How to Paint Nighthaunt: Ghostly Glow

Few armies capture the imagination like a host of shrieking spirits pouring across the battlefield, and the Nighthaunt are built to glow. Their signature look, a ghostly body that fades from solid to spectral, appears difficult but is actually one of the cleverest beginner tricks in the hobby. This guide teaches the glow step by step, so your gheists will look like they are dissolving into the air itself.

What You'll Need

The heart of this scheme is a white undercoat and a translucent teal or green over the top. Gather a white spray primer, a dark teal wash or Contrast paint such as Nighthaunt Gloom for the robes, and a blue-green glaze like Aethermatic Blue or a green glaze for the spectral fade. Add a bone colour for skulls and hands, a dark metal and a rust tone for chains and blades, and a bright green or blue for glowing eyes. A soft brush helps blend the glow. Painting with another range? Our paint converter will find your equivalents.

Stage 1: Undercoat

Prime the model pure white, and do not skip this: the entire ghostly effect depends on a bright white base glowing up through the thin colours you layer over it. Spray in light, even passes so the delicate wisps and tattered robes keep their detail. Let it dry completely before you begin, because everything that follows relies on that luminous foundation.

Stage 2: Basecoat

Leave the spectral parts, the flowing tails, faces, and reaching hands, as bare white for now. Paint the robes and hoods with a thinned dark teal, building the colour so it is deepest in the folds and lighter on the raised cloth. Block in skulls, bone, and any shackles in their base colours. The trick to the whole model is keeping those ghostly areas pale while the cloth stays dark and moody.

Stage 3: Wash and Shade

Now create the fade. Take a thin teal or green glaze and apply it to the ghostly tails and lower body, starting from the bottom and pulling upward with a nearly dry brush, so the colour is strongest at the base and vanishes before it reaches the top. Several whisper-thin passes build a smooth gradient far better than one heavy coat. The tips should stay almost white, as though the spirit is dissolving into nothing.

Stage 4: Layer

Reinforce the glow by layering clean white back onto the very tips of the tails and the highest points of the ghostly flesh, then, if you like, tint the mid-section with one more soft pass of green. On the robes, layer a lighter teal onto the raised folds to lift them out of shadow. The aim is a seamless journey from solid dark cloth down to glowing, translucent vapour.

Stage 5: Edge Highlights

Catch the edges of the tattered robes with a lighter teal or a pale bone, running a thin line along every torn hem and sharp fold. On the spectral areas, a touch of pure white on the leading edges enhances the sense of inner light. Crisp highlights on the cloth contrast beautifully with the soft, blended glow of the body.

Stage 6: Details and Base

Finish with the ghoulish details. Paint skulls and bony hands in bone, shaded and then drybrushed lighter, and pick out chains, blades, and locks in dark metal streaked with rust. For the eyes and any wounds, a dot of bright green or blue makes them blaze with unnatural light. Bases look best kept dark and cold, with pale tufts or a wisp of the glow colour drybrushed on, so nothing distracts from the spectral figure floating above.

Final Tips

The ghostly fade is all about thin, patient glazes, so keep your paint watery and build the effect slowly rather than reaching for it in one coat. If the glow climbs too high, simply pull white back over the tips to reset it. Practise on a single spirit first, then unleash the whole procession, and let the endless night guide your brush.