How to Paint Crucible Guard Green

The Three-Paint Cheat Code

I’ve found the cheat code to this Crucible Guard green, and it’s just three easy paints. You could probably do it in two, maybe even one depending on your zenithal. The secret combination is Tyrant Navy, Plasmatic Bolt, and Thunderbird Blue.

Starting with the Brightest Highlight

We’re going to start with Thunderbird Blue over just a white zenithal highlight. If you did a bit more contrast between the white and black, you might only need this one color. I did a pretty standard zenithal where there wasn’t much black left on the model, but if you left more black—especially on these shoulders—you could maybe get away with just this color for tabletop quality.

This is our highest point, and we’re working backwards. By airbrushing these speed paints, it’s actually pretty hard to go over a darker color. So we’re starting with our brightest point and building up shadows on top of it.

Building Up the Shadows

It is a little nerve-wracking because it’s harder to do, but just go slow and ease into it. This is Plasmatic Bolt—just building up the shadows, coming up from the bottom, staying very far away from the top of the model. I’m making sure I’m getting up in the shadows, underneath this breast plate, working it up the side of this central panel.

This footage is at 2x speed right now, and it’s still that slow. I’m just being very intentional with where I’m putting these shadows. You can see me building it up. There still wasn’t as much contrast as I really wanted. If you’re going for a subtle effect, you could probably stop here, but I really wanted to create that textbook box art transition from black to bright green.

Going Deeper with Tyrant Navy

This is when I realized I got to go crazy and grab that Tyrant Navy. This is super nerve-wracking because if you mess this up, you’re going to mess up the whole paint job. I’m just easing this transition in, going very slow—I’m barely touching that button and working this in.

The contrast here is so high that it’s blasting out even with barely any paint on it. This will dry smoother than it seems. When you airbrush these speed paints, which I love doing, they’re very transparent. I just treat it like a very transparent ink.

The Key Advice

Go slow. I keep saying that—go slow, be careful. You’re saving a ton of time by doing it this way, so just don’t mess up. Work in the transitions and you get this really cool box art effect for actually very little effort.

Because we’re spraying from the bottom up, we still get that almost edge highlight effect on the model, which is always cool.

Fixing Mistakes

We’re starting to speckle—that’s not good. It wouldn’t be one of my videos if I didn’t show you how to fix the mistake. I’d been airbrushing for a while at this point and the airbrush was clogging, so the black speckled on top of where we didn’t want it.

To fix this, I’ve gone back to our initial highlight color with a very small amount of white ink in it, and I’m just blasting it on top. It’s going to look a little different than the other areas, but it’ll smooth out the transition and cover up our speckling.

What’s Next

Tomorrow I’m going to start cutting in details and hopefully finish these jacks up, or at least make a ton of progress on them. Hopefully this cheat code works for you!

Transcript

Today, I’ve found the cheat code to this crucible guard green. Uh, and it’s just three easy paints. Uh, I think you could probably do it in two and maybe even one depending on your zenithol. Uh, but this is the secret tyrant navy, plasmatic bolt, and Thunderbird blue. Uh, we’re going to start off here with Thunderbird Blue over just a white zenithol highlight.

Uh, I think if you did a little bit more contrast between the white and the black, you could maybe only need this. So here I did like a pretty standard one where there was not very much black left on the model. But I think if you left a lot of black, especially on these shoulders, you could maybe just get away with just this color. Uh especially if you really just wanted to do tabletop and and to get the models done. So I I’ll experiment with that later.

But I started here. Uh this is our highest point and we’re working backwards because by airbrushing these speed paints, uh it’s actually pretty hard to go over a darker cover or a darker color. So, we’re starting with our brightest point and then we’re going to build up shadows on top of it. So, it’s it is a little nerve-wracking cuz it’s a little bit harder to do, but just go slow. Uh ease into it.

So, this is that uh prismatic or plasmatic bolt. Uh just building up the shadows. Uh coming up from the bottom, staying very far away from the top of the model here. Uh yeah, plasmatic bolt. That’s how what it is.

I’m making sure I’m getting up in the shadows. Getting up underneath this breast plate here. I’m working it up the side of this central panel. And you can see I’m just going very slow, very carefully. Uh this this footage is 2x speed right now, and it’s still that slow.

I’m just being very intentional with where I’m putting these highlights. And you can see me building it up. Uh there still wasn’t as much contrast uh as I really wanted. Um I think if maybe you were going for like a subtle effect, you could probably stop here. Uh but I really wanted to kind of create that textbook box art transition from the black to the bright bright green.

So I’m just working in the shadows here. And this is when I realized like I got to go crazy. I got to grab that Tyrion navy. Uh, so this is super super nerve-wracking because if you mess this up, uh, you’re gonna you’re gonna like mess up the whole paint job. So again, I’m just easing this transition in, going very slow, just very I’m like barely touching that button and working this in.

And it’s still like the the contrast here is so high that it’s blasting out even with barely any paint on it. And this will dry uh smoother than it than it seems. these when you airbrush these speed paints, which I love doing, uh they’re very transparent. So, I just treat it like a very transparent ink. And go slow.

I keep saying that. Go slow. Be careful. Uh you’re saving a ton of time by doing it this way. So, just don’t mess up.

Uh go slow. Just work in the transitions and you get this really cool box art effect with for actually very little effort. Um I’m going to work on figuring out a way to do this without an airbrush. And on the other models in the army, I’m not going to use an airbrush on them. So, I’m just going to airbrush the jacks.

So, I’ll still uh I’ll I’ll show you how to do this effect without an airbrush on the other models. But, uh it’s just it was too easy, too saving to not use the airbrush here. And I just really love how this effect. And because we’re spraying from the bottom up, we still get like that almost edge highlight effect on the model, which is always cool. We’re starting to speckle.

That’s not good. All right. It wouldn’t be one of my videos if I didn’t show you how to fix the mistake. So, I I started speckling. I’d been airbrushing for a while at this point and it just airbrush was clogging.

So, the the black speckled on top of where we didn’t want it to speckle. So, uh just to do this, I’ve just gone back to our initial highlight color. Um, I put a little like a very small amount of white ink in it and I’m just blasting it on top. Right? It’s gonna uh it’s going to look a little bit different than the other ones, but it’s going to smooth out the transition and just cover up our speckling.

So, uh, thanks for watching. Tomorrow, I’m going to start cutting in details and hopefully maybe finish these jacks up, but at least make a ton of progress on them. So, hopefully this cheat code works for you. Thanks for watching.