Steel non metallic metal with contrast paints

Hi all,

After I posted my contrast nmm gold tutorial recently I had a few people asking for a steel tutorial using the same contrast technique.
So, being the nice guy that I am here it is! 🙂

Here are the stages I used-

1. Undercoat grey seer spray.

2. Place initial light reflections with space wolves grey. (Try not to make these too regular)

3. Inside the first stage reflections I used gryph charger grey to darken the area.

4. I repeated the process with basilicanum grey.

5. Black templar was then used as a final shade in the darkest areas of the blade.

6. I then used grey seer base paint as a thin glaze to soften the gradient between stages.

7. I wasn't happy with the blend at this point so I tried out apothecary white as a glaze to smooth the transitions and it worked great.

8. Pure white was then used as a thin glaze inside the lightest reflections on the blade.

9. Then I used pure white as a sharp line highlight to define the blade and add hot spot reflections and I also went back with a little black Templar to deepen some shading.
You could finish at this stage if you wish but the next stage shows what more can be added.

10. With the blade complete I wanted to add some colour to it. Steel and silver reflect their environment so it's nice to keep that in mind.
I decided to add some gold reflections to the bottom of the blade with nazdreg yellow (imagine it's next to a gold leg). I also added some blue reflections with Aethematic blue to give it a daytime feel.
This stage isn't usually done much with nmm gold do it's fun to do with steel as it can set the scene for your miniature.

I hope you like and you find it useful!

Cheers all! Daz

Contrast paints skin tutorial

I had a couple of hours to kill this morning so I thought I'd do another contrast paints tutorial.
I wanted to see how easy and fast it would be to achieve a decent skin tone as its always a part of a mini that can cause problems.

Here are the stages I used-

1. Over an undercoat of wraithbone spray I applied a 50/50 mix of darkoath flesh and contrast medium.

2. I then shaded in select areas with pure darkoath flesh.

3. I repeated this process with fyreslayer flesh focusing more on the deeper recesses.

4. Then with pure cygor brown I picked out the deepest areas such as the eyes, mouth and ears.

5. The entire face then got a glaze of 50/50 mix skeleton horde and contrast medium.

6. I then washed around the nose, lip and cheeks with an equal parts mix of flesh tearers red, fyreslayer flesh and contrast medium.
At this point I also washed a small amount of space wolves grey around the eyes.

7. I then highlighted the face with wraithbone base paint. I did this in about 3 thin layers.

8. Pure white was then used to pick out the very edge and define the face.

9. I used a little basilicanum grey to define the eyes before painting them and finishing the hair.

There you go! As with the nmm tutorial I did this technique is faster than regular painting and I think it gave a good result.
This way of painting skin isn't that different to what I'd normally do but it takes the hassle out of trying to lay down a smooth basecoat.

I'm thinking of doing a steel nmm tutorial next as it was a popular request last time.

Cheers! Daz