Nmm trouble

[empty canopy]

Right what am I doing wrong here?

[golden jetty]

i know exactly nothing about nmm, but for yellow i would have used a lighter brown as a base

[astral kettle]

To paint NMM you need several things: highlights in right places (not always the same as with matte materials), secondary highlights from reflected light, stark contrast and smooth blending.
You lack contrast here. The lightest reflections should be nearly white. Also at the moment there are no secondary highlights. In terms of placement its a little hard to tell for me because this looks quite early in the process.

[upbeat pecan]

You absolutely don’t need smooth blending for NMM.
My favorite kind of NMM to paint is rough and textured with lots of visible strokes. It can be incredibly effective.

[astral kettle]

Depends on the style I guess. I usually came across opinions that you need to blend it, but maybe that was eavy metal specyfic or smth 🤔

But yeah, contrast and highlight placement definitely are more important

[pastel tapir]

This video details the exact thing you're going for: https://youtu.be/iinUXGZUS2Y?si=vwscCFq60pmbE8Qr