REDAV's NMM tutorial 2.0

Hi,

Many people ask me about how I paint Non Metallic Metal I general. I wanted to do this tutorial o answer your questions.
First of all I wanted to say that from a half a year I use mostly Scale 75 paints but those that I use can be replaced with similar ones from GW or Valejjo. I think that Scale 75 paints are grate for NMM because they are very matt so you can control all the reflections. As for the NMM itself recently I take grate inspiration from many artworks from different sites. I want my NMM to be similar to that from illustrations regarding colors and placement of the lights. I always didn’t understand why people make small spots/dots of light and reflections like white lines only. The way I am seeing this it that the light usually falls in a smooth gradient way but the most important thing is the placement of reflections. If you want your NMM to be realistic you should watch your surroundings and maybe keep some shiny metal objects close to you painting place just to look at them during painting because it helps to better understand how the light reflects. 

Here you have the colors I have chosen for this specific miniature. I wanted a normal metal look so I have chosen a very deep blue/grey color Abyssal Blue and I mixed it a little with Flat Black ant that was my undercoat.

I always mix all my colors before painting and it helps me allot during painting because I have easy access to different mixes and I can jump from color to color more easily.

As for my examples I will use my latest mini the Grey Knight Terminator that I'm painting now. 

I always start with a sketch of where I would like to place the reflection. It all depends of the placement of the surface I paint and sometimes on round surfaces a white line through the middle will be sufficient (as on the photo) and sometimes you should make two reflections to reflect the main zenithal light and a reflection from the bottom to represent ambient light (you can see this on the mail leg plate).

 Ok step one: a sketch with white on the undercoat

Now I started to blend the whole element. First up was some lines with a glaze of Nacar. i like this color very much. It’s a little creamy and fits nicely just before the white to make an interesting transition from blue grey to white. As you can see now I'm making vertical lines with my brush but it won’t be always like this :D.

Some more blending with scale Graphite. Still vertical lines. Graphite is a similar color to GW Fortress grey.

Next up are some blends with Anthracite Grey. I like this color very much because it’s a nice mix of darker Grey and blue so it fits in midtones very nicely. At this point I started to even the blends with some horizontal brush movements. it’s mainly glazes and wet blendin. 

Ok next up are mixes of anthracite and eclipse grey and then pure eclipse grey for the shadows.

Here I corrected the deepest shadows o the left and right side with Abyssal Blue. 

From this point I started to correct the whole transition to make it more smooth. I use all the colors and small vertical brush strokes to achieve a nice blend. I do this using a something similar to wet blending because I do it very fast because I want the paint to mix on the miniature and the brush. Don’t clean the brush with water to much and let the paint mix on the brush so you can achieve better color transitions.

On this particular element it’s good to make the light stronger at the top.

I added more white to make the reflection stronger. you can see that there is much white but that generates light and contrast. You can’t leave to much dark colors and I think good NMM is achieved with a right balance of light and shadow. I also made some edge highlights to mark the edges of that armor plate.

Here you have some photos of how I painted the blade of his blade.

And here is the rest of the colors I have used for the blade.

I hope this tutorial will help you. I’m not used to making tutorials because I don’t have a good camera so they usually are of low quality, but I hope you will find this tutorial helpful. If you have some questions feel free to ask and I will answer them if I can.

REDAV

How to make a base, in the style of old asphalt road.

Today I will show you how I made the base for my Tau Commander.

We will need: gypsum (quick-drying), sand, white glue, and something to make a form. The form should be flat so our gypsum will imitate asphalt. I used an old plastic casing, but you can use some packaging left after a miniature (clampack) or a small box.

 It’s important to get a flat mold with a height of a few millimeters. I had to put a plastic base under one corner of my mold so the gypsum could not spill.

IMPORTANT: Gypsum was mixed with sand in a 60-40% proportion and I poured it into the form.

After several hours our gypsum should dry.

We then make a sand paste. Mix sand, white glue and a little water to obtain a thick paste.

Then we put the sand paste on the base and the formed gypsum (smooth side up) on the top. You can break the gypsum slate, to get interesting shapes. You can add a few things to the base, and I added a few pipes and placed thicker sprinkled stones. Now I left the base for one hour to dry a little.

After an hour the sand paste should harden a little, and now we can break the gypsum in a few places.

Then leave it to dry completely - around 12h

With a steel brush scrub layers of plaster (circular motions) until the surface is rough (this is our sand).

This is the effect you should receive.

