45 replies to this topic

[Nocturne]

I've never tried NMM before and after finishing the Ogre chieftain I wanted to give it a go. I had a box of GW's Chaos Warriors lying around so that seemed like a perfect start as that gave me a batch of near identical armoured figures to begin on. First attempt it below. The figure in metallic, which I'm using as a comparison point, has just had it's base coat and wash so far so at the moment it's much darker than it's going to be.
This first one was just a quick test. I still need to go over with some black ink lining to help define some areas but otherwise I'm relatively happy except for the shield, It just looks flat to me. I don't know if finishing the symbol off would help settle that or if it just looks like a two tone shield, either way the light side needs a more gradual blend than is currently there. Any comments or advice would be appreciated.

This was just a quick snap with my phone so apologies for the quality, I'll do proper ones as I go along.

[Girot]

I will die a True Metals purist. Damn fine attempt though!

[buglips*the*goblin]

I'm fond of true metals, too - but experimentation is good! Let out your inner mad scientist!

[Girot]

I'm fond of true metals, too - but experimentation is good! Let out your inner mad scientist!

Muaaaaahahahahaaaa-err-uhh.... I mean, um, be careful what you wish for.

[Adrift]

You're off to a much better start than I ever had with NMM!

I think you just need to hit the edges with some near white hot spots, and find a place to put a lighter gleam going across the 'lightest' area but otherwise it's looking great!

[Bruunwald]

I like the shield. You want the flat parts to look flat in this case, because when you're dealing with grays to do steel or iron, you run the risk of making it look like granite if you busy it up.

Looks good. I dig it!

[Nocturne]

Thanks for the comments everyone, much appreciated

I've brought up the highlights on the armour and added some more white on, althout it looks like I can afford to bring up the white spots even further. Also highlighted the comparison guy and assembled the next one for testing on.

[Nocturne]

Another quick experiment with lighting. Just done the armour and flame so far. I'm working on the basis that the torch is only source of lighting for the figure. I wanted to test this as I'd like to do this when i paint the fighter with torch from the Otherworld Miniatures indiegogo campaign to make him look like he's in an unlit dungeon.

I had a look at how flame reflects off of a torch onto armour first but I scrolled too far down on google images whilst searching pictures of Bradley James and I found the scary part of the internet where photoshop took over and now I can never watch Merlin again. So I quickly got to painting.

I washed the armour with black ink once to help get the definition on it then put multiple layers on wherever wasn't in a direct line to the torch until it was almost black. I highlighted the armour in a few places with silver then used Red and Yellow glazes on the areas that would be lit by the torch. Lastly I reapplied silver to the brightest parts. I'll probably work on a brighter armour colour when I get the fighter to give a bit more colour to him and leave some of the original armour colour between the lit and unlit areas. That'll probably mean I'll paint the armour that would be directly lit in a brighter colour. It's gone a bit rust like really so I think I'll try cheating it in future and leave more of the armours original colour..

I'll work on this a bit more this week to test the painting style on the rest of him.

[Nocturne]

Tried another shot with a more appropriate dark background and turned off the room light and I'm a bit more pleased with it. Still veering a bit too much towards brown rather than an orangey flame colour though, but I'm a bit more convinced that a brighter metallic underneath may yield better results.




I also tried a shot with no lighting other than the camera flash...

...because I'm a moron.

[CashWiley]

I really like that effect. I'm hoping once I bring my skills up to a comfortable level to really start branching into cool stuff like this.

[Nocturne]

Thanks CashWiley, I always find it helpful to have a few figures lying around to just mess about with. Although I'm that slow to get stuff finished I've probably got more tests at this point than actual completed figures

A quick job to test the theory; I went back over and reapplied the metals with a brighter colour. It's defiantely worked more how I wanted it to but I still think allowing more of the actual metal colour to show around the illuminated areas will be an improvement. It may end up a bit on the side of looking like everyone is under stage lighting as well but it'll let some more of the figures colours show through. I still like the very heavy shadows on the parts out of light though so I wouldnt want to bring the armours colour in too much,

[MonkeySloth]

At first I thought you were going for a bronze\brass colored armor. OSL it hard and with flames you'll need to realize that your highlights will be the brightest part of the armor so they should be yellow or very bright orange and the farther away you get the more orange the light will become.

So, for example, the parts of the armor on the side with the torch should be more yellow and the side with the sword would be more orange--to to make it all more realistic it would be all yellow as you're not far enough away for the light to be dimming.

[Nocturne]

yeah, it was getting a very bronze look the first time. An intersting way to do a bronze like armour but not what I was after.
I'm going to give him another go tomorrow, i'll try ranging the colour as it moves away from the torch, I know it's not very realistic but that's what testing it to see what it'll look like is about, and reality is overrated anyway.
I'll also thin the glazes more so it's not as heavily saturated where the lights hitting. Then I'll probably end up actually painting something completely different that uses none of the techniques I've been playing around with,

EDIT: Hang on, I've had a brilliantly idiotic idea. If I don't return assume I died a heroes' death

[Nocturne]

Right.
The figure I first painted in metallics, a cheap lighter that I have no idea why I own as I've never smoked in my life, a questionable sanity and low regard for safety have led me to conclude that the lighting when a character in armour is lit by a torch and nothing else should look like this:



Excuse the poor quality, the picture was difficult to take for reasons that should be obvious. I removed the figures shield and flipped the image so it better reflects what I'm actually currently painting. I shall try emulating this in paint tomorrow as holding that lighter there all the time is going to be awkward and I think it's running out of fluid. The shadings been fine but my colours are way way off, far too saturated. A much much thinner and paler orange and bigger bright spots should bring me closer.

[Corporea]

Very nice! Are you planning to add the light effect to the horns/cape or just the armor? I like the bronze look!