Step-by-step non metallic metal (NMM)

Hello again friends and followers!

I am so sorry it took me so long to write an other article. I usually take the pictures in advance and use bits and scraps of time to write an article around them. Lately everything has been so hectic I didn't even had those little bits of free time.

Luckily I found the time to type the article I had been planning for a while. I got the WFB Chaos Lord from Games Workshop because I wanted to experiment with the non metallic metal technique. (NMM)

If you want to try this for yourself here is a list of the colors I used:

• VMC Black
• GW Snakebite leather
• VMC Golden yellow
• VMC Ivory
• GW Leviathan Purple

After applying the the colors for the armor (a mid-color green with some turquoise mixed into it) I started painting in the darkest colors of the gold. For this I used a 1:1 mix  of black and snakebite leather.

All metal parts are painted with several thin
layers of black/snakebite leather

Once you got the shadowcolor on its time to start thinking about the highlights. There are several ways to do this like using Object Source Lighting (OSL) or Sky-Earth NMM. I'm simply highlighting towards edges and obvious larger surfaces. The first highlight should be build up using thin layers of snakebite leather. Keep building it up until you got a solid color of snakebite leather, leaving the darker mix only in the deepest recesses.

First highlight of snakebite leather

With this first highlight in place you can already start to see which area's will be highlighted. now it is time to build up this highlight using a 1:1 mix of snakebite leather and golden yellow.
(no pictures of this step, sorry!)
Be sure to leave some of the snakebite leather visible and make absolutely sure you don't go over the black and snakebite leather mix!

Golden yellow layered on

Next step is golden yellow. This will make your gold look extremely yellow, as is shown on the picture above, but this will be rectified in last couple of steps. Again it is very important to leave some of the previous colors visible in order to get a smooth transition.

Next step will get you very close to the final result! I found that towards the end I used less paint on the model but spend more time painting it on. I used a mix of Ivory and Golden yellow (1:1) and applied it mainly on edges and other places that would specifically catch light or where I want to place an extra focus point.

This is the point where it looks less like layered yellow and more like NMM. The final highlight will be pure ivory and will only be painted in dots or on the edges of your edge hightlights.

Closeup on the shoulderpad

Another closeup on the shoulderpad

At this point I was really happy with my first time NMM result. To be honest it turned out a bit more yellow then I had imagined but it still looks good in my opinion. For the final step I painted the crevices with Leviathan Purple wash. Purple is a complementary color to yellow so it gave the gold a rich finish.

Final result!

So that's my first experience painting NMM. I hope you guys (and girls) enjoyed reading this and that if you are curious about painting NMM that it encouraged you to try it yourself! Good luck, happy painting and see you next time!

How to paint yellow (like for an Iyanden Eldar)

Hi guys (and possibly girls) and welcome to this new step-by-step tutorial. This time I will show you guys how I paint a nice, bright yellow that can be used for example on popular sci-fi tabletop armies like Imperial Fist Space Marines or Iyanden Eldar.

Yellow can be a hard color to paint using only a brush. A quick method to make this a lot easier is to prime your models white of a light grey instead of black. That will save you a lot of layers trying to get the color nice and bright. 

Using an airbrush makes painting bright colors like yellow a lot easier. Still I prefer painting over a light color to really make the yellow pop. 

I started with a light grey primer. I will start shading it first anyway so for me it doesn't really matter.

Eldar Guardian primed light grey

I used Vallejo light grey primer. It is important to let it dry for a couple of hours to really set on the model. It will be dry to the touch sooner and it will be possible to paint over it sooner, but you will still be able to scratch the primer of the surface. 

A quick coat of orange-brown

I mixed up some snakebite leather (old GW Citadel color) with a touch of golden yellow and sprayed it over the entire model. I focused on spraying it from below because this will be the shadow color. Next will be the highlight.

Top view after spraying white from the top

Using a zenithal highlight technique I spray white from 33º angle from the top on the model. As you can see in the picture above looking down at it it will be almost white. 