In the meantime, I decided to add one more element to my base. I decided to make a concrete road barrier and for this I used a mold part from the Tau Commander.

The photo shows the mold before and after treatment with a knife.

And now it’s time for a basecoat.

The base colour (ironhull gray P3), light highlight (Astronomical gray CF).

Using the paper tape I made a template to paint stripes on the asphalt.

I used Mascol to made scratches on stripes.

Stripes after removing the template and Maskol.

Then I have painted the ground with Battlefield Brown (P3) as the base color, and then I highlighted the asphalt plates using Astronomican Gray (CF). Then a black oil wash was applied on the asphalt.

II mixed Vallejo pigments with water (Burnt Umber and Natural Sienna) and then I applied the mix on the ground. I did this three times with different proportions of pigments. In some places on asphalt I also have dry rubbed some pigment to and some interesting colors and dust.

I added the barbed wire and I colored it with three shades of rust pigments.

IIn some places on asphalt I added some black pigment and rubbed it with a finger. Then I highlighted the ground with a mix of Astronomican Gray and some Burnt Umber pigment.   

Using airbrush I sprayed the whole base with isopropyl alcohol to preserve pigments. And then I sprayed the base with Vallejo matt varnish for a mat finish.

At the end I decided add two oil spots. To achieve the intended effect I mixed up Satin Varnish with Liche Purple (CC) then I did the same with Regal Blue(CC) and Vallejo Smoke(VMC). All mixes ware added on the base and mixed on the surface to obtain iridescent colors similar to the spilled oil.

And here you can see how the models look on finished bases.

RED's small Silver and Gold NMM tutorial.

Hi,

I made this tutorial because some people asked me about the colors that I use for silver and Golden NMM. Here you will find the answers but this tutorial only covers what colors to use. In near future I'm planing to make a another tutorial about NMM but with all the details you need to know how to plan the highlights to achieve the final effect. OK now lets focus on those colors.

Silver NMM

For this I'm using:

• Chaos Black,
• Mechanicus Standard Grey,
• A old Rackham paint Steel Grey (I know this one is hard to get but from what I know you can swap this one for a Vallejo Model Color Steel Grey),
• Skull White,

First I'm preparing the colors so I can easy work with them.

1. A mix of Chaos Black and Mechanicus Standard Grey (proportions 1:1)
2. Pure Mechanicus Standard Grey,
3. Mix of Mechanicus Standard Grey and Steel Grey (1:1)
4. Pure Steel Grey,
5. Mix of Steel Grey and Skull White (1:1),
6. Pure Skull White.

OK here you have a step by step how to make highlights.

Step one: Color 1 used for the darkest shades/primmer.

Step two: Highlight with color 2 and then a highlight with color 3 (unfortunately I had a crappy photo of highlight with color 2 so I'm sorry for skipping this stage),

Step three: Highlight with color 4,

Step four: Highlight with color 5 and a glaze with color 4 (I do this to archive a pure color 4 because it is crucial to for the Silver to have its blue color and bright colors are more saturated on white surfaces), and then a further highlight with color 5,

Step five: Final highlights with color 6. At this stage a made some blinks to add light reflexes.

Golden NMM

For Golden NMM I'm using:

• Chaos Black,
• Regal Blue,
• Snakebite Leather (this one is hard to get because Games Workshop changed its pallet and the new paint is different, I don't have a solution for this because I have almost full pot of Snakebite and it will take some time before I will search for a new one. Unfortunately this color is crucial for the Golden NMM effect),
• Bleached Bone,
• Skull White.

OK again I'm preparing the colors for painting.

1. Mix of Chaos Black, Regal Blue and Snakebite Leather (1:1:1)
2. Mix of Regal Blue and Snakebite Leather (1:1)
3. Pure Snakebite Leather,
4. Mix of Snakebite Leather and Bleached Bone (1:1),
5. Pure Bleached Bone,
6. Pure Skull White.

Step by step how to paint Golden NMM:

Step one: Base with color 1,

Step two: First highlight with color 2,

Step three: Second highlight with color 3,

Step four: Highlight with color 4,

Step five: Glaze with color 3 to soften the transition and achieve a nice pure color 4,

Step six: Highlight with color 4 to further add some brighter color,

Step seven: Highlight with color 5,

Final Step: Final highlight with color 6 and at this stage I'm adding blinks and some edge highlights.

OK ant that is all :D. I hope this will help someone to try and paint NMM because its not that hard to do it :D.

RED