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Kind of at a halt.
Looking at the NMM chrome attempt kinda set me back. I feel its BAD.
Until I can figure it out instead of constantly making it worse.

any tips??

I’ve never tried NMM, so can’t offer any technical help here.

I get the impression of reflections, but not the “shiny” you want from NMM. Maybe keep going and get up to some sharp highlights?

Fun looking model. Love the colors!

Yeah, I think it's a brush issue so today I'm going to grab some good 0's so I have a fine tip. And maybe a transparent white to help?
I watched so many videos on nmm but I just can't replicate it.

I think I will have to paint a few other stormcasts for practice. Vindicators, vanquishers, or the leader prosecutor. Is the main ? Now.

Thank you!!

Alright so I messed around a little before we went out to get some brushes and I came back with a boat ,milliput ,ivory Vallejo, and brushes so I'd say success. But this is where I'm at after some correction and horizon detail. Wdyt?

I think you are in a good place, conceptually. You know how you want it to look, and the process of getting there. One thing fighting you may be that your paint doesn't seem thin enough. Could also have been the primer, because that happens, too. But there's getting to be some texture building up, and chrome (or any NMM, really) relies a lot on smoothness to help keep up the illusion.

All that aside, I like the look you have going. The pink/purple is a great color, and I like how the sword is progressing. Keep it up!

Getting much stronger chrome vibes from the last pic. I have no idea what you are doing, but you are doing it in the right direction!

 youwashock wrote:
I think you are in a good place, conceptually. You know how you want it to look, and the process of getting there. One thing fighting you may be that your paint doesn't seem thin enough. Could also have been the primer, because that happens, too. But there's getting to be some texture building up, and chrome (or any NMM, really) relies a lot on smoothness to help keep up the illusion.

All that aside, I like the look you have going. The pink/purple is a great color, and I like how the sword is progressing. Keep it up!

Yeah to be honest these were primed about 4 months ago and I may have used rustoleum lol now that you mention it the primer was pretty dusty on it maybe I'll just run a quick sand on it. Or figure something out. I believe I'm getting my paint thin enough. I've just also ran into issues with acrylpro titanium white and that's that it gets all chalky. Good learning experience, I do have a spare her in the closet.so finish this one and apply techniques to the other.


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 Nevelon wrote:
Getting much stronger chrome vibes from the last pic. I have no idea what you are doing, but you are doing it in the right direction!

Thank you, sometimes I feel like I'd be better off throwing it across the room sometimes. And zumikito says it's layers, layer, layer, layer lol. Until I see it. But I got a very good detail brush so that should help a lot.

I think your second pass at the NMM chrome looks miles better. Just remember that perfection comes with practice. Mastery is only the result of perseverance in the face of failure. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. We all become great through the work we do and your dedication to the craft of the hobby will pay off. I'm proud of the work you are doing and you should be, too.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your journey. Keep it up!

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
I think your second pass at the NMM chrome looks miles better. Just remember that perfection comes with practice. Mastery is only the result of perseverance in the face of failure. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. We all become great through the work we do and your dedication to the craft of the hobby will pay off. I'm proud of the work you are doing and you should be, too.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your journey. Keep it up!

Whoah! Thank you so much!! I appreciate that. Been chatting with some really good painters and I made a light box and a updated photo of some work I put in yesterday 9.29.24

I plan on working more on it today but my add caused me to start kavalos death riders lol

 Nevelon wrote:
Getting much stronger chrome vibes from the last pic. I have no idea what you are doing, but you are doing it in the right direction!

Here's the lightbox I made as well nev

Nice! Not that your prior pics were bad. But when you want feedback for as finicky a technique as NMM, better pictures are always a good thing!

 Nevelon wrote:
Nice! Not that your prior pics were bad.

Ahhh, you don't have to lie! I see a dramatic improvement with the lightbox. It's amazing. Thank you so much for that advice it's easily 100x better now.

Gost_engineer wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:
Nice! Not that your prior pics were bad.

Ahhh, you don't have to lie! I see a dramatic improvement with the lightbox. It's amazing. Thank you so much for that advice it's easily 100x better now.

