Painting reflex sights

[golfdeltafoxtrot]

I’m soon to embark on painting my magnetised Land Speeder Storm and the converted Scout squad that can embark/disembark from it. I’ve added some fantastic Anvil Industry bits to the Scouts including reflex sights for their bolters.

Has anyone got any advice as to how to paint the aperture of the sight? I thought about drilling it out but I wasn’t convinced the resin would stand up to that. My current idea is a very light grey or blue, but I was hoping others might have better thoughts.

[point_Zer0]

I'd paint like this on the front

https://cdn7.bigcommerce.com/s-6weuuj6hn0/images/stencil/1000x1000/products/5676/8973/7701__67505.1508794999.jpg?c=2
https://ii.cheaperthandirt.com/fcgi-bin/iipsrv.fcgi?FIF=/images/cheaperthandirt/source/2-trrm07-c-700679_1.tif&wid=575&cvt=jpeg

And make it black? with a red dot in the center on the marine's side.

[Arkhanist]

A reflex sight is fundamentally a tint-coated lens with a low power LED/laser target dot overlaid by reflection in such a way it appears to be over the target. It avoids the parallax problems of a telescopic sight and allows you to keep both eyes open and still use the sight. Unlike say, a laser pointer, there's no really visible effect of the dot on the sight from the front (or projected forward); here's a simplified diagram. Holographic sights use a much more complex mechanism to achieve the same effect without the coloured coating, so they appear like normal glass and let more light through.

 

http://thebinocularsguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Bushnell-Trophy-TRS-25-Red-Dot-Sight-Riflescope-300x180.png

 

So painting wise, I'd paint it the usual way for lenses and gemstones - it's still a piece of reflective glass which we exaggerate at this scale. 

 

 

The colour of the lens will be the colour of the target overlay if a reflex sight, thus the common orange or green tint for real ones; for a holographic sight, you'd go for conventional glass, which is usually done as light blue (reflection from the sky!)

 

If the conventional successive crescent method would be too tedious/hard (I hate doing them myself!) then the new gemstone paints from GW work pretty well for small lenses and are much quicker.

 

Either way, if you use an overall matt varnish finish; either do the lens after you've done the varnish coat, and/or do a small gloss varnish coat just on the lens. Makes them nice and shiny.

[golfdeltafoxtrot]

Thanks Arkhanist and point_Zer0. I'd worked out how reflex sights work but never seen one from the front.

 

I do the standard crescent technique on my helmet lenses and things like targeting lenses on my vehicles, and I've tried a glowing green effect on my sniper scopes (aiming for a Splinter Cell-esque appearance), but I might try the gemstone paint for this one to differentiate it from the others.