Paint Recipe: How to Paint Nighthaunt

Welcome to the 20th post of my blog! This is something of an accomplishment for me actually sticking to this blog enough to get here, so I thought it was worth noting. Moving past the self-adulation, this post I have a paint recipe for Nighthaunts, that, while similar to the Nihilakh Oxide method many painters use, I vastly prefer for consistency reasons.

The finished model. 

 Onto the paint recipe then.

Nighthaunt can be very easy models to paint, and in my lack of creativity (or because I just like it) I have stuck more or less to the default scheme. Below are the paints that I use, more or less in the order of their use.

From left to right: Vellejo Airbrush grey primer, citadel Gauss Blaster Green, Lahmian Medium, Incubi Darkness, Army Painter Matt White, Citadel Brass Scorpion, Army Painter Gun Metal, and Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde

The color you prime your model is very important here. I went for Vallejo grey, which is a very pale almost white when sprayed on because it allows me to highlight with white. You can use white as the base but it can make getting crips highlights harder. You could brush this on, but that takes more time and is not as smooth, but I don't want a lack of an airbrush to be a barrier here. 

For those ghostly green areas, a 1:4 mix of Gauss Blaster Green and Lahmian medium does the trick. I see Nihilakh Oxide be used here all the time, but to me it tends to not go on as smoothly or have as good coverage. This was just one layer of my mixture with no touch ups required on my part. To finish it off, gently blend in layers of white at the bottom moving into the green. 

If you're intimidated by this technique, you can achieve a similar affect with dry brushing but remember that with white it may come out chalky. With this method, dry brush more extensively on those areas that you want to be white, while the region where the two colors meet may only require one or two passes. 

This angle better demonstrates the transition from white to ghostly green.

The corset is base coated in Incubi Darkness then highlighted with Gauss Blaster Green. Again, a dry brush is totally acceptable but you may have to touch up any of the flatter areas with Incubi Darkness again.

All that's left really is detail work now. The hair is a thinned gun metal over the ghostly green base from earlier. The dagger blade is the same gun metal just not thinned and the hilt on the dagger and threads on the corset get a touch of Brass Scorpion. Finally, the skull on the base still with the grey primer gets a coat of Skeleton Hoard. Now just base the model to match the rest of your army.

With this simple paint recipe as a foundation, you can try different techniques and add other colors to really make your models pop. As an example, these two Dreadblade Harrows use a bit more airbrushing to make blending easier and add a few more colors to add visual interest.

For the flaming tendrils I simply washed green tone over the grey primer base and once dry glazed with Lamentor Yellow. The leather I based in Army Painter Chaotic Red before edge highlighting with Dragon Red.

The white goes much further up the cloaks to really help contrast the ghosts from their mounts. Even though the top cloaks and the horses are based with Incubi Darkness, a wash of Nuln Oil on the ghosts' cloaks gives just enough difference to separate the two. Edge highlights of white on the ghostly green also help to break up that color and increase depth and details.

The skulls and ribs are the same as the skull from the Tomb Banshee's base, just Conrast Skeleton Hoard. This time I gave them ribs a white highlight to make them pop out more.

I tried two methods for the swords here: standard silver and a black blade. For the normal sword, gun metal with a green wash works well. The black sword is based with black, then drybrushed with gun metal and finished with a green wash.

Hope that this was helpful!