Where to from here? (Gold NMM)

[thick nimbus]

Struggling to figure out where to go from here. I’m almost at the point of overworking and I could strip it back a bit but I’m hesitant to do it. I followed a tutorial but it was using a different brand of paints (though I think the colour choice is okay) and it mainly seemed to be focused on the edge of a pauldron.

[hazy birch]

I will sketch something out later, but it'll probably be late in the night in your timezone so I can start by adding a few words.

Don't worry about brands of paint. Metal is all about value range and transition size. The more polished you want something to look, the darker you should go in your darkest reflections.

Regardless of polish, a metallic surface will reflect the brightness of a light source almost 1:1 or at least close enough that it'll be brighter than any other surface at its brightest. Meaning - you need to go very bright. Probably white or just below.

Your reflection placements are generally sound to me.

Something that really helps sell metals is edge highlights. You don't have to highlight all edges, but metals catch a lot of reflections on sharp corners so attacking those edges really goes a long way.

As I mentioned, that chest area will be your biggest challenge. It does sometimes require some back and forth to nail that down. Going for something like radial anisotropy on the flat round areas is a great way to put in some detail, I like that decision. You could push it harder imo.

[thick nimbus]

All good, I’m probably not going to paint more till tomorrow anyway

I was worried my highlights didn’t make sense, so that’s good

[thick nimbus]

I've used a combination of Vallejo Beasty Brown, Bronze Brown, and small amounts of Dead White to get the shades so far. (If that helps any)

[hazy birch]

It doesn’t help.

The colors and the paints are irrelevant compared to the value range. There are exceptions, especially when it comes to the type of metal you are portraying, but I advice to focus on making it shine before worrying about the exact shade of metal used.

Case in point, here is a before and after in greyscale.

Hopefully you agree that one looks shiny and more metal than the other.

In color you can see that I’ve stuck to your colors and almost to your reflection placement, but moved higher up and lower down in the value range as well as brought out all or most of the edges.

Now where color becomes less irrelevant. A thing that really gives metal that extra touch is bounce reflections of alternative color. Metal is rarely uniform, but will change hue depending on the environment.

I like going for orange on gold to the point where it’s probably a crutch. Green can work equally well. It’s not too important which color, as long as you step to the side of your existing midtone and it will be clear we’re seeing the reflection of something else in the environment.

[thick nimbus]

Thanks so much for this! So, go darker at the edges of my highlight? I’m not really understanding where the orange or green come into it, I can’t see it in that second set of sketches.

[hazy birch]

No problem, happy if it’s helpful at all.

I’m not sure what you mean “at the edges of your highlights”.

You can’t see the bounce lights or you can’t see why they’re there? I’m unsure what you’re saying.

[thick nimbus]

Yeah, I couldn’t see them. Is it just a very subtle glaze of orange on the edges?

The darker question was partially related to where I put those dark spots. In the sketch, it seems to be right up against the edges of the bright highlights

[hazy birch]

No, it’s full on a coat of orange paint. Glazing will be much too subtle. The effect needs to be more pronounced than you expect for it to be visible. Experiment.

As a very general advice I will say, stay clear of glazing anything until it already looks pretty good.
Someone said that no amount of glazing has ever fixed a bad highlight placement.

Correct reflection placements will look correct even when they’re rough as heck.

There’s a large degree of personal preference there. I don’t enjoy painting in very tiny steps where nothing happens, but do experiment and find your own path.

Here’s an example of how I rough in the reflections. You can see that it appears clearly metallic even though I’ve done no hint of glazing or blending (try zooming in). It’s just building my reflections with very opaque paints and rough strokes.

[hazy birch]

I’ve just stuck to your pattern and darkened the dark reflections. There’s no rule that darkest and brightest reflections sit right next to each other, but is a very strong tool to make something appear more polished.

Smoother transitions and broader steps will inform of a more matte metal finish, which can be just as viable.

[thick nimbus]

Ohhh, it's on the underside. I just looked at this on my laptop, I couldn't see it for shit on my phone. Stupid colour repro.

Yeah okay, I definitely need to be a bit bolder. I hedge a lot as an artist both in 2D and mini painting instead of being bold. I struggle with strong contrast because it always looks a bit wrong till it's done.

[hazy birch]

“Be bold” and “trust the process” is definitely some of those kinda hollow pieces of advice that are admittedly a little ironic.

Being bold and trusting comes from confidence you don’t have until you know how to do it.

[thick nimbus]

For sure. I'll get there though. Mini painting is already helping my digital painting. Even just my pressure control is getting better and I've been painting for years, just not as consistently as this is forcing me. 😆

It's Saturday and I've got a few errands to run today so won't get to paint until I'm home, but I'm keen to try this.

[thick nimbus]

Idk, it’ll do or I’ll be pushing and pulling forever.

Does everything need edge highlighting or is the selective way I've done it okay?

At least the gems look baller.

[hazy birch]

This is already a lot better. Remember though that the upper and lower part of the shoulder will have almost identical reflections as they’re angled the exact same way.
They need to be pretty identical.

[thick nimbus]

I've already clogged all the details, so I'm going to leave it, but I'll note that for next time. The back they're all sitting very similar

I could strip and repaint it, but I'm honestly not that attached to this model. 😆