Thursday 13 February 2014

NMM Colour Palettes

I don't suppose it's escaped anyone's notice that all my recent projects have featured quite a lot of Non Metalic Metal (NMM) painting effects. 
I've already posted some step-by-step guides on this subject for my Scourge and Tomb King minis. 

Painting NMM armour - an illustrated guide. 

Coping with NMM Copper - an illustrated painting guide. 

The colour paletes below were put together after my recent experience painting the NMM on Chee-Chee and they incorporate some of the new colours from Games Workshop. I hope they are useful.
All of my NMM is highlighted with ivory. Keep white to an absolute minimum and use it only for the smallest & most extreme highlights to give your NMM a glint.



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Copper
Base colour: Mournfang Brown/Ratskin Flesh mix
Shade: Rhinox Hide
Mid tone: Ratskin Flesh
Highlight: Valejo Ivory

The key colour for the copper is Ratskin Flesh. I like my copper to have a pinkish tinge to it and Ratskin Flesh gives me exactly what I’m looking for.



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Gold/Brass
Base colour: Mournfang Brown/Iyanden Darksun mix
Shade: Rhinox Hide
Mid tone: Iyanden Darksun
Highlight: Valejo Ivory

For the mid tones pick a muted yellow ochre and avoid too bright a golden yellow colour. I get a more pleasing (to me) result in all my NMM if I keep to a muted palette and steer clear of bright/saturated colours in the mix.



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Bronze
Base colour: Mournfang Brown
Shade: Rhinox Hide
Mid tone: Iyanden Darksun
Highlight: Valejo Ivory

This uses the same colours as the gold but mixed to create a muted & darker effect. The mid tones use a lot more Mournfang Brown in proportion to the Iyanden Darksun. I wanted my bronze to have a dark patina so I restrict the brighter areas to where the metal would be polished by wear & tear.



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Iron/dark steel
I’ve used a conventional mix of cool greys but the addition of a little Thunderhawk Blue really gives the colour a lift.



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Verdigris
The idea is to create a stained look with tidemarks left behind as the paint dries. The exact opposite of what you would normally do when applying a wash!
I’ve used a dilute mix of Ivory and Hawk Turquoise applied as a wash and allowed to pool where you want the verdigris. As the wash begins to dry dab in a little more of the un-mixed but diluted ivory & turquoise. The colours will run into each other and partly blend as they dry. Once dry repeat until you like the look of it.

3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and tips for painting these wonderful NMM. It's very helpful :)

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  2. Great article. I'll b referencing it quite a bit as I head into a new project - Dark Eldar based of the color pallet from Brom's work for the old DnD Dark Sun supplement. Though one thing I notice is the bronze shading isn't as dark as you often see on old worn bronze statues and such. Was that a choice based on working with a smaller scale?

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  3. My inspiration was indeed old bronze statues but I figured that the fist would get a lot of wear and tear and so it would be more polished (by use) and worn than a statue.

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