Highlights on NMM

[Manus]

As many others I\'v been trying to do a decent NMM, done a few test pieces, but a lot of times I end up not being satisfied as I feel it\'s not the right areas that I highlight and darkens. Does anyone have some good tips or can tell us how you decide where to place bright and dark. An example could be this cool mini - when you haven\'t that much NMM under your belt it quite hard to figure out why the lightest areas are..- well where they are.

Cheers

 

[freakinacage]

there is an article on the site. i\'ll be ballsed if i can figure it out though

 

[Ritual]

You go about it basically the same way as when you do zenithal, or overhead, lighting, but you push the contrast between light and dark to the extreme.

- You decide a direction of lighting and stick to that. It\'s important to have a consistent direction so that different areas seem to be lit by the same light source. Of course, you\'ll use the same direction of lighting when you do all the other shading and highlighting too.

- Consider how light from that direction would be reflected on each surface you\'re painting. Basically, light will be reflected so that the angle between the surface and the reflected light is the same as the angle between the surface and the incoming light.

The reflected light should have the direction you most regularly will look at the mini from. So, those areas that will reflect light from your chosen light source so that the reflected light meets the eye of the viewer will be bright. Those that don\'t will be dark.

- Don\'t take the theory too seriously, or you will be spending all eternity calculating exactly where to put the highlights! After a while you\'ll get a fairly good intuition about these things and you\'ll place shadows and highlights fairly correctly almost without thinking. This is painting, for fun, not rocket science!

- You will need to stretch the theory a bit, and do some cheating to make the miniature viewable from all directions. A good help is to hold the miniature under a strong light, placed so that the lighting direction matches the one you\'ve chosen, and paint the highlights where you see them on the mini. Then turn the mini a bit sideways and do the same. Continue this way until you have gone the full circle. Sometimes you may have to highlight areas that shouldn\'t be highlighted according to the theory, because it would look daft otherwise. In these cases, what looks good is the importance, not the theory! A pot helmet is a good example. According to the theory it would be dark at the very top if you look at it from the front or side, since the light would be reflected back upwards there. But it would look strange to have a dark spot in the middle of the helmet, so it\'s better to highlight the entire upwards facing part of the helmet.

- Remember, this principle is NOT just for NMM, but for all highlighting. You just push things to its extreme with NMM to get the metallic impression.

Hope this helps.

 

[demonherald]

Originally posted by freakinacage
there is an article on the site. i\'ll be ballsed if i can figure it out though

LMAO......... that\'s what\'s called a subtle review.

 

[farseer oliver]

For me, I normally put the model under the light. I\'ve highlight the point where the light shine the brightest. :beer:

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Manus
...a lot of times I end up not being satisfied as I feel it\'s not the right areas that I highlight and darkens. Does anyone have some good tips or can tell us how you decide where to place bright and dark. ...quite hard to figure out why the lightest areas are..- well where they are.

Most - nearly all in fact - NMM is stylised. So where the highlights are, how light they are, how dark the darkest bits are, the transition colours etc. is usually a matter of taste, not a right/wrong thing.

The best way to do work like specific examples of NMM you like the look of is basically to copy it! Save the pics to your HD and open them up and study them in detail, if necessary working directly from them while you paint.

If you want to do NMM that\'s more realistic than the norm then you can:
study the reflections on the polished mini before priming (by all means take a digital photo so you\'re not relying on memory);
make a point of study reflective objects generally in your day-to-day routine to get familiar with the way they look;
study paintings that feature metals (master paintings and illustrations) to see how other artists have tackled the same sort of thing.

Einion

P.S. That mini you link to is interesting, it features a mixture of NMM and actual reflective surfaces which I personally think is a no-no.

 

[Wren]

It often helps things read as shiny to the viewer if you have dark shadows and bright highlights in close juxtaposition. On the mini that you linked to, where the blade meets the haft you can see the upward facing angle has a white hot spot directly above where the downward facing angle is almost black. There\'s a similar effect at the bottom of the blade where it forms a V. There the downward facing angle has been painted up fairly bright, reflecting the light that reflects from the ground as in Ritual\'s diagram, while the plane above it is painted fairly dark.

 

[Manus]

Thanks a lot guys (female as well as males in this guys) lots of interesting information and tips to try out.
I\'ll see if I can find time to give it a go in the weekend and then I\'ll probably have some more questions

 

[arogers907]

You\'ve already got great advice from some of the best painters. I\'d throw in one more tip (or encouragement maybe?), though.

Dive in and do a finish a couple minis with it. Don\'t stress over it too much. I think NMM seems pretty daunting until you actually complete a model or two using the technique. After that it\'s just painting the little metal bits. =P

G\'luck and post pics!

 

[Manus]

Originally posted by arogers907
You\'ve already got great advice from some of the best painters. I\'d throw in one more tip (or encouragement maybe?), though.

One of my first thoughts was actually - \"that brought out the heavy cavalry\" lol

- and I\'m always more than happy to hear what people have to say - thanks again all