Painting OSL effect on jump packs (and other engines) in 7 steps

The first couple minis you use this technique on probably wont look like the pictures, i wont lie. but after you try it a few times, you'll get really close or better than the pics:


STEP 1
After painting the jump packs, base coat the engine area in black:


STEP 2
Next all the recesses were painted with Necron Abyss (GW foundation) leaving the rest of the reactor untouched. This is done by always painting three levels: top ring, middle ring and bottom of the reactor:


STEP 3
The result is almost unnoticeable but in the end will give you the blue shine needed to stand out from the black.
Now begins the highlighting of the reactor by brushing just the lines that define the several rings of the reactor, and the bottom of the reactor, with a mix of Regal Blue + Enchanted Blue, always leaving the darkest parts untouched:


STEP 4
Now we start to see results.
The highlights continue with Enchanted Blue, but now we start to decrease the area painted, leaving some of the previous color showing:


STEP 5
At this point, there's no need to be overcautious when painting, since this will make the effect more real.
In this step we use Enchanted Blue + Space Wolves Grey. Once again, your stroke is getting smaller:


STEP 6
Now we start painting with a little more detail. Using Space wolves Grey, the brush strokes were done in a kind of checkered pattern, the top level of the reactor paint was applied on the edges, the middle level the color was painted in a cross pattern, and a dot was made in the middle of the lower level:


STEP 7
Finally, the pop-up factor was achieved with Skull White, doing small dots on the edges of the top and middle level. On the bottom, dots were painted randomly to give the final look:


credit goes to the original author, Pandadosmares, on Chest of Colors.

NOTES:
i've tried switching out some of the colors to speed up the steps, and you can replace step 3/4 with just enchanted blue, for step 5, use ice blue, in step 6, do your whites followed by a thin wash of asurmen blue to blend the colors together, and then step 7 you touch up the white spots slightly, only covering half the area of the original white spots so the blue-washed white peaks out.

It's a cool effect and Panda knows his stuff but that's not even scratching the surface of OSL. That's how to paint the source but it's the play of how the light interacts with the surfaces it hits. How bright is the source vs. the range of the light and how do you gauge the two? How heavily to you reinforce the shadows and how do you meter it out vs. the source. It does my head in and it is not something that happens in 7 easy steps. Or 50.



That's a mini by Victoria Lamb. She's retarded good. That's what OSL is. In her mini I'm sure painting the actual flame from the weapon was relatively easy. It's all the rest that makes OSL very difficult to do.

So it's a good tute to get a neat effect on some engines, just don't figure it as OSL in 7 steps or less. You'll only be in for hearbreak!

oh i agree, its not a 'true' osl tutorial, its just something to get the dull standby glow effect in the jump packs, which will also be handy to all the necron players with destroyers who want to paint those vents on the sides. for actual 'light' and 'glow', you have to go beyond this and start plainting surrounding areas where the light would reach, and keep in mind areas the light doesn't reach, such as the opposite side of a ridge or finger, etc. but for anyone who isnt satisfied with just painting the bottoms of their jump packs black (especially black armored marines), this is a great 7 step method to start yourself off with.