Painting Power Weapons

So, continuing with the theme of trying out new techniques with this army I did some work before tackling the Terminator Sergeant's power weapon. 

In the past my Imperial Guard power weapons have involved nothing more complicated than a coat of Enchanted Blue, hardly something I wanted to desecrate the Deathwing by doing - these are the Emperor's finest and deserve a good lick of paint and some effort!

After doing a number of searches on the Internet and scouring my codexs for simple power weapons techniques (as usual not having a clue where to start myself!) I stumbled across this blog entry at The Painting Corps. While it links to a number of helpful articles I really liked the method Grey_Death used and decided to give it ago myself. I also managed to find the collection that Grey_Death found the technique in, which funnily enough also contains some well painted Deathwing. Its well worth a look and can be seen here. 

So anyway, here was the challenge, to try and recreate this:

So, settling on a purifying blue scheme I assembled my colours:

 

Using the fine new Captain model from the Assault on Black Reach as a test model I managed to churn out this: 

Not bad for a first attempt I thought! Oh, and be looking out for this model on the blog in the future, I have great plans for parts of it...

So now, on to the Terminator Sergeant. Using the same technique as before I produced this:

To be honest the Terminator's sword is a bit sloppier than that of the test model, but I still think it's turned out well enough. It is a really nice contrast to the rest of the colours in the unit - making the power weapon stand out as it should! I've just realised I haven't taken a picture of the reverse side, but its largely the same. 

See below for the paints used and a rough idea of the method. Any comments or criticisms? 

Step 1: Base coat of Necron Abyss.

Step 2: Mix 50% Necron Abyss & 50% Regal Blue - Trying to blend the colours into the base coat, start from about 20% up the length of the sword and paint to the tip. 

Step 3: Regal Blue - Start further up the sword and again try to blend into the previous layer. With so many coats of paint try to keep them thin, or the tip of the sword may resemble a club!

Step 4: Mix 50% Regal Blue & 50% Enchanted Blue - You guessed it, as above just further up the sword.

Step 5: Enchanted Blue Layer.

Step 6: Mix 75% Enchanted Blue & 25% Ice Blue - Keep to the real edges of the blade for this layer.

Step 7: Paint an thin line of Enchanted Blue right the way down the middle of the sword from tip to base. Go over the top part of that line with Ice Blue, allowing it to fade as you reach the deeper parts of the sword. 

Step 8: Use the same technique to produce the 'offshoots' of energy. Use darker mixes of blue the nearer the base you are (e.g. lots of Ice Blue near the tip, hardly any at the bottom). If you want you can do a thin banding of blue on either side of an 'offshoot' - keeping it darker than the offshoot but lighter than the surrounding sword, this creates a nice effect.

Step 9: Highlight the very edges and tip of the sword with a mix of Ice Blue and Skull White.

Step 10: Hunt the Fallen...