LEDs vs Directional Lighting with Paint

[GrandReaper]

Hi all,

Well, I've got Necron fever and to me nothing says Necron better than ominous green glow. I have some scarabs on my computer desk and the green light from my router was shining on them in the dark and it just looked awesome, so I've decided that this will be my paint scheme.

This brings me to the dilemma - do I paint a nice silver paint scheme and get some high output LEDs to put the green glow on the models or do I push my painting skills to the limit and try to do some directional lighting on the models with paint.

The LED method seems much easier overall (although fiddly in some cases and hard to find a place to hide the LEDs in others) but the idea of the army ACTUALLY glowing green is cool. However, I'm worried that under the bright lights of a store the effect will be only marginally noticeable.

Ideas?

[DaveLL]

Hi all,

Well, I've got Necron fever and to me nothing says Necron better than ominous green glow. I have some scarabs on my computer desk and the green light from my router was shining on them in the dark and it just looked awesome, so I've decided that this will be my paint scheme.

This brings me to the dilemma - do I paint a nice silver paint scheme and get some high output LEDs to put the green glow on the models or do I push my painting skills to the limit and try to do some directional lighting on the models with paint.

The LED method seems much easier overall (although fiddly in some cases and hard to find a place to hide the LEDs in others) but the idea of the army ACTUALLY glowing green is cool. However, I'm worried that under the bright lights of a store the effect will be only marginally noticeable.

Ideas?

I answered a similar question not too long ago with much less detail... I haven't done it myself, but infantry with LEDs always seemed much more difficult to manage than vehicles, from everything I've seen. The central problem is that you probably want the glow to come from a general area of the model (looking ominous and creepy), and not from an obvious LED mounted on it or even immediately inside it (cheaper and a little gimmicky), but still be able to replace the LED and/or battery when it goes out.
A monolith with green LEDs can look amazing, and there are places in the model where you can place them such that you can get to them and replace them when necessary, and where the LEDs themselves won't be obvious (giving you a nice creepy indirect glow). Infantry, though... well, I suppose if you're willing to do an awful lot of experimentation with where to drill into the models and how to put a removable partial cover over the LED it might work.
I have seen infantry models custom-designed around looking good with LEDs, but that's obviously not what you're going for.

[kier]

lighting with paint is harder but absolutely worth it if you can pull it off. id play around with so paint and see how well you do at it and only consider LEDs if you just cant get the paint to look right

[GrandReaper]

It's an intimidating prospect but I'll give painting a go then. Never a bad time to add a new skill I suppose. Thanks!