Cover image copyright Games Workshop (please don’t sue me).

As everyone on the LPP Discord knows, my co-writer and best bud Armando sent me a few Nighthaunt Glaivewraiths a couple weeks ago, so here’s a couple ways you can do the standard GW ghostly paint scheme for Nighthaunts. This features the Hexwraith Flame and Nighthaunt Gloom technical paints, but my way is a bit more advanced than the standard Citadel guide of simply applying them over white.

Note: A quick bit on the Nighthaunt Gloom and Hexwraith Flame paints here, since they’re what the whole current Nighthaunt colour scheme is based off.

Even though it’s called a technical paint because of its glowing ghostly effect, Hexwraith Flame is actually just a Shade paint (wash), so you should treat it as such when applying it. You can use it straight out of the pot or thin it with a drop of Lahmian Medium so it doesn’t stain the flat surfaces too much, but be warned that if you thin it too much (even as far as 60 Hexwraith/40 Medium), it will lose the green ghostly glowing effect and just look like a green wash. I learnt this the hard way. But because we’ll be highlighting it in this guide, staining of the flat areas is nothing to worry about.

Nighthaunt Gloom is strange: Unlike Hexwraith, it’s slightly thicker and more opaque then a Shade. It’s actually a prototype Contrast paint, and as such I’ve found it best not to apply it as a wash, but not as a standard paint either; just put it on and let it do its thing. Don’t try to work it into the recesses like a wash, but don’t pull it out if it starts flowing into them like one. Make sure to get a solid coat over the mini, and apply it slightly thicker than a normal paint cause of its slightly wash-like tendencies.

FYI, this guide was written before the Hexwraith Flame and Nighthaunt Gloom paints were changed to Contrast paints and were simply Technical paints. This doesn’t change the guide in any way, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Anyway, on to the painting.

1. Undercoat/prime the mini with Corax White. The spray sucks (it’s one of the worst I’ve ever used), so just use the base paint from the pot. It’ll take about three thin coats to get a solid colour.

2. Apply Hexwraith Flame over all the Nighthaunt robes including the cowl, using your wash brush. Quick tip for painting the whole mini: It isn’t strictly necessary to coat it on everywhere as it will only be left on the robes in the end, but if you miss any bits on the skulls or weapons (etc) later, it’ll have the green glowing effect instead of a white blot. So you might want to consider doing that.

3. Give the cowl two coats of Nighthaunt Gloom. Go with a smaller brush (size 2 or similar) for it, and make sure not to splodge any on the Hexwraith Flame lower robes. But if you get a little bit of overspill it’s ok, since Nighthaunts are blurry ghosts after all.

4. Apply a recess shade of Nuln Oil to all the recesses of the cowl. A recess shade is where you paint the wash directly into the recesses and shadows of the mini, instead of slapping it all over. You’ll want to use a detail brush and keep a steady hand while you do this.

5. Once the Nighthaunt Gloom is dry, drybrush the robes and cowl with Ulthuan Grey or Corax White. Go heavier at the bottom of the robes, and get gradually lighter as you work up to the Nighthaunt Gloom cowl; if you go too heavy on that it’ll look really bad.

6. Now that cowl will look kind of awful. We’ll fix it by making a glaze with Nighthaunt Gloom by adding a lot of Lahmian Medium to it and apply this all over the cowl, making sure it doesn’t pool in the recesses like a wash and wreck all your shading. For those who don’t know, a glaze is a super thin paint, even thinner than a wash, that tints whatever you’re applying it over. This will knock back the highlights and make the cowl look good again.

And that’s the first method finished. Now here’s the second…

1. Follow steps 1 to 5 from the first method, but mix a little bit of Nighthaunt Gloom into the Nuln Oil in step 4 and thin it with a drop of Lahmian Medium, and DO NOT drybrush the cowl (just do the robes).

2. Edge highlight all the robes with pure white. Use a fine detail brush and take your time. This will add an extra edge to those robes after the Corax or Ulthuan drybrush earlier.

3. Here’s the hard part: How do you highlight Nighhaunt Gloom, as GW don’t make a paint for it? Through a lot of experimentation, I discovered that Incubi Darkness is actually pretty much the same colour as Nighthaunt Gloom, just darker. So, thin some down and mix in White until you get an appropriately lighter highlight colour. Once you’ve got it right, apply it as an edge highlight to the cowl, picking out all the tops of the creases, edges, etc.

4. If you want, you can do the Nighthaunt Gloom glaze from the first method, if you feel the highlights are too stark. It’s really just depends on what look you prefer. If you do this, don’t add any Nighthaunt Gloom to the Nuln Oil in step 4. Thanks for reading, drop a comment and/or like, and join the Lazy Paints Discord by following this link https://discord.gg/jZVegD3fUR.

FYI, this (like nearly all my posts) was originally published nearly a year ago as a Google doc on the Lazy Paint Productions Discord server, which is why the pictures are rather low quality, for which I apologize.