Paint Space Marine Terminator Eyes Tutorial

Hi there. I have recently blown the dust off my paints and jumped straight into painting a new unit of Blood Angel Terminators. I decided to do glowing eyes on them and experimented with a few different techniques and below is the fastest way I found.

Glazes take too long but do look cool but I wanted a faster, easier and more striking technique. The method below takes no time at all... enjoy!

(Photos below)

Step 1: Choose colours

You must go for a contrasting colour. I.e do not do red eyes on a red marine! A colour wheel can help pick a suitable colour if you are stuck but as a quick guide I would do red eyes for dark models. So your blacks, purples, greens and blues basically and green eyes for your reds and yellows. Blue eyes go very well with white or greens. There are cross overs as well. For example yellow marines look good with red or green eyes. Its all down to the rule of cool.

For this example I used green for my Blood Angels. You will need two colours of your chosen colour. A very dark base colour and a mid tone.

I went with GW Caliban Green and GW Moot Green. You will also need a white.

Step 2: Base

For this step you need to first block in the entire lense in your base colour. Once this is done (be brave) you need to literially paint a ring around the lense. This is the base of the glow. Be sure to hit the raised areas such as the cheeks as these would naturally catch the glow.

Step 3: 50% Base + 50% mid tone

Now you want to mix a 50/50 mix of your base colour and mid tone. You want a nice heavy milk like consistancy. Slightly thicker than a "normal" for painting. You need it this way for control.

Again block the entire lense with this mix then again ring the outside of the lense. Be sure to leave a ring of the dark colour at the edge. This gives you the start of your gradient.

Step 4: Mid tone

Using pure mid tone colour. Again, block the lense and do the smallest ring possible around the lense leaving a thin band of the previous colours on the outer edges.

Step 5: 50% Mid tone + 50% white

Now mix together a 50/50 mix of your mid tone colour and white. This now needs to be applied in a thin band inside the lense leaving a ring inside the lense showing the previous step colour. For the Terminators I did a thin line inside the lense.

You could stop here and you would have a cool looking glow effect but to really kick ir up a gear...

Step 6: Pure White

Using a very fine brush you need to place a spot 2/3rds of the way up the lense of white. This really makes the effect pop if done well. Hold your nerve and give it a go.

Happy Hobby!
Capt Tycho