NMM Progress – I’m pleased!

Anyone following the blog knows I’ve already finished the NMM on one of my SCE models (you can see him here) I picked up as an Underworlds gang. Here he is for reference:

Not bad but could be better…

The blends got better and the finish smoother from the chest plates (terrible, the first part I painted) to the knee pads and feet (much better, the last parts I painted). It’s not bad for a restart in NMM. I’m working with a limited paint pallet at the moment (partly because of the virus lockdown but mainly because I’m starting hobbying again from scratch. It’s a long story which is here if you’re interested). That’s the excuse I made for the derpy colours I used on this dude.

Enter the Komet…

But actually, after reviewing the Ben Komets Painting Buddha SCE (you can find more about him and that here) I realised that I have all of the colours I need for a much cooler (in all senses of the word) gold. I currently own the following paints:

Vallejo Model white
Vallejo Model Black
Averland Sunset (Citadel)
Balor Brown (Citadel)
Mournfang Brown (Citadel)
Rhinox Hide (Citadel)
Screaming Skull (Citadel)

To paint the bright yellow guy I used a base of Averland Sunset, a wet blend highlight of Screaming Skull and a glaze shading of Mournfang Brown. After trying a few recipes I came up with a much better base colour for the gold, a mixture of Balor Brown, Black and Mournfang Brown. I also started from a black undercoat. This is what it looked like:

Putting it all together

The next two steps were the same actually, a wet blend highlight of Screaming Skull (repeated three times to make sure it’s super smooth) then a glazed shade of Mournfang brown. However if you remember the first gold guy, the shadows were too red and there wasn’t enough contrast. So I added a further stage with this second model, a second glazed shade of Mournfang Brown mixed with Black. Once all of the steps are done on all of the gold, it looks like this:

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I think it’s an improvement. Here’s a direct comparison:

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I’m not saying one is better than the other here but the one on the left is definitely better! The progression, not just in the colour shoice but in the quality of the blends is really marked. I think that’s partly because I’m getting my mojo back but also partly because of colour choice making the transitions look better. Either way, I’ll take it and this is my new ‘go to,’ recipe for NMM gold.

So I’ve got one more mini left to do the NMM on and then I’m out of gold to paint and no new paints to start any other parts of the model. I’ve toyed with the ides of restarting the yellow gold dude but I won’t. I’ll keep these guys in whatever state they end up in as they represent a new beginning for me and that’s what is really important right now.

Comments and queries always welcome!