Tau SENMM stealthsuit WIP- help!

EricDotCom

New member
I am painting a stealthsuit at the moment, but the senmm is apparently wrong on the flat panels as they shouldn\'t have horizon lines. I also missed a part on the right shoulder pad. Anyway, how would i fix this and the effect on the torso/legs?

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thanks.
 

EricDotCom

New member
the main thing is, if something is pointing up or down at a major angle, will it only reflect either the sky or ground. so on his right shoulder pad, would the whole thing just be reflecting the sky instead of having a horizon line?

Only if they are close to level (horizontal) do they show the horizon line.

Also, do you suggest i add light greys into the earth and sky reflections to mimick that example battlesuit?
 

Thunderhawker

New member
This is where artistic license becomes a big factor. What folks would see in chrome would depend strongly on the angle at which they were viewing it. While it may be true that you would only see sky or earth, you may want to bend the fabric of reality a bit and cheat a bit.
 

mattrock

New member
actually, it\'s a pretty good start.

My suggestions:

1.) lighten up the whole thing. The browns should come up a good bit lighter the closer they get to the ground and the white above the horizon should be extended with just a hint of blue for most of the way up a vertical face. On a horizontal face (like the top of the head) you\'d see pretty much only blue and not much white at all (really only on the edges of plates).

2.) The legs are cylindrical and thus would not have horizontal horizon lines, but rather vertical, running their length with the brownish on the inside of each leg as it\'s 90 degree is to the ground.

3. Any thing that faces up or down to a greater than 30 degree or so arc should reflect only sky or only earth. For example, pretty much the whole large face of the gun on the right arm would reflect only sky along with the top edge of the gun. The bottom edge and inside face would reflect only earth, so no need to worry too much about horizon lines there. Again, brown should be lighter the closer to the ground and the blue should be lighter the further you get from the sky.

4.) Finally, add a pure white highlight to the top edges of the plates (ie on the right shoulder) and determine your light source. When you know where your light source is coming from, you need one pure white dot to represent it in the blue on each panel that it\'d hit. That last part is optional but can help a good bit.

Hope that\'s helpful :)
 

EricDotCom

New member
Im not following you on #2, isn\'t a horizon line defined as being horizontal? Can you explain #2 a bit more please?

Also, the gun is just nmm, not senmm so i\'d like to ignore it.

On the right shoulder pad, should it be just reflecting sky (not sky and earth)
 

mattrock

New member
Originally posted by EricDotCom
Im not following you on #2, isn\'t a horizon line defined as being horizontal? Can you explain #2 a bit more please?

Also, the gun is just nmm, not senmm so i\'d like to ignore it.

On the right shoulder pad, should it be just reflecting sky (not sky and earth)

To answer your first question...one would think so, but no. Arjay did an emperor\'s champ model a while back that illustrates what I\'m talking about. Check on the legs on this model. Link

He did a butt kicking job on that by the way. One of the best I\'ve seen ever. His gallery on his website is chock full of good examples of SENMM if you are interested in checking it out.

To your second question: I\'m tempted to say that you have done it pretty much right. There would be some horizon on those plates because of the fact that the plane goes perpindicular (sp?) to the horizon in places. Where I think they need to be fixed is that when I look at them from the angle of your bottom pic I shouldn\'t be able to see black lining. What is black in that pic should be pure white. Edge highlighting. If I were to look at the same pad from his left side I might see the black between the plates.

Let me know if I\'m making sense.
 

mattrock

New member
Here\'s another example of a vertical horizon on one of Arjay\'s minis. Check out the spikes on the back.



shadowwalker01.jpg
 

EricDotCom

New member
For the shoulder pad, those black lines should be there, as the pad is made up of different panels. Should i make the black less visible but still there?
 

mattrock

New member
yeah...I see what you mean there. It\'s tough to see some of the details and angles on the picture and I\'ve never painted one of these guys so I don\'t inherently know.

That said, what I\'d do is highlight the top edges of those plates in pure white and leave the black on the bottom edge of the plate above it. Does that make sense?
 
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