DanMayhem's TMM Studies

[DanMayhem]

I've been painting for nearly a year now, but I've never been happy with the TMM work I've done. This community has been really helpful in giving advice on some other pieces I've done, so I decided to pick out a handful of mini's with a lot metal on them, and put up a WIP. Hopefully, by the time I'm done I'll be much better.

 

The finalists are:

From left to right

- 77055 - Anval Thricedamned, Evil Warrior

- 77094 - Trista, the White Wolf

- 77168 - Battleguard Golem

- 77023 - Barnabus, Human Warrior

- 77058 - Almaran the Gold, Paladin

 

I've started prepping Almaran, hopefully I'll get some time to paint this weekend and be able to get some pictures up.

 

References:

http://mainlymedieval.com/ozpainters/viewtopic.php?t=878

http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1232-painting-metallics

http://monkeyman7x.com/articles/metals-silver/

 

[edit 5/16/2014: added references]

Edited May 16, 2014 by DanMayhem

[Willen]

Waiting to see what you do. I will admit I like the shine of metal, but the "look" of NMM, so I am trying hard to get nice shades and colors into metals. I will provide all the tips I can here :)

[lexomatic]

I've found copying the highlights and shadows that other people have painted super helpful. Love the inspiration gallery and these forums for that.

[DanMayhem]

Not much progress today - I had a friend in form out-of-town. Also - I'm starting with Barnabas, not Almaran.

 

Anyway, her took a hot bath, then a cold bath, then a soapy bath. Then I got him covered in grey liner.

 

My normal photo set up relies on sunlight, so I just took a quick photo at my desk... and I can see that missed a mold line.

 

 

I've been looking at all the photos of this mini that I can find (good advice, lexomatic). and I'm thinking I'm going to mostly for a well-maintained steel look, with some gold accent pieces (e.g. helmet, gauntlets, kneepads).

[LittleBluberry]

Great idea for a thread!  I'll be following this one, I've painted Trista and the golem and I'd love to get tips on how to improve.  Perhaps I'll even be motivated to follow along! 

[falstius]

Good luck, I'm tempted to give up on metallics and just do NMM, hopefully you'll have better results.

[wolfie907]

tmm wth is that?

[Bane Of Humanity]

tmm wth is that?

I think but Im not sure....It means True Metallic Metal....which is where you do the same technique as Non Metallic metal but you use metallics instead...

 

I mean I heard the term before but not often.  could be wrong though so...

[Willen]

TMM = True Metallic Metallics, as BoH said above.

 

Basically, the idea is that we can do metallics in a way that takes advantage not only of the color shift (from light to dark, like in NMM) but also the shine. The method is to check for shadows like for NMM, and use metallic paint in places where the shine helps empathise the metallic part of the piece.

 

For example, if you "just" paint a sword in metallic paint, then for example you will get shiny parts where light would not really hit (like, in all down-facing faces). In NMM you would paint those parts black, or very very dark. In TMM, you also need to wash over the metallic with a very dark color to dull to zero, or close to zero, the shine of the metallic paint.

 

You also typically glaze the metallic color with nuances of color, to bring up reflections, and use different "shades" of metallics to simulate more light/less light, like using a dark metallic for faces pointing to the side, and a bright silver met for faces upwards. 

 

I just like the effect very much, the result is more friendly to different angles than NMM since the actual metallic paint helps with the shine, and it looks less "flat" to me than NMM. But of course, it is a matter of taste.

[wolfie907]

cool thanks

[ShadowRaven]

it's a neat technique, which I am still having troubles with myself

[DanMayhem]

Here's the day's progress. I basically just roughed in most of the base coat. This has been my approach recently: dark underpaint in recess and areas where I may want lining (I did the whole model in this case, because I wasn't sure how the metallic paints would take to bones). Then block in areas of color letting the underpainting show through as lining. Then evaluate the mini to make sure I'm happy with the colors, etc. (this is where I am now). Next I'll go over the whole model and tidy everything up. 

 

I painted some things as metal, that I'm pretty sure the sculptor didn't intend to be metal in the interest of the exercise.

 

 

Photography is going to be tricky on these guys...

 

I've never tried NMM. I just bought some metallic paints when I first started because I didn't know what NMM was. Since then I've always just used metallic paints because I had them. 

 

 

[DanMayhem]

Not much to show in this update - and my lighting wasn't great again. I guess I need to spend some time in the Shutterbug forum  .

 

Anyway, this is mostly just showing some touch ups I did on the base coat. I also applied a wash to the leather and some highlights to the red. Paints used so far are:

Golden Shadow (for his hands)

Oiled Leather (for scabbard, belt, pouches, etc)

Carnage Red (for non-metal garments)

Grey Liner (undercoat and lining)

Vallejo Model Air Steel & Vallejo Model Air Gold for the metallics

Secret Weapon Ruby Wash on leather.

 

I'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow. I've also started shading the steel, and I'll get some pics of that.

 

[DanMayhem]

I may have bitten off more than I can chew with this project. I began by applying a very thin green-blue wash to the steel, followed by a darker blue wash, and finally a wash made with blue liner. The first two washes didn't seem to do much at all (which I think was the goal) but the last one turned everything blue (the sword in particular is in bad shape).

 

 

At this point I got really frustrated and I start building this (unfinished) for a game I've got coming up:

 

 

I'm not sure what my next step is the thought of starting from scratch is a little unpleasant, but I'm not sure how to "fix" him otherwise. And I think I I just continue I'll never be happy with the result. Another part of me thinks I should set him aside and pick up the golem, as the golem seems to have a fewer fiddly bits, and it may be a little easier to get a good result.

[Darkmeer]

Liking the town square you've got going there. 

 

Regarding the swordsman:  Reclaim some of the blue areas with your mid-high tone for the metals.  I do shaded metallics, and that's what I do.  I shade down (usually messing something up along the way) and then bring it back up with my mid-tone, eliminating where I don't want my shade tone to be.

 

Hope that helps.