Captain Karlaen Kitbash - Part V

Back to it.

I somehow managed to get a fair amount done on Captain Karlaen recently, although most of that will be revealed later on the front. I'm still focusing on NMM techniques, and learning quite a lot in the process; I haven't cracked cubes yet, but I'm improving on other shapes.

The gold didn't really sit with the vision of what I wanted (it's too yellow) and so I experimented with something else on the hammer. I tried more of a white-gold, but in all honesty it didn't turn out at all. I dislike it so much that I'm not even going to write down the paints used - it's simply too beige, too sandy, and so I'll go back to the prior gold colouring for the rest: the right shoulder obviously need completing, along with the Iron Halo, along with a few odds and ends. Still, when painting the wing shape on the hammer I tried to give more contrast with a darker red in the shadows. This might work if I nudged into more ochre colours, something between yellow and brown and only moving to beige on the brightest reflection points. One mistake I did correct on the fly was when I realised I was painting the red as normal volume highlights without taking into account the angle; the deeper shadows would come from ground bounce light, and given the angle of the hammer this means they spread into the outer areas of each "feather". It's an interesting effect in the end and worth that realisation even if I don't like the overall colouring.

Over the rest of the hammer I stuck mostly to an dark iron / steel, borrowing mostly from the recipe used on Azrakh, but swapping a few colours around as I felt like it. I even tried Barak-Nar Burgundy mixed with the black, but subtle as I tried, the warm colour stood out too much.

Cylindrical shapes are easy when it comes to reflection points. It's mostly a brighter line down the length of the cylinder, some brighter does on the edges at either end. Cubes though, they're harder to make interesting. If they're highly reflective they simply act as mirrors, but with the environment missing then it's hard to show that. I settled for some kind of banding, which actually works better on swords. In future I might simply paint it a single gradient for the most part, or perhaps be a lot more subtle in the gradients, with only contrasting value jumps for the edges and corners.

One of the other techniques I was trying was really to build up highlights from a mid-tone, and then shade down from that same mid-tone. This worked. NMM isn't just about where to highlight, but where to add shadow and darker areas too, and both of these are easier from the mid-tone rather than trying to build up from darkest to brightest. White dots help sell the effect too.

I still don't really like NMM in general for miniatures, but it does work if done properly. It's just very difficult to do properly such that it works from multiple viewing angles. The shoulders don't do this, which is why I stopped. The left one looks amazing from the top, but not as nice from the front or side. The haft actually takes this into account and I have multiple reflection lines with a darker area between, allowing for the effect to be seen from multiple angles. the storm bolter has this slightly, but that's only really of interest when viewed from a certain angle anyway. The shoulders I don't think will work as I originally intended, but at least I'm learning why. I understand the advice from Darren Latham when he remarked in a blog post somewhere to pretend there are four light sources, one in each corner of a square above the model. It's what makes his style work on 3d pieces.

Ultimately I understand that NMM offers contrast and definition, which are critically important for miniature painting, but I also think it's not quite as easy as that. It will look nice in photos - but this isn't a two dimensional medium and that needs to be taken into account. I also like to play with the finish, from matt, to satin, to gloss. I'm convinced that mastering metallics hasn't fully been realised yet, that contrast is still possible with them, and definition. On that note I have two sets of Vallejo's TMM range, so I'll see how that goes on another model.

-- silly painter