Red glow is something I’ve always struggled to paint (it has a way of turning out pink or orange) but it seemed the ideal colour to contrast against the dark green I’d used on the Inner Circle Companions’ robes.

Start off with a black blade. I used Colour Forge black primer and a layer of GW Abaddon Black mixed with GW Khorne Red (about 75% black, 25% red)

Next is building up lots of thin layers of GW Khorne Red. The two brightest points will be the script and the tip so these layers cover most of the blade, leaving the base colour from 1/4 the way down the blade to 1/3 the way down the blade. Notice the colour is stronger as it works away from the (almost) black.

After the Khorne red, I just kept building up layers of red, but this time moving to GW Mephiston Red. It’s the same process as before, just focusing more layers closer to the brightest points.

Same again for GW Evil Sunz Scarlet.

Then GW Wild Rider Red, focusing just over the script itself and the tip. I followed this with a very watery coat of GW Wild Rider Red mixed with Vallejo Dead White and painted it directly into the recesses of the script. No need to be accurate here – the watery paint just spreads through the recesses and does all the hard work.

Then it’s all about edge highlighting the blade. I went with a wider layer of GW Evil Sunz Scarlet followed by a thinner layer of GW Wild Rider Red.

Since glow effects work mostly in context, and we don’t actually look at our models super-magnified to many times their actual size, here’s what the finished product looks like with the rest of the model. It’s perhaps a touch more pink than I’d like at the brightest point, but this went better than I’d expected.

I’m always interested in other ways to do this sort of thing. Feel free to drop me a question/comment or direct me to any examples where the red glow has worked.

In the meantime, keep experimenting, keep improving!

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