For this wargame base painting tutorial we're making some red-hot glow effects on our Necropolis bases. We've used a 32mm sized base for this guide, and we're going for a hellishly hot theme to emulate the infernal forges of Hashut or the daemonic fires of Khorne.

We're using an airbrush to lay down the colours in this painting guide, but you could easily replicate the effect with drybrushing or wet blending. We've gone for a colour scheme ranging from yellow, through orange, red and brown.

You will need: 

• An airbrush 
• A fine brush for edge painting

Colours we used:

• A white undercoat (we used cheap car primer)
• Vallejo Model Air yellow RAL1003
• Citadel Trollslayer Orange
• Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet
• Citadel Mephiston Red
• Citadel Rhinox Hide
• Citadel Averland Sunset

This technique involves layering different colours over the top of each other, starting with the lightest and ending with the darkest. Each layer is smaller than the last, revealing part of the layer underneath, creating the illusion of depth and warmth.

The first step is to create an even base layer of yellow so all our subsequent layers are working from the same foundation. We've applied Vallejo Air yellow over a base of white, paying particular attention to the recesses in the Necropolis bases. For the best effect, we want an even colour in the deepest parts of the base.

Our fiery glow is created by adding each darker, redder layer one at a time. We've used Citadel Trollslayer Orange, Citadel Evil Sunz Scarlet, and Citadel Mephiston Red. Let the previous layer dry fully before applying the next.

You can adjust the intensity of the glow by making subsequent layers larger or smaller. Making the dark red/brown patches smaller will make the glow seem much more powerful.

The final colour is your 'crust' layer - what you think the surface colour would be if the glow wasn't there. Dark grey or black works really well here, but we've gone for a dark brown as an experiment.

The paint we used was old and manky, so chunks got stuck in the airbrush as we were painting. This caused the airbrush to spit globs of paint out randomly, speckling the base. Luckily for our painter, this was the final layer and actually added to the illusion of cinders and ash on top of a molten core. If it was a different colour on an actual model, this would have ruined it! Let this be a lesson - always test your paints before committing to the mini, and avoid old manky colours in your airbrush.

The final detail is to pick out the edges with a mid-range colour. This emulates where the light catches or reflects from the most extreme edges of a surface near the light source, but also serves to increase the contrast of the colour scheme so it is more eye-catching at a distance.

It's always worth remembering your minis are designed to look best from about 4 feet away on a tabletop than a few inches in front of your face when painting them!

We've used Citadel Averland Sunset as 1) it's a thicker consistency so easier to apply in a single layer and 2) it's a little darker than the base yellow we used so helps build contrast.

The final step (and our personal favourite) is to finish the base by painting the rim. We favour two thin coats of a dark colour that complements the overall base colour scheme, usually black, dark grey, or dark brown. Here, we've used the same dark brown as the previous step - Rhinox Bornw - to blend everything together.

Some people don't do this step, but we believe that painting the rim of the base is like framing your favourite poster or wall hanging - it fully finishes off the look by tidying, containing, and presenting the artwork you've invested in.

And you're finished!

What do you think? Would you like to see it in different colours, or on different sized bases? Let us know in the comments below or through our social accounts.

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Fire up your next painting project with your own set of Necropolis bases here!