Hello guys, welcome back to Not Just Mecha,
it's Marco here and today we finally talk in detail about non metallic metal!
It was about time! And we ll start from the simplest, most intuitive and
user-friendly practical approach I can think of, that s pure, basic layering with a limited
palette of three, four colors, because yeah, this will become a proper series.
This is the first time I tackle this topic in a monographic way
and the reason for this delay is that I find Non Metallic Metal relatively easy to paint
but really really difficult to explain, especially in a general non specific way,
good for every situation. If I think about real metal or even worse
I check my huge folder of metallic references, at least a dozen of practical ways to paint
different metallic finishes pops immediately in my mind so my solution to this teaching conundrum
is simply to show you in a series a ton of specific painted practical examples.
Don t forget to like, share, and SUBSCRIBE and if you want to support my work,
check my Patreon page up here where I publish the real time footage of my videos
and extra cool stuff. Thanks a million guys! When painting I always have a handful of reference
pictures on the table, maybe only to better understand the light setting, or the general
mood of a scene, but I find this practice even more important when the focus of a model is
completely on materials and textures like this guy in full non metallic metal armor! Inspired
by the references I went for a desaturated gold, slash, bright bronze kind of material,
shiny but without a proper polished mirror finish and completely covered in fine little scratches,
dents, and battle damage because what doesn t kill you, still leaves a mark on your armor!
I start from a black primer because the plan is to work with just a basic layering approach and
a dark to light overlap of tones, so starting from the darkest and lowest possible value is a
natural choice. But the priming stage it s worth of mention here because this layer is already
part of the visual effect I want to build; I m going to work with absolutely mat paints
to have a total control over lights, real and fake reflections but mat shadows always look dull
and without any depth so a satin, slightly glossy first layer is always my go to to
introduce form the beginning a zero effort subtle level of extra contrast into the mix
and more effective shadows. Plus you get a ton of information about how light really behaves
and reflects on these precise shapes that you can reference and use in the next stages!
But I immediately take a step away from the absolute lack of tones and chromatic information
of black, covering it almost completely with a fairly solid coat of Burnt Sienna,
a warm reddish brown that working in semi opacity over black keeps a deep dark value
but with a clear coloured nature. Again I choose a paint that I know delivers a satin,
slightly reflective finish especially when sprayed in thicker layers because I m still into the
territory of the deepest shadows and I want that powerful contrast of finish with the lights.
My reference artworks inform me that since the material is not extremely reflective
the general spectrum of contrast I need doesn t really go to pure black
like it happens on the polished, mirror surface of my airbrush for example,
so I leave black in the panel lines and only in the deepest areas facing downwards because
I don t really need it as a color! Uh, and I choose to use the airbrush
for this only because it s faster in covering all this surface at once.
Then I move to the palette and the few mat paints that will be the only tools I need from now on.
I start my climb of the value and chromatic scale with Raw Sienna, a lighter, vibrant,
orange brown and another classic earth tone that you can find anywhere in the world in any proper
line of paints, no matter if you are working with acrylics, oils, inks, watercolors or gouache.
I still remember the irrational panic of painters when the old Snakebite Leather
went out of production and I know there s still people hunting for those pots on Ebay;
This never happens with stuff from the art store
and using this kind of materials you become able to speak a more universal,
I would say objective language of color easier to reference and share with any kind of artist.
On the palette you can see my main reservoir of thick paint on top,
and below it a pool of slightly diluted color easier to manage and spread;
to keep things simple and user friendly and because of the scratchy visual needs of this
specific kind of metal I m working with classic fully opaque layers so I don t even use my
usual mat medium to alter the properties of the paint. The idea is to render an
armor that has already seen its fair amount of battles so in every stage of the work my
brushstrokes are about lines and scratches. They will become more and more controlled,
contained, precise and refined but still, just a bunch of thin lines
and in general my mental and practical attitude is the one I use when I m sketching and if you want
a good idea of that process in its purest form you should check my previous video!
Metallic reflections tend to be quite abstract and dynamic
even in the absence of real movement so I feel that the loose, free flowing,
act of sketching can better catch that kind of sensation and their living, moving nature.
Ok, now that you can see painted volumes appearing on the model and my commitment
to some foundational abstract shapes and pools of light we can finally talk about the real hot topic
inside the topic of non metallic metal and the most frequently asked question I get about it!
Where do I place lights and reflections and which shapes I should use?
And this is precisely the part that I find difficult to explain because this kind of
understanding and awareness comes mostly from observation and the conscious act of building
a mental or physical library of images and effects coming from the real world.
