How to Paint Everything: Nighthaunt

The ghostly legions of the Nighthaunt aren’t known for wielding freshly forged weapons. They’re often seen floating into battle carrying rusted implements, all the better to turn regular injuries into agonizingly fatal ones later.

TheChirurgeon: There’s a fairly simple three-step process for painting rusty metal you can use. First you pain the metal object using Leadbelcher or another appropriately dark silver. Next you wash the metal with Agrax Eartshade and once that’s dry you coat it down with Typhus Corrosion. This will both give it a nasty patina but also a gritty texture, with larger grit for more paint applied. Once that dries you can drybrush it with Ryza Rust and boom – easy rusted metal.

There are a few other things you can do after this. You can pick out the sharp edges with Runefang Steel to show areas where the object has still been in use and the rust shaken off. You can also just coat the whole thing in Nurgle’s Rot to give it a sickly green sheen that makes it look wet, like it’s dripping with venom, if you want to make the weapon look coated in poison or venom.

Ah, the Nighthaunt. I’ve always loved direction Games Workshop took with these spooky spectres and for years I have been looking for a reason to get into them. Eventually I was roped into trying out Warhammer: Underworlds and I took that as the perfect opportunity to pick up the models from the Nightvault set and eventually a few other ETB sets (such as the Glaivewraith below). Coming primarily from 40K, I found these models a refreshing change of pace and I’ve convinced myself that over time I’ll probably slow-build to a decently-sized AoS force. Unlike pretty much all of my 40K armies, however, I’m probably going to uncharacteristically paint what I like instead of what is good. This will probably upset future-me, but present-me is having a good deal with fun.

When it comes to ghosts you really can’t go wrong with the “classic” look. I decided I wanted their incorporeal form to be similar to the official paint scheme, with just a few tweaks to personalize it. Thankfully, a couple paints and techniques make this scheme quick and easy with pretty solid results.

Firstly, prime I primed the models in Wraithbone spray. Most of the models up to now I’ve fully assembled and painted, though there may be some of the larger ones like the Mortis Engine I might sub-assemble/paint

Hit all of the ghostly-bits with Nighthaunt Gloom, allow to dry, and then do a coat of Black Templar contrast over the cloth portions.

Paint any metallic surfaces with Leadbelcher and any wooden surfaces with Skrag Brown. Some models have other bitz that call for more color depending on the unit, so you can opt for whatever you feel fits best here. I’m a big fan of Balthasar Gold for a dark copper/gold tone for precious metals. Once the silver portions have dried, sparingly apply a 50/50 Fire Dragon Bright/Water mix to nicks, dents, and other places you’d like to see rusted. Apply a thin layer at first, then go over a few places to raise the rust-level more.

Start gently applying thin layers of a 40/40/20 mix of Nighthaunt Gloom, Wraithbone (the paint), and water to the central/lower part of the ghosts “body”. Make sure to keep the application thin and  catch any pooling. Continue this for at least a few coats, moving slowly lower on the body with each. Apply the same technique to the models arms/hands and face (when not covered) but be careful not to overdo it, as those bits have a lot of detail you want the gloom to deepen. Once you feel you’ve reached a good saturation on the lower sections you can take a break there.

Apply Agrax Earthshade to the corporeal parts of the model, including the clothes and weaponry. DO NOT apply to the ghostly blue/white portion, as this will stain it pretty dark and you want your ghost to be unnaturally luminescent. Once the shade has dried, edge the wooden pieces with your base brown, and go back over the rust with a final layer of orange in places to bring out the color.

Next, brighten the raised/lower portions of the ghost and their hands/face with a 60/40 mix of Wraithbone/water. As before, continually draw the watery paint down the model to avoid pooling and make the transition smooth. Once the model has dried, I like to apply small “dots” of brighter color in places to give off the appearance of shimmering (or spectral dust or whatever you want to justify it as). This breaks up just a constant smooth surface and adds a little interested detail without much effort. Just be sure to make the dots small, mostly pin-prick sized.

Finally, do another round of brightening with a 40/20/40 mix of White Scar/Wraithbone/water on the edges of the ghost. Use any remaining paint to add additional dots.

Congratulations, your model is haunted! At this point you can proceed to do your base however you like (which I will not include here, because the ground is not a ghost and thus not the purview of this article).

Here’s a finished set of The Thorns of the Briar Queen, which I swear I will use one day, but until then I enjoy them on the shelf.

Beanith’s methods tend to lean heavily on Contrast paints, using a flat or zenithal primer with contrast over top to achieve simple, but solid, results.

• Step 1: Undercoat/prime with Grey Seer
• Step 2: Paint the fleshy bits with Tesseract Glow
• Step 3: Paint the flowing ghostly tail with Aethermantic Blue
• Step 4: Paint the brown spots on the base with Wyldwood

• Step 5: Paint the base ruins Basilicanum Grey
• Step 6: Paint the bones on the base with Skeleton Horde and Darkoath Flesh
• Step 7: Paint the corset and roses with Blood Angels Red
• Step 8: Paint the cloak with Nuln Oil, the dagger with Leadbelcher

Bosh, job done son. Although I am tempted to go back and add some gold lines to the corset. Maybe one day…

Rockfish painted the Thorns of the Briar Queen, the Nighthaunt Warband from Warhammer Underworlds.

Unfortunately I don’t have step by step photos for these fellows, but they were pretty simple! I started by seeing how much I could cheat with the airbrush using it to set up the initial zenithal coat, beginning with pure Fenrisian Grey and slowly working in Flayed One Flesh until I was happy with the level of contrast. I then picked out the most extreme recesses with a bit of Drackenhof Nightshade, and then the extreme highlights with almost pure Flayed One Flesh.

When I did these I was experimenting with using a single common colour to lighten the original base coat colour into a highlight, this would be Flayed One Flesh for everything but the metals. The vines were Death World Forest washed Athonian Camoshade, with the flowers being Wild Rider Red washed Carroburg and extreme recesses of Druchii Violet.

The rope was Baneblade Brown washed with Agrax at the same time as dryad bark for the wood. The gold was Retributer washed with Reikland Fleshshade before a highlight of Liberator, the rest of the metal was a fairly simple base coat of Leadbelcher, washed Agrax, and then highlighted Stormhost silver.

For the bases the stone was Skavenblight Dinge, the dirt Stormvermin Fur, and bone Ushabti, all with a wash of Agrax before the standard Flayed One slowly mixed into the base coats for highlights.