Tips for gold NMM

[Sblendour]

Hello all, excited to finally getting around to joining CMON and making my first post I am a relatively new painter, been about 6 months now, and trying my hand at some more advanced techniques to push myself to keep learning.

I am currently working on a Stormcast Eternal Liberator. It's my first attempt at NMM and I've been following along with the very inspiring Painting Buddha tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VepXVggrfiE

The colours I am using, which I mix into a gradient on the wet palette, are the following (from shade to highlight): German camo brown, Armor brown, Balor brown (as the midtone), Yellow Ochre, and Off white.

So far I have reasonable success with short blends when it comes to smaller areas that I can cover most of the surfice with the side of the brush. I am able to gradually build up the layers with perpendicular strokes. However, when it comes to large, curved surfaces, like the thigh armor (see pic A, **these are screen shots from the tutorial video just to illustrate), I am not able to cover the entire length with one stroke and thus getting more abrupt transitions between stroke as I try to line them up.

View attachment 53142

To overcome this, at first I was trying to slowly blend with small parallel brush strokes instead (see pic B). This worked well in the past for soft objects like cloth, while also adding some nice texture, although having that sort of interlaced line pattern for NMM just doesn't fit.

More recently, what I have been trying are cross-hatches (see pic C). I find it better than just the straight lines, but it's still not ideal for getting short enough of blends for a smooth transition. Plus it's very time consuming.

I am wondering now if I could try making glazes again with perpendicular brush strokes (see pic D). It's overall much faster but then prone to those dreadful "coffee stains". I realize those can be feathered out with a damp clean brush; however, I am slow at switching when it comes to 2-brush blending and the paint has usually already dried, causing said stains. I was thinking my other alternative would be licking my brush to clean it and then feathering, but I am trying hard not to succumb to that

When I watch Ben do this (on a smaller surface though), for instance between 14:00-15:00 in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChGgM0aF3UU&t=13m56s, he is able to create blends so incredibly fast. At some points, it looks like he's just push-pulling vigorously and then right after there's a nice transition that magically appears! I guess that's the kind of brush control a master gets after so many years of practice >.<. From what I notice, he often glazes perpendicular and I'm trying to achieve similar results if possible.

I've probably spent around 15-20 hours playing around and restarting with different techniques but I can't seem to figure it out. It's starting to get more frustrating than fun. Ugh. Again, the smaller areas like around the feet, knee, and waist I find are quite straightforward. It's the fatter areas that are problematic because uneven streaks start becoming more apparent.
I realize NMM requires lots of patience and I am more than willing to put in the time and effort it takes to get better at it. Would love some advice and tips on how to keep progressing.

Much appreciated.

 

[Sblendour]

http://imgur.com/a/1f62L

Oops, here are the pictures again. I tried editing the post to insert them but it wasn't working

 

[MAXXxxx]

could you show the mini *you* paint? Seeing it would help a lot more than pics from Ben's video.

until then based on the description:
- balor brown may be a bit too brown and not enough orange/yellow for the gold.
- 2 brush blending could work for you. Worst case add a bit of retarder to make the paint dry slower.
- don't worry about the time... could take a lot more than 20 hours to get the NMM you'll like. A member here wanted to improve his NMM, took about a year or 2 to get to the level he was satisfied with it.

 

[Sblendour]

Thanks for the reply Maxx

I wanted a gold look that was a bit darker, but once I put down a few basecoats I was thinking the same thing about the Balor brown. If I were to do it again I think I would use Scrofulous brown, as suggested in the videos, which is more yellow/orange.

Retarder (and also glaze medium?) are things I am interested in but never used before. Will have to add it to the 'to-try' list.

Here are some WIP pictures:
View attachment 53194

View attachment 53195

View attachment 53197
Above on the left leg, I tried to doing blends with parallel strokes. The problem with this is you can clearly see the jagged, uneven edges between transitions. I'm thinking either I need to make the blends shorter, make the changes in colour more subtle, and/or change up the brush technique?

View attachment 53198
For right leg this time, I had first done the parallel strokes as with the left leg, but once getting into the shade areas, I switched to perpendicular strokes to try and smoothen things out with continuous lines. I think it's an improvement slightly but still not quite smooth. I also pointed out one of those damn stains which I'll have to go back and fix. I think at least half of my time is spent trying to clean them up.

Thoughts?

 

[AndyG]

Push the contrast more and glaze it smooths out the transitions is my advice.

 

[stefanhws]

With NMM the problem is to get a real smal highligt in a very bright color or white.
How i do it:
I start with the a middle tone as a base coat and blend down the shadows.
Then I start to blend up to the high lights like you did.
But then I stop to blend the high lights before I should paint the real bright color layers and paint a bigger long white line where the maximim light should be.
Then I start carefuly to blend down and soft the edges of the line. Using the last bright colour I stoped with the highlight blending.
Sometomes some new edges apear in the middletone blending but becuase the area is bigger it is easier to soft out the edges.
The advantage you can blend without parallel strokes like you did and if you are carefuly blend and neat the edges of the white line a very smal realy bright line or spot in case you do it on a sphere stays where the maximum light should be.

Hope my explanation make some sense.

Cheers
Stefan

 

[Sblendour]

I do find that that blending down shades is more forgiving than blending up to highlights, especially when it comes to then softening out the transitions after with a glaze. Thanks Stefan, will give it a shot on the larger areas.

In terms of white, I've been trying to find a good one for highlighting. I have off-white and Menoth white, although in the end I settled for just mixing pure white with small amounts of yellow. Always hard to get a good white colour without it being slightly grainy in appearance. But like you said getting that final spot or line with maximum lighting should really help in bringing out the contrast. Still need to pick up a white ivory eventually.

 

[MAXXxxx]

I think it looks ok, you just need a few thin glazes to make the steps / brushmarks less visible.

To avoid the stain make sure that you don't let the thin paint pool on the surface.
Another small trick: wet the surface with water, paint in your highlight, because of the wet surface it won't dry as fast, so you hace time to rinse the brush and feather the edge out.

off-white without being grainy: as you already wrote: VMC-Ivory. A really great color to pick up.
retarder: yeah, Vallejo glaze medium has some of it in it too. Then again sometimes the slower drying time can work against you. Like starting to paint the surface, but it's not really set, so you tear up the previous layer(s) ruining your work.