What's up guys welcome back!
This is part 9 of the Aerin series, really, part 9? Christ.
And in this video we're going to take another look at how to achieve the brassy NMM, but
this time we'll do it on a surface with a higher level of complexity, and additionally
use an advanced texturing technique in order to get a deeper, more enhanced effect.
To start off we'll begin with a black undercoat, and then we'll make a mix of xv-88 and black
which we'll use as our base colour.
Now when I'm looking at the bracer itself, even though it's a single piece, I split it
up into two separate sections.
This outside rim here we'll treat as a single flat band, we're not going to worry too much
about all the little curves on the surface, we're breaking it down into it's simplest
form, which is a long thin flat section.
The rounded part in the middle of the bracer we'll treat as a cylinder.
Now because we're treating these as two distinct shapes we'll leave a thin line of black around
the outside of the central cylindrical area.
This is more due to the scale I'm working with than anything else.
As the model is so small we need that black there so the viewer can actually see what's
going on.
On a larger scale I would just paint the whole thing with the dark brown and forget about
the outline.
So once that colour is blocked in we'll switch to using some Xv-88, thinned down slightly
with some water, and just like we did on the sword we'll begin to map out where we want
our highlights to be.
So on the outside edge I'm going to place my highlights fairly randomly, the only thing
I'm really focused on is making sure that I leave a dark area between each highlight.
And I use the thin consistency of the paint to create a transition by pushing the paint
over the surface in the direction of my highlight.
And I do this over a few layers until the place where I want the brightest part of my
highlight is opaque.
On the central part, remember we're treating it like a cylinder, so our highlight is going
to go along the length of the surface.
To keep things interesting I will do two highlights, one main highlight and a secondary bounce
highlight.
Check out my video on NMM highlight placements to find out more about that.
Essentially it's simulating light bouncing over a surface.
So you can see our main highlight on the top side of the brace is going to be slightly
bigger than our secondary highlight.
Once we've mapped that in, we can add some initial texturing by paint on lines that go
across the width of the bracer, painting them over those two main highlight lines.
This helps to blend out the edges of the paint while reinforcing the colour so that it's
more opaque.
The texture lines will also help to create noise on the surface which will give us an
almost shimmery quality as we add more highlights.
That really aids in selling the illusion of a metallic surface.
You can do this a few times until you're happy that the colour is nice and solid along the
highlight.
Don't worry if you think it looks a bit messy at this stage.
This process is all about refining as you go.
So you're initial colour is generally going to look a bit shitty.
Alright so once that's done we'll move onto using Valejo Japanese Uniform thinned down
slightly with some water and we'll apply another round of highlights using the paint from the
previous step as a guide.
So again you want to push the paint into position.
When you're doing this try to visualize where you want your highlight to go, then start
your brush stroke a little back from that point, and push the brush over the surface
stopping when you reach your target.
On the middle section we'll continue painting on little thin texture lines over the highlight,
try to use the very tip of the brush for this, applying as little pressure as possible in
order to keep the lines fine.
If you press down the point will flare out and you'll end up with big wide brush marks
and that's not what you want here.
I'll mark the brightest part of the highlight with a guide line just so it's easier to get
the colour nice and bright.
And I'll apply those texture lines over a few layers until the colour is well defined.
And the same idea on the secondary highlight.
You can allow your lines to go over onto the dark area in the middle but don't totally
cover that area or you'll lose your shadow and that will kill the effect because you'll
no longer have the strong contrast between the highlight and shadow.
Next we'll add some White Sands into the Japanese Uniform to lighten it.
And we'll apply another round of highlights, and I'll try not to cover up the previous
highlights by making these slightly smaller than before.
Mix some more White Sands into the highlight and we'll repeat the last step, making our
highlight much smaller this time.
The highlights on the middle of the bracers are really just dots at this stage.
But I will do an occasional small line to help break up the surface a little.
If the highlights get too uniform then you lose the effect somewhat, it's better to let
some randomness creep in, you get a better result that way.
Then the last step is to use White Sands on it's own and apply very small final highlights,
just applying it as little dots.
Usually what I do is target all the brightest spots first then I go back in and apply tiny
little highlights at the darkest areas, especially around the edges of elements.
It's rare that I'll paint a solid line on an edge when I'm doing NMM, I find you get
a better effect painting the edges with random little dots to get a sparkly effect.
Alright so that is how you use texturing to get a more convincing NMM effect.
I hope you enjoyed the process, I think the final result ended up looking really good.
You can see how the texture adds quite a lot to the overall effect. Give it a go, you might
surprise yourself
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now and I'll see you on the discord.
Thanks again... Bye for now...