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My metals up til now have been a little basic so I'm going to try an take it to the next level without biting off more than I can chew. Well, we've all seen the really nice NMN effects achieved by top class painters... but what happens when you can't pull it off just right. I mean some of us are good enough painters but we'll end up with a lovely grey or ochre that just doesn't look quite metal enough. So I've been thinking what if I tried using a metallic paint for a base colour but then applying some NMN style techniques.
These are painted with a thinned layer of Bright gold(coat d'arms) over snakebite leather. I mixed on a wash (for me about 70% water with a couple of drops of glaze medium) of scorched brown with a tiny dab of dark angels green and applied it all over (not too heavily). I then blocked in all the other colours before continuing the gold.


I thinned some black(50/50 with water and a drop or two of glaze medium) and applied in into the cracks. Then I started the shading with a glaze of about 50/50 brown and black. And this is the result so far:

Then plan is to grab some of the original bright gold colour with a touch of silver and start applying some highlights and lowlights and do a bit of neatening too. Obviously I plan on finishing off the wings, banner, gemstones, swords etc too.
Ok a bit wip and a bit experimental but let me know what you all think and if its working! Any advice is very welcome.

I think that looks awesome! I may have to try this technique out as well and see how well I can pull it off. It looks a hundred times better than my NMM Golds ever do. I just can't seem to get a good NMM gold no matter whose guides I follow.

These guys look wonderful though. It's not as overly metallic as true metals and it looks like it might actually BE NMM. Mission accomplished, I say.

Thanks for the encouraging remarks Jathom. Got some painting time last night (2hrs) so I've highlighted and touched up the gold a bit using a silver gold mix. I've done the gemstones and sword too, bar a gloss varnish which I'll add after I've matt varnished the whole lot. Still got to finish of the wings.


I would really appreciate some criticism/thoughts/advice on this. I'm calling the gold finished as I'm not sure what else could be done to improve it. I'll post pics with the wings done and the rest of the squad as I do them. If anyone has any thoughts on what should be written on the scroll-work that would be great too.

It looks more silver than gold, but it looks damn good.

The way I do gold is to dry brush bronze over a black undercoat making sure that I get an even coating, then a dry brush of a darkish gold and finish it with gold drybrush. That is the only way that I can get gold to look metal. If I just paint it on it just looks like plastic.

I like the look of the metallics on your guard. They look worn and weathers, exactly how jump pack troops should look. I really like the technique you have applied.

Thanks guys. I guess I'm pretty happy with the worn and weathered look for these guys so I'm going to stick with it for the rest of the squad. I might try some GK in the future and try for a more polished look. I've done the gold on the second guy of the squad so here he is.

Matrim wrote:It looks more silver than gold, but it looks damn good.

Looks completely silver to me. well done, but not gold.

The blue of the Axe really compliments the Bone wings and silver armour. they're sure to stand out!

awesome work man.

I got a whopping 5 and a half hours painting time yesterday so I got the gold done on the other three members of the squad and all the gemstones done. Yay! Obviously weapons, wings, etc still need finished. I'm hoping to get a bit of a blue glow done on the engines of the jump-packs too. I've taken the pics inside this time so they are a bit dark but some trace paper in front of my desk lamps has really helped take the glare off so the colour and contrast is a little better. Click on the squad to see bigger pic.

Ok got them all finished. Final pic in the showcase.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/370431.page#2832505