want to adjust anything you certainly can do by just going back to the colors underneath this effect and just essentially using it to move parts out or add a few more if you need to but it's just a matter of just having that patience and taking your time just building up these little bits of white [Music] and with that the energy effect on the sword is now complete and so as you've seen with this one whilst it used quite a few colors to just build up a blue blade it does make a difference having all those steady highlights getting brighter and brighter and even though the line four is very narrow it has a lot of depth makes the color much more rich and so it's ideal for this kind of thing where you're trying to keep the effect of something within the blade happening when it comes to painting in that lightning this is really a matter where having a good quality brush does make a difference so what you want is a really nice one that holds a very fine tip and if you can get one of those you'll find paint that lighting is so much easier than it would be otherwise and there you go three fantastic methods of painting blades on the weapons of your miniatures and even though we use swords for the example there you can very easily port this over to paint any kind of bladed weapon you might want to do be it axes spears or anything else but also you can take these techniques and apply it to blunt weapons too like hammers and malls just follow the same principles looking for highlighting again on those corners from the same techniques that we'll be using in this video now key thing about this is to make sure that when you apply the paint to those blades you keep it as smooth and as thin as possible to ensure you get that smooth finish you don't get any texture on there because these weapons need to like they're polished and nice and clean and very well maintained so you need that smoothness for it this means this does take a bit of patience because often when you're applying those thin coats it'll look like nothing's happening we've got to stick with it and slowly build it up and that way you'll get that smooth finish so have fun painting those blades and we'll see you all again very soon [Music] you