Techniques and brushstrokes are just a way to fix on the model that information
but if you don't possess that information aka you don t know exactly what you want to
paint the result will always be weak or worse it will not work at all.
I, or better the physics of light, can give you some general pointers
to start your investigation but, the most important thing is to study real metals!
But first let s move to my second value and chromatic jump that will probably make things
a bit easier to understand: Yellow oxide! Can you see what I m doing here?
I moved from a red brown, to a much lighter orange brown and to an even lighter natural
yellow. Can you guess where I m going to go next? Make your calculations and let s see in
the next stage if you are right, and if not let me know your theories in the comments.
For me the first couple of steps are always the real crucial ones because they establish
the volumes and the main shapes of the reflections and when they are in place
it is just a matter of painting inside those same masses and forms increasing
values and contrasts so from the technical point of view I don t have much to say about this step.
Sure, the later stages are the ones that make the illusion work all of a sudden
completing the scale of contrast but again, from every technical
and practical point of view they are just a direct consequence of the initial ones.
Uh and another little digression: to understand better what I m doing
I feel the need to block the basic tone of the silver elements using a dark prussian blue;
again I don't feel the need of using black as a foundational tone.
This blue is dark enough to be the last value and a rich chromatic base for my
steel that I ll paint simply adding more and more pure titanium white to the blue base!
So while new shapes and reflections appear on screen inside the previous ones as fine layers
of scratches we can go back to the physics of light! Things will become a bit nerdy here.
As I always do I started defining in my mind the position and intensity of the virtual light source
and this is always useful, it doesn t matter on which material that light is projected.
In this case a low frontal diffused light coming slightly from the left.
This tells me all the information of the vector of the light so both its magnitude
or intensity if you want, and direction. With this virtual direction in mind I can define the first
point of impact of the light over the single shapes that s where I apply my main reflections.
The dimension of the reflections depends of course on the intensity of the light and less obvious,
on the level of reflectivity of the material; a satin finish tends to spread the light into
bigger, blurred shapes while a shiny finish tends to produce thinner and sharper reflections.
The actual shapes of the reflections depend completely on the three dimensional shape
of the material: cylinders and cones reflect with lines while spheres for example bend light
over their curves. So again, for this part you really need to study the real thing
and build a repertoire of believable shapes! Note that I didn t say real or
realistic, but believable and we ll come back to this in a bit.
For the next stage I use Unbleached Titanium that s basically a light Ivory tone, but
mixed with this light blue green! If you are a veteran of the channel you probably predicted
this cold turn of the warm scheme since the very beginning and I m really proud of you!
Again the objective of this exercise and this video is to exorcize the fear of non metal
using a linear layering of fixed tones, like any of us probably used on our first model;
I don t add new chromatic reflexions,
I don t use glazes to introduce new tones and extra levels of contrast or depth,
I don t go back filtering or adding external saturation as I ll do for sure in the future
for more complex examples but still, to push the basic contrasts of my progressive lights I can
be creative and make this strong turn into cold notes integral part of the main flow of tones!
What I ll get at the end is the idea of a chromatically warm material set in a cold blue
greenish environment delivering these sensations with its fake reflection of that imaginary light!
A ton of subtle complexity with zero effort!
And again the name of the game is still abstraction because I m basically painting
moving light and the irregular, often unpredictable forms it creates
and here s why I didn t talk about realistic shapes but believable shapes;
if you set the correct and coherent vectors of your main lights and their few main contact
points with the surface, basically creating the structural base for the suspension of disbelief,
than poetic license gives you the power to fake anything else because unlike the real world
where the complex surroundings define the reflections, here the reflections you paint
inform the viewer of the virtual environment that can take any shape you want without the need of
justifications aka you can paint whatever you want if you get the basic physics right!
And of course I close the value progression with pure white, switching to the whitest white of
my collection to make it clearly visible even from the last bright application.
You need for sure white to complete the illusion with an extreme and contained high value,
but it's more like the icing on the cake, you still need a good cake underneath!
So nothing crazy here, just a quick enhancing pass over borders,
sharp edges, rivets and some artistic blings of light here and there!
And here s the final result! A couple of hours of pure textural layering for a non metallic
metal that you ll probably never use for standard troopers, even if it can be easily translated in
airbrushing for an even quicker application, but that can be a solid option for a cool hero
or a central piece of your army because again here we are in full army painting territory.
Or as I hope you ll do, you can use this stuff as a stepping stone for, let s call it,
an academic investigation of non metallic metal. Rest assured that this will be the main theme of
these episodes! Let me know in the comments what kind of metallic effect you want to see next!
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