Originally posted in the Imperial Assault forum , but that forum doesn't get any activity these days... Legion has slightly different models in a slightly different scale, but really not that different, so hopefully your advice will still be helpful for me.

I've started to paint my models but I'm struggling with lightsabers. I'm not sure how to paint them so that they don't just look like the character is waving around a painted cardboard tube.

I've wondered about using clear/coloured plastic cocktail sticks, or just finding a better technique to paint them.

(I have seen examples where people used LEDs to light up their models, they looked amazing but that's going to be far more work than I'd want to do).

Do you guys have any tips for / good examples of painting or converting lightsabers so that they look good?

I tend to go for the gradient approach. Its pretty simple and I think looks quite effective.

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Start with a white blade and very gradually start adding the colour to your mix. So a tiny amount at start (leaving a gap of white) and adding more, working towards end of blade.

Once I hit that pure colour (i.e. the colour has saturated the white) I start ending a small bit of darker colour to end on the tip.

I work from hilt to tip, working in rings round it, letting the brush marks fall as they do (this helps the transition blend a bit, rather than just straight lines (see bottom image for what I mean).

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My best advice it to practice it on a needle, wire or even cocktail stick sprayed white. I did this before Dooku's saber for instance, as I used a small amount of fluorescent orange and wanted to test the outcome before hitting the model.

(EDIT:) A wet palette helps massively. A drop of white . drop of the colour and then make an area to mix on the palette that you can keep adding to). I keep some white seperate, just in case i add a touch too much colour at any stage).

Oh my, those are quite lovely. Love Dooku's especially.

I have a friend that claims good results with silver + some kind of glaze. Silver goes under, then glaze on top with whatever color you want the saber to be. I saw one of them and it did look pretty, but I haven't gotten around to trying it myself just yet.

That's interesting, sounds like one of the specialist paints you can get, like colour shift or something. I wonder what kind. I've been using Contrast paints over white and not impressed at all - for lightsabers that is - Contrast is fantastic for the rest of the model, but doesn't look right as a lightsaber and blotches too easily when painted over a large smooth area like that.

I would recommend fluorescent paint in addition to @54NCH32 's technique. Vallejo and Scale75 make some really good ones.

12 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

I would recommend fluorescent paint in addition to @54NCH32 's technique. Vallejo and Scale75 make some really good ones.

Yeah, I used Vallejo Fluoro Orange on Dooku's, worked really well. I used a pure Fluoro Green mix on my grevious which also worked great.

I've not used my blue and yellow flouro, as I felt the tones weren't quite right. The blue is a shame, as its looks far too dark.

27 minutes ago, 54NCH32 said:

Yeah, I used Vallejo Fluoro Orange on Dooku's, worked really well. I used a pure Fluoro Green mix on my grevious which also worked great.

I've not used my blue and yellow flouro, as I felt the tones weren't quite right. The blue is a shame, as its looks far too dark.

Try Vallejo Model Color Andrea Blue and Deep Sky Blue. They are highly pigmented, striking blues.

I can confirm the fluo paints help making the lightsabers pop.

On mine I paint them a solid color with absurdly over-the-top OSL (the two below just do not follow the laws of physics See inverse square law for light fall off.)

Subtler lightsabers seemed to me like they got lost in daylight or under crappy lighting in gaming clubs.

Then I paint a thin strip of white on two opposite sides.

The thin strip of white is an interesting idea, as that's really what it looks like in the movies if you actually look at it. But doesn't it depend very heavily on the angle you look at the model from? If you look at the model from the "wrong" direction, doesn't it look like a candy cane or something? That's why I've not done it before. I sort-of see this from your Darth Vader, from the front / "golden angle" it looks great, but in the photo from the back, half of it is red and the other half is white and it's not so convincing. Hard to tell from a photo what it would look like in the "flesh", is this something you've found to be a problem?

I love what you've done with OSL. I won't be attempting it on mine because I'm very much going for a "fast but effective" approach, not display quality, due to the sheer number of models I need to paint. But that looks great (yes, even if it disobeys the laws of physics!).

I think I've got some fluorescent yellow paint somewhere, but not other colours. I'll either have to buy some or use normal paints.

2 hours ago, Bitterman said:

The thin strip of white is an interesting idea, as that's really what it looks like in the movies if you actually look at it. But doesn't it depend very heavily on the angle you look at the model from? If you look at the model from the "wrong" direction, doesn't it look like a candy cane or something? That's why I've not done it before. I sort-of see this from your Darth Vader, from the front / "golden angle" it looks great, but in the photo from the back, half of it is red and the other half is white and it's not so convincing. Hard to tell from a photo what it would look like in the "flesh", is this something you've found to be a problem?

I love what you've done with OSL. I won't be attempting it on mine because I'm very much going for a "fast but effective" approach, not display quality, due to the sheer number of models I need to paint. But that looks great (yes, even if it disobeys the laws of physics!).

I think I've got some fluorescent yellow paint somewhere, but not other colours. I'll either have to buy some or use normal paints.

It's painted plastic - of course it looks like candy cane painted white and red! But it being in a miniatures game with a ton of moving pieces not to mention terrain, you just don't notice. Blending the red and the white parts in a bit helps overcome that candy cane effect.

Note on the OSL - it doesn't have to take a lot of time. Grab something with a small LED and put the saber user next to it, then snap a few pictures. Paint your OSL where the LED light lands. Even if the blending isn't great just placing the effect as unpolished as it might be in the right spots makes it look much better.