In this Newb Corner how-to, I’m walking you through how I paint power weapons (power blades, non-metal metal—call it whatever you want) without using metallic paints. The whole idea is simple: start from a midtone, map your shadows, then build the blends up with thin layers until it looks like a reflective sci‑fi weapon. I’m using one of my Warp Spider Exarch blades as the example, and I’ll show you the exact colors I had on the palette: AK French Army Gray as the base, AK Blue Gray for lighter steps, Vallejo Dark Sea Blue for the shadows, plus plain white and black. The biggest takeaway is that this is a patience process—back and forth, back and forth—teasing thin paint into place and letting it dry between passes. I also do a step a lot of people skip: I re-outline the hard edges with a lighter tone to “re-find” the shape after blending turns everything into a bit of a blob. And yeah, I’m firmly in the “rule of cool” camp here—this is a power blade on a sci‑fi elf model, so don’t stress about perfect realism. For gaming pieces, I’ll even gloss the blades afterward to help them pop and to add durability (I wouldn’t necessarily do that on a show piece).