Don’t sell yourself short. While you might be getting better pics now, we could at least see what you were posting before. At worst, they were mediocre, amd a few steps above “bad”

Reasonably lit, not fuzzy/blurred, decently framed. It could be sooooo much worse.

Nevelon wrote:

Don’t sell yourself short. While you might be getting better pics now, we could at least see what you were posting before. At worst, they were mediocre, amd a few steps above “bad”

Reasonably lit, not fuzzy/blurred, decently framed. It could be sooooo much worse.

I'm sure that is true. I appreciate the tips and tricks! Quite the knowledgeable gent with this hobby stuff you are! I appreciate the gems of wisdom.

Way Better than doing it alone!

Update on chrome nightmare

Operation overpowering base is a go

Great work on the light box! Looks very handy!
Already replied to the photograph thread, but missed that box haha.

NMM is all about drama and light placement. But mostly about drama.
At first, ignore all smoothness and transitions and try to focus on contrast. Dark shadows, bright highlights.
For me, the problem is using too much "mid tones", making my NMM usually looking flat.

Tutorials are great and I recommend watching as many as you can, but there is no shortcut for practicing.
It will take time. Do not be discouraged and keep on practicing. You are definitely on the right track!

I'm loving the color scheme by the way!
And the base will be gorgeous!

 Ezki wrote:
Great work on the light box! Looks very handy!
Already replied to the photograph thread, but missed that box haha.

NMM is all about drama and light placement. But mostly about drama.
At first, ignore all smoothness and transitions and try to focus on contrast. Dark shadows, bright highlights.
For me, the problem is using too much "mid tones", making my NMM usually looking flat.

Tutorials are great and I recommend watching as many as you can, but there is no shortcut for practicing.
It will take time. Do not be discouraged and keep on practicing. You are definitely on the right track!

I'm loving the color scheme by the way!
And the base will be gorgeous!

Oh shoot!! That has to be it. I have way to much mid so highlights don't pop they just blend!!! I hope that's what you meant because that makes sense. The videos somehow seem to skip over the most important parts for me.

I think I also have a hard time glazing. I have no idea how much medium to use (water, I'm broke) so I feel I never really have control and I feel I mess around with it too much and cause it to clump together... so many poor habits created from painting in the mountains (nearest hobby shop is 40 min away and I can't really just sit there to get cc, so you guys are really helping I'll take all the cc)

I am having ALOT of fun with the base and molding. This one I'm trying to hide within a beautiful base. My priming on this model was so piss poor and by the time someone brought it up to me I was 14 hours in. So I normally (now) try and compliment my model with its base. But as I said I'm hiding this chunk within the scenery so no matter what. It's nice *shrug*

Any more tips would be absolutely pleasing

That's getting pretty epic.

 youwashock wrote:
That's getting pretty epic.

Why thank you. I really wanted to get more done but I'm waiting for glue to dry >.<

I placed the fiber water tutorial idea in the tutorials (was only able to find one that was all about leafs) if you wanted to know the basic idea.

Water is super hard.. I have a few more before and after photos but I didn't want to bomb the thread.

Here is an update as I wait for glue to dry :(

Starting to look mighty grand. Good job!
And don't worry about photo bombing. It's your thread, so post as many pictures as you like. The more the better


When it comes to glazing, water is fine! Water is what I usually use, as it's what I'm used to.
I have used different mediums as well, such as Citadel's Lahmian Medium, Vallejos / AK Interactives Matt medium etc. I still do on occasion, depending on what I want to achieve.
Using medium makes the paint easier to control, but I find that applying thin layers is easier with water. Your mileage may vary though.

When thinning, there is no magical ratio. One could say it's roughly one part paint, two to five parts water.
This all depends how you want to use glazing and to what end.
If you want to tint the color to another direction, apply multiple very thin layers to the whole area.
If you want to the blend colors together, I suggest first doing some rough layering. Then you can use glazing to ease the transitions and use a thicker mixture (more paint).

Before anything, glazing requires patience. A lot of it.
The thinner the paint, the more layers you need, ergo it will take more time.

