Highlighting and Nuln Oil Inquiry

[Aothaine]

Just curious if anyone has done highlighting then covered that highlighting with nuln oil to tone it down. If you have can you share photos? I'm trying to recreate this look.

 

 

If you look at the coloring the silver is quite dulled down. It is not super reflective, except maybe the helmet. The rest almost looks like matte grey. 

 

So, what I'm thinking about doing is instead of using metallics, I want to paint the armour brighter grays and then drop nuln oil on it. Then over over some of the really sharp edges with a light grey again. I want to go with a colder look so I'll be mixing some blues into the model as it will be on bases with snow. Going for the rocky snow look. The model will have a matte finish. 

 

Anyway, what do you all think? Highlight then nuln oil over it to get this muted highlight look? Or will it be easier to get the base gray, nuln oil it then work in the highlighting with wet blending?

[Imren]

If you're into airbrushing (and have a smallish needle size 0.2 or 0.3 mm) then consider using Tamiya smoke thinned and neatly airbrushed into the recesses gradually thicker into the recess and thinner outwards. I suspect you can achieve what you're asking for that way.

 

For the colours look into the Vallejo model air sea grey and blue greys

[Mandragola]

This might work. You could experiment with using lahmian medium to thin the bulb oil a bit. There’s also a new darker metal colour called iron warriors that you might try.

[Xenith]

Normally this would be the place of a glaze, but GW discontinued them. Nuln and lahmian, or the black contrast thinned down could work. Maybe just leadbelcher with the black contrast. That would make a natural highlight, no?

[Marshal Rohr]

I can't link the photos but Darren Latham has examples of using the new contrast paints and the medium to tint edge highlights and knock them back on his Instagram.

[Spacecow]

Already some good suggestions. When applying keep an eye out that it doesn’t pool though. Otherwise it’ll just give it a dirty look.

 

Alternatively you can try an oil wash.

 

Or doing it with metallic paints and layering it up but not go all the way up to a bright silver. (Ink can help in that progress) Vallejo metal colour has a great range and goes on pretty smooth.

 

All depends on how you prefer to paint and feel good with :)

[Bryan Blaire]

Aothaine, I’m not entirely sure I understand exactly what you are wanting to do - do you just want a highlight that is not as stark as going from a Base color to the next Layer color up in GW’s suggested pattern?

If so, rather than using Nuln Oil in an attempt to “knock back”/dull the highlight, why not just mix a darker highlight? Take your highlight cooor and mix it either 1:1 (very subtle) or 1:2 (more highlight) with your base color - this will give a much less stark transition.

That’s what I did on my Primaris Space Wolves to make the highlight transition not quite so stark between the Mechanicus Standard Grey to the Dawnstone highlight. My first highlight is actually 1:2 Mechanicus Standard Grey:Dawnstone.

Here’s how the 1:2 MSG:DS turned out:

[Aothaine]

These are all great suggestions! Thank you so much! I want to start working on a Golden Daemon entry and I'm thinking about making it a Silver Templar. I think it is a good chapter to use as it can be painted so simply if desired. But if I can pull off the look in that picture at the top of the post I think it will look pretty damn awesome. 

 

This is one of the reasons I'm trying to shy away from the metallic. I want to do es-nmm but it needs to look right. I'm still looking around for good examples of steel in snow. Luckily it just snowed where I live so I'm going to drive around a little this weekend looking for good examples. I'm pretty sure blue is going to be necessary but I'm not entirely sure yet.

Edited November 29, 2019 by Aothaine

[Bryan Blaire]

If you are going to be doing NMM of any form, you’re going to be wanting to mix a range of colors for blending, I don’t think “knocking” color back with Nuln Oil is going to get you what you want, you’ll want to be much more precise than that.

[Spacecow]

Then wetblending and glazing will have to be your new best friends :) and a lot patience ^.^

[Aothaine]

If you are going to be doing NMM of any form, you’re going to be wanting to mix a range of colors for blending, I don’t think “knocking” color back with Nuln Oil is going to get you what you want, you’ll want to be much more precise than that.

 

Yeah. Originally I was thinking I could use it to get the muted tones I wanted. But as Spacecow stated I'll be wanting to use glazes and wetblending to get the look I want and to keep it darker I'll just use darker colors.

 

Then wetblending and glazing will have to be your new best friends and a lot patience ^.^

 

Indeed! You are correct.

[Bung]

If you are going to be doing NMM of any form, you’re going to be wanting to mix a range of colors for blending, I don’t think “knocking” color back with Nuln Oil is going to get you what you want, you’ll want to be much more precise than that.

You can do a fast nmm in small scales. Look at the stuff that Angel Giraldez did on Infinity miniatures. Its grey with some highlights and than knocked back with black washes. But that wont work ina competition setting.

