How To: Paint Dark Angels Tactical Squad (Plasma)
Hello and welcome to another post on my continuous series about how to paint a Dark Angels Tactical Squad. You can find the rest of the posts in the drop down menu above.
This week I am looking at how to paint the coils of plasma weapons. A popular method is to use OSL (object source lighting), which essentially means giving a glow to the coils which reflects off the surrounded areas of the model. The best way to achieve this is to use an airbrush, but that’s not available for a lot of people.
I decided to go with a glowing plasma coil, and you can paint some of the highlight colour onto the edges of the surrounding model if you want that reflective look. I decided to keep it to the coil itself.
The first colour I used was Citadel Temple Guard Blue as a basecoat, over the whole of the coil. This is best done in two coats:
Next, to get the glowing effect, I used Citadel Soulstone Blue. This is one of their gemstone paints that has a glossy clear effect to it. Over the Temple Guard Blue it looks great and shines nicely. Try not to apply too much as that will dull the effect down:
The next stage is to go back over the Soultstone Blue with Temple Guard Blue. However, this time just go over the raised parts of the coils themselves, leaving the glow in the recesses. You may find it easier to use the edge of your brush, or even dry brush this stage. If not, very carefully, with a good point on your brush, follow each line. I started with the top and then added the sides:
The final stage is a highlight of Citadel Blue Horror. Follow the same advice for the previous stage, but this time just paint it on the very top and slightly over the edges of the coils to give it a highlight:
That’s it for this very simple method to paint plasma coils. You can of course change the colours (there are gemstone paints in both green and red from Citadel that you can use), depending on what contrast you want to your army colours.
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