First NMM

[dense garden]

Hi, just tried to do some NMM gold here. For colors I am using more yellow because I want the cartoony gold feel. I think the gradient looks smooth, but I feel that it isnt quite reading as metal. Im thinking its because I need more darks and greater contrast, but im not sure.

Any feedback or suggestions would be great 🙏

[desert willow]

Your value range is too limited and your transitions are too broad.

I’ve quickly added some dark reflections and midtone. Also note that including bounce reflections and internal reflections adds a lot and makes the effect more convincing. Gold on gold tends to reflect orange or very warm yellow.

[dense garden]

Thank you for the photo edit, that's really helpful

[desert willow]

Glad to hear it.

[dense garden]

Hey, if you have a moment to respond, I have been trying to grasp highlights on rounded surfaces.

With the attached photo, these pieces are rounded and encircle the staff. So for the top sorta ‘edge highlight’, would the other side mirror the color gradient on the visible side in the picture?

I guess another example would be the orb on the top of the staff. It does not feel obvious where reflections would be placed on that. Were there any specific resources that were helpful to you when learning light placement?

[desert willow]

NMM is very much a balance of making it look realistic and making it look good, since inherently it’s not realistic to have static reflections.

My approach to shapes like these would be to treat them first as cylinders, because that is the overall shape.

Cylinders always have reflections running along their length.

Then, when those reflections are established, you can start adding edge highlights and bounces to the ends of the shapes, since a curved end of a cylinder turns the reflection 90 degrees and stretches along the edge.

There’s a lot about this approach that could be considered unrealistic. Some of the smaller parts are closer to a torus than a cylinder and would behave a bit differently. But we can usually get away with cheating a little for the sake of making it look good.

[dense garden]

Thanks for the reply. I think balancing cheating with realism makes sense, but is definitely challenging