[Bryan Blaire]

Yeah. Originally I was thinking I could use it to get the muted tones I wanted. But as Spacecow stated I'll be wanting to use glazes and wetblending to get the look I want and to keep it darker I'll just use darker colors.

Definitely, especially in a competition piece where you don't have to worry about matching something across multiple figures each time. For a deep silver, you are probably going to want to get that blue-purple-black-ish color going for your truly dark areas with the snow theme, and you can (from what I've seen of people doing NMM) and should start in your mid-point color and mix your Dark and light glazes from there.

 

Null Oil has its uses, just competition level NMM is not really one of them, IMO.

[Fajita Fan]

I can't link the photos but Darren Latham has examples of using the new contrast paints and the medium to tint edge highlights and knock them back on his Instagram.

No joke, contrast gray that's mixed 5:2 paint:medium is my new go-to armor wash. It looks great over bright metals. 

[Bryan Blaire]

No joke, contrast gray that's mixed 5:2 paint:medium is my new go-to armor wash. It looks great over bright metals.

Which one, the Basilicanum Grey or Glyph Charger Grey?

[Spacecow]

 

No joke, contrast gray that's mixed 5:2 paint:medium is my new go-to armor wash. It looks great over bright metals.

Which one, the Basilicanum Grey or Glyph Charger Grey?

Contrast spacewolves grey?

[Fajita Fan]

 

No joke, contrast gray that's mixed 5:2 paint:medium is my new go-to armor wash. It looks great over bright metals.

Which one, the Basilicanum Grey or Glyph Charger Grey?

 

Basilicanum or however you spell it.  I prime with bright Rustoleum aluminum primer for $4 a can and one pass of thinned gray gives it a nice metallic look, a second pass deepens it to somewhere around leadbelcher but with highs and lows.  

 

Spacewolves would give you dull blueish steel look but would need to be highlighted, that would look cool too.  Gryph charger is greenish and I used that on some shields that were going to have a dull greeen glow. 

[Grotsmasha]

I'm going to be honest and admit I didn't read *every* reply, but I didn't see it mentioned. Perhaps try mixing a small amount of metallic paint INTO the greys you're going to use, this will give you the muted greys you want, but will give off a "metallic" impression.

[Aothaine]

I'm going to be honest and admit I didn't read *every* reply, but I didn't see it mentioned. Perhaps try mixing a small amount of metallic paint INTO the greys you're going to use, this will give you the muted greys you want, but will give off a "metallic" impression.

 

Trying to avoid the metallic paints now though. Wet Blending should be the key here I think. We'll see how it goes. Hell I might even end up changing the chapter eventually. Still not entirely set in stone. I have a few projects before I start this one. Also, need to find a sponsored tournament near me first. :p

 

Really appreciate all the ideas though. There is a lot to think about for sure!

[Imren]

Airbrushing is definitely the answer here, especially if you going to paint up a whole space marine army.

 

In case you're not into airbrushing, consider getting into it. It's "just" a matter of 120 USD of a no-name cheap Chinese setup from Amazon and a face mask, combine that with a few hours of youtube tutorials and you're good to go.

 

With airbrush you will churn out blends of highlights and shadings that easily takes a fifth (or less when you have fine tuned your trigger control) of the time it takes wetblending or layering the same on an army (especially marines).

[Rik Lightstar]

If you're looking at competition painting then there are no shortcuts I'm afraid.

 

What looks good on the table or on an overexposed instagram post just doesn't stand up to the degree of scrutiny at something like Golden Demon.

 

I'd say follow some of those big names Darren Latham, Rich Gray, Angel Giraldez on Instagram and look at how long they take between updates on their competition projects.

 

If you want to reproduce something like the artwork in the original post you're going to want to focus a lot on glazing*.

 

*I'm not referring to GWs Glazes, I mean thinning your chosen colours right down to almost transparent and very slowly using these to smooth out your transitions after you've done your highlighting and shading work.

 

https://youtu.be/4ePwy9qED28

https://youtu.be/A13JfFJxtIg

https://youtu.be/NawdAObG2M4

https://youtu.be/k84npvSDpsI

 

Hopefully these tutorials will show you what I'm talking about.

 

Rik

[Imren]

If you're looking at competition painting then there are no shortcuts I'm afraid.

 

What looks good on the table or on an overexposed instagram post just doesn't stand up to the degree of scrutiny at something like Golden Demon.

 

I'd say follow some of those big names Darren Latham, Rich Gray, Angel Giraldez on Instagram and look at how long they take between updates on their competition projects.

 

If you want to reproduce something like the artwork in the original post you're going to want to focus a lot on glazing*.

 

*I'm not referring to GWs Glazes, I mean thinning your chosen colours right down to almost transparent and very slowly using these to smooth out your transitions after you've done your highlighting and shading work.

