Are you one of those people who would really like to know how to paint the non metallic metal style? Well then you have come to the right place!!
The metal will come for YOU!
Checkout this step by step tutorial on how to paint NMM brought to us by Joshua Dunkerly of Dark Matter Designs.
For this demonstration I will be showing you how to do a blue nmm, but you can use this same process for any number of colors.
To start with you will want to go ahead and basecoat the model. I basecoated mine in Macragge blue as this is a really dark blue. Make sure whatever your base color is that it is as dark as you can get it!! The main idea with nmm is to go from shadow to light in all areas.
After you lay down your basecoat, or before if you want to. Make sure you take a picture in relation to where the light is. This will give you a real good Idea of where the light bounces. you can also turn the photo into greyscale which makes the light bounce even more apparent.
Ive circled the light on the legs to show you what your looking for!!
Once your done mapping out where your light will go, go ahead and put a layer of nuln oil over the whole model. This is to darken your main color even more and give it extra shadowing.
Now for this next step, that light bounce photo is important. Go around the model and rehighlight all the areas that the light hits with macragge blue. In this step you can be quite generous as this is still mainly your base color. Remember to leave the nuln oil in all the creases and anywhere the light doesnt hit.
For this next step you will want to get yourself a wet pallet, or make one. You can make one easily with a small tray or bowl, wet a paper towel place it in the bowl then put a piece of wax paper over the paper towel. The wax paper will allow water through but not the paint keeping your paint a good wet balance. Once you have a wet pallet make yourself a mix of 60/40 Macragge/Altioc and rehighlight all the areas you highlighted macragge leaving just a slight edge of macragge showing. Now do a 40/60 mix of Macragge/Altioc and do the process again now leaving just the edge of the 60/40 mix showing. Then do one more layer with just Altioc.
After that we are going to be doing the same thing again but from Altioc up to Teclis. So this time start with a wet pallet mix of 60/40 Altioc/teclis, layer leaving just the edge of the altioc. Then put down another layer using a 40/60 mix of Altioc/Teclis. And lastly your layer of just Teclis remember to leave each previous layer just showing. At this point you can start to see the light bounce showing in the model so I will start showing both sides!!
This next step is probably the slowest and hardest part but its what starts to make everything pop. Use lorthern blue or if your doing another color use the highest, or brightest color you can for this step. Now go ahead and edge highlight the whole model using this color. Also put just a small layer of it over all the spots you already highlighted for light bounce.
Lastly you will want to re edge all the highest points with pure white. I use white scar. Just go around the model and hit all the highest points, edges, and lines with white. for this step dont rehighlight the whole edge just the highest points.
Well thats it for how to do nmm. The rest is just finishing the rest of the model which causes the metal to be framed in. Once your done the rest of the model, the metal should look like real metal. Dont worry if it doesnt always look perfect before the models complete as sometimes it doesnt look right until the rest of the works done. I will show some examples of this model farther along as well as a shot of a completed model using this same technique!!
Alrighty well thats all I have for you now hobbiholics. So until next time, this is Joshua Dunkerly signing off and saying keep painting and as always have fun!!