A wet palette is pretty much a must! Otherwise the water will evaporate too quickly, making the paint too thick.

To sum up a few tips for glazing:

- Practice mixing the glazes with different ratios. Alternate the amount of water based on what you want to achieve
- Use a wet palette
- When applying the glaze, dry out your brush quite a bit. This sounds counter intuitive, but you do not want to pool the glaze over the model, or it will dry unevenly
- Move the bristles towards the area you want most of the color, such as the highest points of a cloth etc. If you want to cover the whole area, this is not that relevant
- Wait for the glaze to dry before going in for another layer


Hope this helps!

Ezki wrote:

When thinning, there is no magical ratio. One could say it's roughly one part paint, two to five parts water.


To sum up a few tips for glazing:

- Practice mixing the glazes with different ratios. Alternate the amount of water based on what you want to achieve
- Use a wet palette
- When applying the glaze, dry out your brush quite a bit. This sounds counter intuitive, but you do not want to pool the glaze over the model, or it will dry unevenly
- Move the bristles towards the area you want most of the color, such as the highest points of a cloth etc. If you want to cover the whole area, this is not that relevant
- Wait for the glaze to dry before going in for another layer


Hope this helps!

I think I get it now. So when I was making washes I was actually making good glazes. when I thought I was making glazes I was making things basecoats. And I believe I am inpatient so not waiting is causing my paint to clump. I am now seeing what my mistakes were. I was wondering what I was doing wrong. I thought it was the paints XD.

Oh yeah I have a wet pallette it's amazing. Got more practice to do and thankfully this months contest is giving me opportunity to practice some of my new techniques, even molding and sculpting is new to me as in this model and my prosecutors base were my first sculpts. And I feel I made a decent cape that I really want to pop with majenta and deep red.

Thank you for the tips as well as your time! It's not landing on deaf ears!! And thank you for the model compliments!

Doing another project for my neighbor once I get the arms and slaughterpriest. His whole spearhead and some judgments he has had laying around.

Always a good excuse to blow through some blood! What technicals do you enjoy most? I'm a blood 4 the blood god guy but I know people make some gnarly stuff!

The only technical paints I use are BftBG and the green and blue soulstone paints. Sometimes a nice gloss color helps a lot. Easy gems and lenses/glass.

BFTBG is a staple. I also like Nihilakh Oxide. Looking forward to the Chaos minis.

So he forgot the arms to 6 warriors and all his bloodcrushers.... soooooooo... I made tentacle arm things for the warriors and some resident evil weapon Arms on the bloodcrushers. Hope he likes!


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 youwashock wrote:
BFTBG is a staple. I also like Nihilakh Oxide. Looking forward to the Chaos minis.

I will look into oxide. Since these guys are supposably blessed by khorne I figured I would have their armor rusting from all the blood they bathe in. Bunch of hethens.


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 Nevelon wrote:
The only technical paints I use are BftBG and the green and blue soulstone paints. Sometimes a nice gloss color helps a lot. Easy gems and lenses/glass.

Ah! I will have to look into those soul stone paints. I really enjoy the tesseract glow, I wish they had the glow in all colors... because I'm lazy!!

Buttoning her up. Any tips? Want to finish this klozimoto strong. The prime job made me so sad but I can do it better a second way around once I build her again.

Looks like there should be some Norse metal playing in the background. Nice, vivid color!

The winged stormcast turned out great! The Khorne boys look good already, are the green bits sculpted or cast?

 gobert wrote:
The winged stormcast turned out great! The Khorne boys look good already, are the green bits sculpted or cast?

Sculpted... poorly I might add. I'm a master at the lumpy snake so I figured I'd make some lumpy tentacles and some t virus style spears! Thank you *bow

Absolutely, I painted this with some amon amarth
Inspiration! How did you know. I can't wait to get my water aos army, iron depth?, thier terrain is literally a giant ship and I'm going to literally make it into some viking death metal wreck


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 youwashock wrote:
Looks like there should be some Norse metal playing in the background. Nice, vivid color!

Haha I'll have to make a giant viking ship backdrop for my end presentation photo. And make a video with some amon amarth in the background!