Lighting effects on metallics?

[Deadite]

Hey guys, long time lurker, first time poster.
I have a project I was hoping someone could give me some ideas (maybe Victoria Lamb is reading.... :] )

My Necron army looks rather dull. It\'s all metals, working from tinbitz, through gold to finally boltgun metal and silver. Just to give them an ancient and dark look. They\'ve been around a while, so they\'re a little rusty ya know?
I didn\'t like the Lego Lightsabres look of those stupid clear rods, so I painted them. They\'re still green, but now they\'re more of a translucent green with electricity bolts coursing through them (tried to capture as much of the cover pic as possible).
I\'ve also added crystals to my bases with the same color scheme

Now I\'m at a point where I want those rods and crystals to \"glow\". I want them to give off a greenish aura of power. I want their light to reflect on anything possible. Common colors like blacks and such I can handle.

But how do I do this over metallic colors?

Should I just re-paint the area I want to \"glow\" with blacks and work my way through the green scale, adding some metallic paint to the mix whenever possible? Should I just ignore the fact that they are metallics?
How should I go about doing this?
???

Please help with any ideas you can provide.
Thanks.

 

[Chrispy]

Victoria did hers over NMM, but it can be used with metallic easily. Just water down the paint for the glowing effect and kind of \"wash\" it on the area of the metal. Continue doing this, using less water, until you\'re using the paint more or less straight at the area where the light would be reflected the most. It helps to think of the light source as a round or oval field that will be blocked because of shadows if something gets in the way (e.i: a light source on the left side of the face would not show on the right side because the profile would block it.)

Victoria has several miniatures up that are good examples, as well as an article chronicling this.. Hope this helps!

 

[Deadite]

Thanks for the reply!

I did read Victoria\'s article on lighting effects. But even she admitted to not being sure how to produce decent lighting effects on metallics.

Thanks for the info, I\'ll have to give it a go!