Help with NMM Blade?

[Kaliska]

I'm working on a test model for a Rivendell army I'm planning to paint up soon and I decided to use it as an opportunity to learn to do NMM.

I started with the armour and I'm fairly happy with how that turned out - it looks reasonably convincing and I think my shading will become smoother with practice.

The blade on the other hand is definitely not right, but I don't know how to fix it. This is my fourth attempt and I still can't work out where the highlights & shadows should be - before I strip the paint off and start over can anyone point me in the right direction for how to make this look better? At the moment I'm using mixes of Abbadon Black, Administratum Grey & White Scar with a bit of Guilliman Blue glaze.

The light source is supposed to be above the model and the blade is angled backwards slightly so the front should be catching the light more than the rear.

I've watched and read a lot of NMM tutorials but couldn't find any that deal with a flat blade like this one (i.e. without a central ridge).

 

[MAXXxxx]

first I'd say scrape off the paint from the blade. It's already too thick. Luckily the rest of the paint can stay as it's easy to scrape off the blade only on these figures.
Then:
- I hate this advice as it's overused, but here I think it applies really well: thin your paint
- for placement of shadows / highlights this example is pretty good imho: http://www.coolminiornot.com/301979 or http://forum.ravageusa.com/364700 or http://wappellious.blogspot.de/2014/07/old-timers.html

for NMM you could read the nmm articles (there is a lot, for example a new one here too from Bloodfather Of Karnath) ( http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/content.php?8372-experiences-with-nmm )

After that it's just a thing of practice 2 things:
- having smooth enough transitions (usually done with glazes)
- having enough contrast ( silver NMM is mostly a transition from black to white)

 

[Kaliska]

Ah, that's brilliant - thank you. Those links to the painted elves are perfect, and I will strip down the blade before I start over as you suggest.