Lightsaber painting techniques

[Derrault 1,091]

Based on the many upcoming characters with Lightsabers, I’m looking for any acrylic painting techniques that have been used to achieve a satisfying lightsaber effect.

So far my ideas are:

1) Prime white, desaturate the lightsaber color by adding white to whatever it is, then paint uniformly across the blade.

2) Prime white, dilute the color with water to create thin translucent layers, so that the white shows through, deepening the color near the hilt and tip in gradation from the center so that it appears near white in the middle, to no white by the ends (applied uniformly, so that the appearance is the same regardless of viewing angle)

3) Prime white, apply saber color, then provide white highlights along side of blade. (Downside, not a uniform appearance regardless of viewing angle).

Any other suggestions for process or examples of results?

[Fourtytwo 1,525]

Lightsaber blades are difficult to do with paints, but you can achieve some good results. In the movies and Shows, lightsaber blades are all pure incandescent white (except for the Darksaber), and the lightsaber's colour is a coloured 'aura' of light surrounding the blade. You cannot paint that, at least not in a way to make it look satisfying from various angles.

I opted for a technique which gives my lightsabers a bright, saturated look with some modulation in colour and brightness from the hilt to the tip of the blade. I always prime my lightsabers pure white and apply the different shades of brightness of the colour in transparent layers, blending them from very transparent at the base, where they are almost white, to a medium-low transparency towards the tip. That way, you retain maximum saturization in the colour across the blade.  Every time you mix your blade colour with white to make it brighter, you desaturize the colour - something you want to avoid for an element that you want to look like it emits light. Also, you don't want to make the coloured blade too dark, or else it won't look like it's glowing.

Here are some examples from my Imperial Assault-figures I painted:

In the case of Ahsoka'a blades, I made them pure white.

 

[devin.pike.1989 1,546]

Your Ahsoka is Ah-mazing!

[TheHoosh 373]

I just lit mine up instead of painting it because I am horrible at painting that type of effect

[Qualitypunk 156]

For my Vader I mixed a bright red with metallic gold to paint the blade then put a gloss finish over it. The blade reflects the light a little bit. I don't paint with a light source in mind as light sources change when moving miniatures around.

[Pascal B 25]

On 7/30/2019 at 5:30 PM, Derrault said:

3) Prime white, apply saber color, then provide white highlights along side of blade. (Downside, not a uniform appearance regardless of viewing angle).

That;s exactly what I did, except I tried to make it a drybrushing of Auric Gold on top of the red blade (Mephiston red, I think?) so that it has a pseudo-random gold reflection no matter what angle you look at it. It didn't quite turn out the way I wanted, but that's what I was after (and I'm in no mood to re-try it).