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So I bought this squad back in april the day it was released. Since that point I have been terrified to paint it. Its a culmination of my expectations for this squad being incredibly high and my lack of any NMM experience (I want this squad to be a centerpiece). I have barely began painting this figure and already I get the feeling im not doing something right. I am basically following the painting guide from the April 2010 White Dwarf (the one that covers the Sanguinor). Ive only put my second highlight on the character, but I just dont know if this is how its supposed to look at this stage.

Can someone who has experience with NMM give me some advice...does this look right at this early stage of the model? What recommendations do you have?

Any help would be appreciated!

At least my skull looks good, im incredibly proud of how its blended Also, since these pics were snapped (a few days ago), I managed to blend the feather shoulder plate and it looks fantastic! I have to take another pic to show it off....but seriously, I suck at NMM....help me

NMM scares me. Had two goes at it, sucked both times.
Good luck, keep this updated so I can see how it goes (And nice skull!)

I will keep the updates rolling as I make progress. What is difficult is visualizing the reflection of light. Also, I think my eyes send a signal to my brain that brown will not translate to gold, so I get discouraged about the colors and highlights.

Anyone else have any input?????

I could really use the help and advice!

Honestly mate, from the few times that I have painted entirely NMM models, they don't have the effect that you want until you are pretty much finished.

The brown will resemble a gold once you start getting into the bone layers. As for visualisation, put your lamp directly overhead of your model and look were the light hits it. Paint those as your final highlights and work up to them (some places are best highlighted for effect but you will figure it out)

Just keep at it, is the best advice to give, and the best advice you will get (not to sound condescending but practice does definitely make perfect)

You need to start in with the bleached bone and working the color up, I also used a wash of Dark Flesh in the recesses on mine, leaviathon purple and a very light wash of Sunburst. Remember, it needs to be looked at as a cohesive whole. It looks good so far but you have about 6 more layers/washes to do on it.

calypso2ts wrote:You need to start in with the bleached bone and working the color up, I also used a wash of Dark Flesh in the recesses on mine, leaviathon purple and a very light wash of Sunburst. Remember, it needs to be looked at as a cohesive whole. It looks good so far but you have about 6 more layers/washes to do on it.

thanks for the advice. I know I should have added more layers to it before I posted the pics, but I just wanted to get some feedback from people who have done NMM and see if their characters look like this after a few coats. I am following the color key verbatim from the April edition of White Dwarf, it does require an application of dark flesh into the recesses and thinned down purple, just havent gotten that far. I will work on it over the next few days and post some more pics to see if im going in the right direction still.

The problem I have is that when I highlight, I have the tendency to highlight from both sides until the brightest point meets in the middle. Ive noticed on NMM thats not always the case and that people tend to paint a bright spot right next to a dark spot. guess thats where im going to struggle. Also, the backpack on the san guard just seem really awkward to try to do NMM on, so I have no clue what to do with it yet

You need to identify a light source for the backpack and then shade is appropraitely. I used the guide form WD for my first, but I swapped out snakebite for...hmm, what was it? Either way it made it look more coppery than gold...

I am by no means a pro-painter, and I have never attempted NNM.


That being said, I'd assume the constant of "the only way to learn it is to do it" will hold true! To my layman's eye that model looks quite good so far. I'd say just do your best on a test model, then strip that slutbitch with simple green.

You'll have a full model's worth of practice and you can bang out assembly lined paint after that.

Seriously, I think the color differentiation between the various parts on that armor is amazing so far.

calypso2ts wrote:You need to identify a light source for the backpack and then shade is appropraitely. I used the guide form WD for my first, but I swapped out snakebite for...hmm, what was it? Either way it made it look more coppery than gold...

do you have any pics of your finished work that you could post?


@agroszkiewicz : thanks. Yeah i would imagine that will be the most common response is to practice. I really should practice on another marine, but I feel like its a waist of time to fiddle with a practice marine...I wish I had more time to experiment on trial characters.

i will continue my work and then post some updated pics