Tips and Tricks: Create Spooky Effects — Wayland Games Blog

Have you thought about how you'll be spending Halloween? For me, Halloween is one of the most fun times of the year. It's the perfect time to play tricks, experiment with scary decorations and indulge in many, many treats - of the plastic and resin kind.

In honour of that, I've put together a few tips and tricks for creating spooky miniatures and miniatures bases. Painting and basing effects that are so terrific, they'll give you goosebumps.

This Halloween, you'll be giving your models an eerie edge recreating these tips and tricks on your own miniatures and bases. Are you ready to have some frightful fun with your miniatures?

When it comes to creating spooky effects lighting will play a major role in the finished feeling of the model. Therefore to start off, we are going to be talking about using Fluorescent Paints.

Using Fluorescent Paints to Achieve Light Effects

A great way to create spooky effects is to use Fluorescent paints to pick out certain details and create glow effects to give those models an eerie feeling. For those of you who are interested in replicating this technique, this tutorial from Figure Mentors breaks down exactly how to do it and the best painting methods to use to achieve the effect.

For those more interested in painting spooky bases, this article on SpikeyBits by Travis Perkins breaks down the types of paints that can be used to create a spooky base. This article is perfect if you prefer to read about hands-on experiences and the reasons behind the techniques.

This next effect is more of a niche to painting ghosts, but the technique can be applied to create that eerie atmosphere amongst your models or bases. Pinman Miniature Painter has a great How to on painting ghosts and even references the effect he’s trying to replicate from Lord of the Rings. When it comes to painting ghosts, you want to get as close to an unnatural green hue as possible to really capture the full effect. This step by step tutorial also suggests the paints you need to create the effect and suggests alternatives to experiment with whilst applying the same principles.

Staying on the same topic of painting ghost effects, Geek & Sundry have a great article on how to use Games Workshop’s Nihilakh Oxide paint to quickly create a really cool ghostly effect. To take full advantage of this paint, it is best used when it is layered over white. This effect allows a simple dry brushing to smooth out the transitions and makes it one of the most straightforward techniques available for painting miniatures.

Adding that extra detail

When it comes to finishing off these spooky effects, you’re going to want to finish it off by adding some spooky final touches. We’ve got you covered here as well with this great tutorial by Brookhammer. This tutorial touches on the finer details of how to paint Blood, Gore and Slime Effects to really give your models that finished feeling. There is also a video tutorial available on YouTube for quick and easy access. The finer details really do take your models or bases to the next level and make them stand out amongst the competition.

There are also several video tutorials available on YouTube on the best ways to create spooky effects. This How to Paint - Ghosts by JuanHidalgo Miniatures is a perfect example of an easy method of painting ghosts and ethereal effects on your miniatures.

If you need some inspiration to get started then look no further! We have a number of Halloween Round Bases available in 30mm, 40mm and 50mm sizing. If it is paint recommendations you’re after then we’ve also got you covered with these excellent paints from Green Stuff World. This Malefic Skin Paint Set has the perfect combinations of colours to help you achieve the shades and tones of Halloween but for those who want to brighten things up and use lighting techniques to their advantage then this Chameleon Acrylic Paint Set will help you create a colourshift visual effect.

Whichever spooky effect technique you decide to use to paint your miniatures or bases, I hope you’ve found something helpful in this article.

Be sure to send us pictures on social media of your newly created spooky effects as we’d love to see how creative you really got - you never know you might even give us some inspiration!