I was recently messing around with contrast paints and experimenting with using them instead of washes to blend colours for lighting effects. I am by no means an expert painter, but it came out really well and some people asked how it was achieved. I took pictures throughout and will break it down for you here!
This effect is for the plasma coil, vents and the Powerfist energy field.
I’m calling it Sunfury because of the yellow brilliance it achieved with a white hot center. Its an older pattern of plasma weaponry from early editions and its how I imagine it would look on the verge of firing. I used the following colours, but honestly I was just pulling out all of my reds, oranges, and yellows and used them from darkest to brightest.
First I started doing the entire desired area to get any lighting at all with Contrast Doomfire Magenta. This helped create a paint boundary so I didn’t spread out to far if I got carried away. It also helped tint the cloth and armor in the event my dry brushing got to light.
I then generously dry brushed Base Khorne Red in the entire area, up to the boundary the contrast created. Anything red is your work space after all! Here on out is all dry brushing except where mentioned. I then did Base Mephiston Red, Layer Evil Sunz Scarlet, and Layer Wild Rider Red. The last two stepped up in brightness a lot, so I stayed a tad away from the original boundary as seen below.
Next I used Shade Fuegan Orange (I did not have an ideal contrast) to wash them together. I went a bit heavy with it to make it more contrast like and it did a pretty good job.
Stepping into Oranges, I dry brushed a bit lighter this time and only went about half way into the red area from the sources and only highlighted edges further than that. I would dab a tiny bit on my brush and then give it 5 quick swipes on a cloth to get it thinner. It took a few sets of dabbing and swiping to get started, but once the brush was saturated it went on very smooth! I started with Base Jokaero Orange, then went Layer Fire Dragon Bright, Layer Lugganath Orange, and then blended it with Contrast Iyanden Yellow.
Getting into Yellows I REALLY had to watch my paint amount on my brush. I did 10 swipes for each one until my brush got just enough on it to start putting a small amount on. I also only touched the immediate area around the glow sources and just a hint on hard edges beyond that. I started with Base Averland Sunset, Layer Phalanx Yellow, and ended with Layer Dorn Yellow. Now in this case, I did not have a white contrast that I felt was appropriate, so I left it be.
Lastly, I used Layer White Scar and got my brush soaking wet with water before touching it to the paint and then ONLY applying it in recesses of the plasma vents, the coils (which made it completely white as planned), and the groves of the fingers of the Powerfist. This at first went on too watery, which was an easy fix by drying my brush and just whisking it back up. You can’t go back from too heavy at this step, so I just did that process several times until it was perfect watery but white and applied it all. No white on edges this time.
Lastly, I needed to do the coils. I’ve seen some cool coil videos, but they apply to deeper recesses than what this model had, so I went simple. I started with the darkest shade of yellow, Base Averland Sunset, and very carefully dry brushed it on the tops of the coils. I tested on the cloth to be safe. Then on top of that I did the same with the darkest Orange, Base Jokaero Orange, and then Base Khorne Red. The following came out okay, but I really was just focusing on the glow effect with this idea.
What do you guys think? Does it look Sunfury to you?
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