 

https://youtu.be/4ePwy9qED28

https://youtu.be/A13JfFJxtIg

https://youtu.be/NawdAObG2M4

https://youtu.be/k84npvSDpsI

 

Hopefully these tutorials will show you what I'm talking about.

 

Rik

 

That's some quite good advice if you're painting a unit or a model for display and competitions purposes.

 

However, if you want to paint up a full army, then you will probably have to quit your job, divorce your wife and renounce your kids to have an army finished within a year or two with competition level paint jobs on every model! :)

[Bryan Blaire]

And a Golden Daemon competition project is exactly what Aothaine said was in the works...

 

I want to start working on a Golden Daemon entry and I'm thinking about making it a Silver Templar.

It was buried, so easily missed.

[Rik Lightstar]

 

If you're looking at competition painting then there are no shortcuts I'm afraid.

 

What looks good on the table or on an overexposed instagram post just doesn't stand up to the degree of scrutiny at something like Golden Demon.

 

I'd say follow some of those big names Darren Latham, Rich Gray, Angel Giraldez on Instagram and look at how long they take between updates on their competition projects.

 

If you want to reproduce something like the artwork in the original post you're going to want to focus a lot on glazing*.

 

*I'm not referring to GWs Glazes, I mean thinning your chosen colours right down to almost transparent and very slowly using these to smooth out your transitions after you've done your highlighting and shading work.

 

https://youtu.be/4ePwy9qED28

https://youtu.be/A13JfFJxtIg

https://youtu.be/NawdAObG2M4

https://youtu.be/k84npvSDpsI

 

Hopefully these tutorials will show you what I'm talking about.

 

Rik

 

That's some quite good advice if you're painting a unit or a model for display and competitions purposes.

 

However, if you want to paint up a full army, then you will probably have to quit your job, divorce your wife and renounce your kids to have an army finished within a year or two with competition level paint jobs on every model!

 

 

 

Totally with you on that, as Bryan mentioned Aothaine is considering a GD entry.

 

If an army is the goal then Darren Latham's Silver Skulls Space Marines Showcase video on YouTube is a fantastic guide on how to get a coherent, consistent impactful standard without spending too much time on each model and using things like unified basing to add to the tabletop presence.

 

Darren's Video https://youtu.be/mDA5FmU8Xcg

 

I'd say if you follow just one person about hobby stuff on YouTube, it should probably be Darren.

 

Rik

[Aothaine]

Airbrushing is definitely the answer here, especially if you going to paint up a whole space marine army.

 

In case you're not into airbrushing, consider getting into it. It's "just" a matter of 120 USD of a no-name cheap Chinese setup from Amazon and a face mask, combine that with a few hours of youtube tutorials and you're good to go.

 

With airbrush you will churn out blends of highlights and shadings that easily takes a fifth (or less when you have fine tuned your trigger control) of the time it takes wetblending or layering the same on an army (especially marines).

 

I am picking up Air Brushing for sure. But that will be for my tabletop minis and my army in general. For Golden Daemon I will be using a mix most likely. I'll most likely prime the model and base coat it with an air brush to get that super smooth first coat.

 

If you're looking at competition painting then there are no shortcuts I'm afraid.

 

What looks good on the table or on an overexposed instagram post just doesn't stand up to the degree of scrutiny at something like Golden Demon.

 

I'd say follow some of those big names Darren Latham, Rich Gray, Angel Giraldez on Instagram and look at how long they take between updates on their competition projects.

 

If you want to reproduce something like the artwork in the original post you're going to want to focus a lot on glazing*.

 

*I'm not referring to GWs Glazes, I mean thinning your chosen colours right down to almost transparent and very slowly using these to smooth out your transitions after you've done your highlighting and shading work.

 

https://youtu.be/4ePwy9qED28

https://youtu.be/A13JfFJxtIg

https://youtu.be/NawdAObG2M4

https://youtu.be/k84npvSDpsI

 

Hopefully these tutorials will show you what I'm talking about.

 

Rik

 

Yup I already follow Darren and quite a few others as well. The idea I'm working on is slowly building up. I want to reproduce part of the look from that image but the rest is going to be a little different.

 

 

 

Totally with you on that, as Bryan mentioned Aothaine is considering a GD entry.

 

If an army is the goal then Darren Latham's Silver Skulls Space Marines Showcase video on YouTube is a fantastic guide on how to get a coherent, consistent impactful standard without spending too much time on each model and using things like unified basing to add to the tabletop presence.

 

Darren's Video https://youtu.be/mDA5FmU8Xcg

 

I'd say if you follow just one person about hobby stuff on YouTube, it should probably be Darren.

 

Rik

 

 

Yeah sorry about the confusion. It is for a Golden Daemon entry and I will not be using the model on the tabletop. Thank you for sharing Darren's video! I'll check it out later.