Eldar Ice Blades.

  First of all, a lot of this technique was liberally "borrowed" from White Dwarf 361 p81. I decided to reproduce it here to show the movement across the blade of the sword, as that can often be the most difficult part to 'get' when making the shimmer look convincing. Please note that the colour from the pictures isn't 'true' colour due to my own fault. These pictures should instead by used as reference for colour movement.

Click on the pictures to get a larger image.

Step 1: Prime black and paint the blade with Hawk Turquoise

Step 2: Mix a tiny bit of Ice Blue in with the Hawk Turquoise. This mixture should be very subtle and barely noticeable. This is an excellent stage to experiment because it is at the stage when things can still be changed really easily. Make sure you are happy with how the colour is falling on the sword. Use this colour to fill in one edge of the blade along the tip and the base with a break in the middle. I used diagonal edges along the blade face. This colour should also be applied around any edge that forms a point, as they will be further highlighted later on.

Step 3: Change the mixture until it roughly a 50:50 mixture of Ice Blue and Hawk Turquoise and add this as a further highlight, allowing the pattern you made above show through on the edges. 

Step 4: This is basically a 'smaller' version of what you just did above. Repeat this process a few times, adding more Ice Blue to the mixture until you are at a pure shade of ice blue up to the edges.

Step 5: Paint Space Wolf Grey along all of the hard lines on the sword. Be sure that you do not connect your lines in the darker regions. At this point, a light wash of Hawk Turquoise would blend things a little better, likewise a GW wash could also be used, but I have chosen to leave it at this stage.

Well that is how I paint stuff like this. At the top of the page is an example of a singing spear done in the same style. Practice, practice, practice is the key o this one. At first your efforts will look ridiculous, but with more time, you will start to see just how the light should be falling on things and you will get the hang of the style. Like I said, I started much of this out of an excellent White Dwarf article. A lot of people talk smack about White Dwarf, but when push comes to shove, about every other issue has a very useful painting tip that I go on to use at some point in the future. Personally, it is a very important tool in my arsenal. 

An interesting note about this article is that 2 swords were actually painted for it, both of which I spilled super glue on moments after the last picture was taken. I guess I will now have to follow my own article as they both need to be repainted.