Shadows and highlights

Shadows and highlights

As you can see the brown still shows up where natural shadows would be visible. The rest of the mini is white which is an excellent base for the transparent yellow. Now cover the model with a thin layer of yellow. Make sure the paint is thin enough to let the shadows show through the yellow.

Model covered with yellow paint

You can see the light brown through the yellow

As you can see the yellow over the white gives you a really bright yellow color. When you look at the model at a downward angle you can still see the brown, creating a realistic shadow in the progress. 

Now this is only one of the many possible ways to paint yellow. I like this technique because its quick and easy and it looks good. 

Lets finish the model up real quick so you can get an idea of the finished result. I painted the gun, a kneepad and the head with a medium blue. You can further highlight these if you got the time but I didn't. I hope you liked this little tutorial and that it helps you paint better looking models or to help you paint your models faster.

Finished result

How to paint red miniatures

Hi there guys and girls!

I apologize for taking so long to write a new article. I have been very busy at work and real life, showing from the fact that I started writing this article like two and a half week ago.

I have also been repainting my X-Wing miniatures and trying to learn the game.This article will have nothing to do with that though.

Today I will share two methods I use to paint red.

A finished example of the final result

While a lot of people still prime their models black, I find it really hard to paint red over black. A simple reason for this is that red paint is usually very transparent so before you have a solid red color you are at least five or six layers in.

Now for the people that know me or have read some of the articles on this blog they might know that I am fond of using pre-shading and zenithal highlighting. For painting red I like to use a combination of these two techniques.

For the first example I want to create a bright red color. I primed a miniature in white primer. You could use any color you like but white is easier for me.

Miniature primed white

I like to work with light colored primers because it lets me see what I am actually doing. It's easier to see how thick your coat of paint is if you can actually see your miniature.
Once the primer is dry (a blow-dryer can certainly speed up this process) I proceed with the shadow color. Some people like to use black, and this is certainly the best choice for high contrast, but I used a medium brown and coated the whole miniature with this color.

A medium brown is used as a base color 

Using the brown as a shade for the darkest shadows I continued with a zenithal highlight with a medium to light grey color. Spray it from about 45 degree angle so the brown will stay in the deepest recesses and places where light would not hit the model.

Medium/light grey sprayed from a 45 degree angle

Next step is to spray white right on top of the miniature. Focus points should be the top of the shoulderpads, the face, the top of the backpack, hands, knees and toes.

White paint sprayed from above, creating the final highlight

Now comes the step where the magic truly happens. Using the transparency of most red paints we are gonna spray slightly thinned down red paint over the entire miniature. The idea behind this is that the brown stays mostly brown, the grey will make a dark red and the white will become a very vibrant red. The picture below is a bit fuzzy (sorry!) but you can see the gradient from bright red to slightly darker red on the shoulderpad and an even darker, red-ish brown on the elbow.

Final result

The downside of this technique is that you will need to apply a bunch of washes or paint the shadows in the crevices. A different technique I will share is where you build up the red from a dark brown up to red. This is my personal favorite technique because I really like the result.

I start with a primed model. I used grey primer because I wanted a darker basecolor then white or light grey but I still wanted to see what I was painting so I black was also not an option. The winner was this slightly dark grey.

Model sprayed with grey primer

Once the primer dried I coated the model with a layer of dark brown paint like scorched brown. This will be your shadow color but its important to get a contestant layer because you will be painting red over this and because red is a little transparent you might see any inconsistencies in this layer. 

After a solid layer of dark brown paint. 

Next up is building up layers of red paint. Make sure each layer covers less of the previous layer, building up a gradient. Focus extra on the shoulderpads, head, backpack, knees and feet.

Building up layers of red paint

Sadly I forgot to take a picture for the final layers of red. Just make sure that each layer covers a smaller surface of the previous layer. That way each layer will be progressively brighter red.

In the end you will end up with something similar to the picture below: a model with a nice gradient from brown to red.

Final result once all the details are painted.

I really hope this article gave you a little more insight in how I paint red miniatures. Of course there are many more methods that can be used but these are the two I prefer most. 

If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments.