Hobby Tip - Night Lords' Lightning Effect

 I haven't had time to do much in the way of hobby stuff lately, but I've been wanting to try painting this for weeks now and I'm curious what you all think:

Here's how I painted the Night Lords lightning effect:

• First I painted a thinned color for an overall appearance of "electrical haze" or "glow." I used GW Enchanted Blue thinned down to a 1:4 paint/thinner consistency and applied this with a 2/0 brush so as it have a "backdrop" color to paint everything else on. I didn't want this to look solid (hence the translucent paint) but I did want it to serve as an overall "outline" for the two subsequent colors.
• Secondly I went back with thinned Electric Blue (in a 1:4 paint/thinner ratio again) - it's an old, old color so a good substitute would be 1:1 Enchanted Blue/Ice Blue, I dare say. With this step I used a fine (#0000) point brush and more or less stippled a random, crackling line within the previous haze color. I intentionally kept it patchy and wavy while still trying to follow a more or less continuous arcing path - the next and last color I would say is the most important, as it's the "heart" of the electrical effect.
• Lastly, I applied fine stippling with thinned GW Ice Blue (1:4 paint/thinner ratio again) and just tried to make it look like crackling electricity - I didn't necessarily keep to the exact center of the previous two colors laid down, but I didn't stray outside of them. I made a few passes with just tiny dots of the brush, until I got to the point where it looked like a fine (if fuzzy) line with a few patchy gaps here and there. Done!

A Little Night Lords Freehand

 It's been a busy past month or so, what with colds, computer troubles, and a lot of other distractions. I had some free time the other day, though, and decided to do a little freehand on the inducted Night Lords Chaos Marine for my warband:

 I wasn't really happy with the finished result at first, since I'm always noticing areas where I could touch things up or improve on mistakes. Barring a little tidying up of the teeth so things are a hair more centered, though, I think my first stab at freehand in a long while came out reasonably well.

 The base color for the skull was P3 'Jack Bone and I added in some Vallejo Model Air Burnt Umber for shading around the edges, since I already had some on my palette from work on a historical 54mm Mexican War figure I'm taking a stab at. I went back and did extra shading and glazing with GW's Badab Black Wash, which I think makes an excellent color for tidying up once you wick away most of the liquid. Not really visible here is the left side of the Mk. VI Space Marine helmet, where I had to get a little creative with the bone color of the helmet since it intersected a number of vertical vents modeled on the helm.

 I'm curious what people think of the overall look, between the now-painted skull and the decayed bat wings on the helmet that I took from a Grave Guard figure out of GW's Fantasy line - does he look sufficiently "Night Lords"-ish, barring missing shoulderpads and backpack, and the eventual obligatory painted lightning?


[Edit] I tidied up the freehand a bit, especially in the lower part of the skull design, because I just wasn't happy with the overall centering of it on the helmet. From feedback of it looking three-dimensional on the figure (I'm sure most of that was the angled front view, but still...) I figgered I'd run with that a little bit more, so I increased the contrast by adding extra highlights where they would naturally fall on a sculpted skull and deepening the false shading a bit moreso.

 Here is a picture from a different angle to show off the design more as it sits on the helmet, and with hopefully a little bit less glare from my photo box lighting reflecting off the currently glossy finish of the paint:

 The feedback (and views) are definitely appreciated - it's nice to know people are getting something out of my little corner of the internet here. [/Edit]