Last updated August 2, 2026. By Andrew M. Tan.
How do you paint power swords and weapons? Damon Rooney shares the method he uses on these iconic gothic weapons for Warhammer 40k and other miniature games.
Read on to learn tips and insights into painting power weapons with that mystical glow. Whether you want to recreate the blue lightning effect, or the eerie green of an Eldar blade, this power weapon tutorial will add a new dimension to your painted miniatures.
Damon Rooney’s Top Tips for Painting Power Swords and Weapons
- Go for a high-contrast color scheme
- Use washes or glazes to build up colors and blend your underlying pattern and textures
- Create depth with different shades of the same color
- Enhance the brightest highlights with white paint
- Pay attention to the details, but don’t get bogged down
Introduction
Hello mini painters! Due to popular demand, I have decided to create a tutorial for how I paint power weapons for Warhammer 40k models, in particular for my Adeptus Custode army! Are you looking to paint those nemesis force weapons? Read on!
It’s a process that I very much enjoy and I hope that this helps you all create vivid, crackling weapons that pop with vibrancy!
For an easy-to-learn way to paint a buzzing energy field, I use this same process on many of my power swords. The colors may change with the model, but the core process stays the same.
How to Paint Power Swords in Five Steps
Materials Needed
First, adapt this to your needs for whatever power weapons or swords, e.g., Nemesis force halberd, sword, spear, whatever. I am going to list the ingredients I use for my specific recipe, but I am sure you may want to experiment with different colors. The principles laid out here should apply, but are dependent on a few things. I will break that down momentarily.
The Exact Recipe I Use for This Tutorial
With the ingredients out of the way, I want to make the principle of this scheme clear. I use a vivid, pigment-rich paint for the main color. Inks and Citadel-type contrast paints can give a different result because they are more transparent, so I save them for other effects.
I really enjoy the effect of the Bright Jade. I have done this method with Scale 75 Antares Red and Sunset Purple, and while it looks good (due to them being pigment rich), they don’t have the vibrancy that the Bright Jade has.
By all means, play around with this if you don’t want the exact color scheme I am doing. We learn by experimenting!
As for the model I’m painting for this tutorial, I’m using a spare Venatari Custodes Lance (a really cool spear weapon with a blade). You can find this bladed weapon in this Adeptus Custodes box set.
Step 1 – Prime and Base
Prime the blade black. For most Warhammer 40k swords, I start with black because it gives the effect a dark foundation.
I prefer Scale 75 Black Primer through my airbrush as it is very matte and provides excellent coverage. However, because I’m out of airbrush thinner, I used Army Painter Black Spray I had lying around. Here are other great primers that work well for painting miniatures.
After you’ve primed your model’s surface, we can move on to painting the first base coat color.
To create the base coat color I want to start with, I mix the black and gray paint with contrast medium.
For this mixture, I use four drops of Citadel Contrast Medium, four drops of Tenebrous Gray, and two drops of Pro Acryl Transparent Black. You could substitute any black paint here, but the Pro Acryl black is just visually appealing to me.
To apply this base color, we simply run the brush all over the blade. The great thing about this mixture is that it covers very well; so if you are repainting weapons and don’t want them primed black, this will do the trick in one or two passes!
After you’ve coated your model with the base color, give it about 5 or 10 minutes to dry, depending on how thick you applied it.
Step 2 – Painting the Power Sword Lightning
Now, this is where the fun begins! I have my wet palette ready with the colors that will make up the glowing parts of the blade.
From left to right, we have mixtures in the following ratios:
- 4:1 Glaze Medium and Bright Jade
- Bright Jade
- 3:1 Bold Titanium White and Bright Jade
- 1:1 Bold Titanium White and Bright Jade
- 4:1 Glaze Medium and Bold Titanium White Paint
Light Blue Sketching for Lightning Pattern
Now we sketch in our lightning patterns. This will take a little practice for those of you who haven’t done this before. But with some time and patience, you’ll pick up how this works quickly.
To make sure the light blue isn’t too overwhelming, I do this sketch in two layers. I want enough coverage with the blue hue to avoid having the black undercoat from showing through too much.
As you’ll see later on, we need some of this black to remain visible.
For this first sketch, I use the paint straight from the bottle (weird, I know).
To start blending the different blue hues, you can use wet blending within the lightning pattern. You’ll see how the colors of Bright Jade and white come together with smooth transitions. Here, I make the energy source fairly white to emphasize the power nodes at the bottom of the blade.
Step 3 – Glaze the Midtone Color Over the Entire Blade
Now, we need to take our Jade Glaze and run it all over the blade. Wick off some of the extra paint from your brush, but not too much. This color is almost going to act like a wash.
The goal here is that we want to tint the black in our respective energy color.
If the blade is not tinted enough, do a second pass with your glaze. Make sure you let each layer of your glaze dry before adding another coat. In my experience, one pass with the glaze is enough.
What’s cool about this technique is that you don’t need masking tape or any fancy edge highlighting to make this work. Once the sword has been tinted, we now start adding some magic.
Step 4 – Highlight the Lightning Effect
Load up your sharpest brush with the white glaze from your wet palette. Wick almost all the glaze off the bristles. This gives you more control of the paint.
Now, very carefully, trace white lightning bolts inside the original lightning shapes we sketched.
Step 5 – Push the Glow
As a final step, approach each painted side separately and keep building up the white color where the energy source appears to come from.
Once you have used the majority of the white on your brush (that you loaded in step #4), gently feather “bursts” of lightning where it meets the blade edge to give a crackling effect. This extra bit of edge highlight glow will help sell the glowing effect on the model.
It’s very important that your paint is very thinned down here. White can be very bold, and we don’t want that in our initial pass. We want a nice blend.
Add a bit more glaze of the Bright Jade on the surrounding materials to help sell the object source lighting (OSL). You can see a bit of this on the top of the hilt, some seeping into the recesses.
And really, that’s it! What do you think?
Conclusion
That is the whole method I use on my power weapons: a dark base, a painted lightning pattern, a glaze to pull the color together, and controlled white highlights. Try it on one blade first, then change the color once you see how the layers behave.
Thanks for reading! Happy painting! Do you have a question or feedback? Leave a comment below. 😀
About Damon Rooney
Damon is a father, soldier and martial artist who hails from Craftsbury, Vermont. He is an instructor at the Vermont Army National Guard and also serves as a reconnaissance section leader. Damon is an avid miniature painter and tabletop wargamer, including Warhammer 40k and role-playing games.
As a working father, he appreciates any support you can give him in the form of donations for materials that will help him continue his hobbies. His Venmo account information is below, so please consider donating to help this amazing individual!
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By Andrew M. Tan
Andrew is a commissioned miniature painter with more than 20 years of hands-on experience painting tabletop miniatures, photographing models, and testing hobby tools in real-world use. Read his full bio.
This looks amazing. Definitely going to try it – was literally just thinking earlier today how cool this kind of effect would look on a power weapon them stumbled upon your guide. Would love to see a video tutorial if you ever feel like making one!
Hi, thank you so much for the comment. Yes I hope it helps. And the video tutorial would be a great idea ! Stick around and I’ll try and plan one out 🙂