Hordebloods - Forsaken Fennblades WIP

I've been working on my Fennblades for quite a while now and it's past due that I post a Work in Progress post about them, especially as I'm quite proud of how they're coming along. The theme of these miniatures is undead, deep blue armour, worn weapons, with a variety of skin colours

The first gentleman off the workbench was my Fennblade Kithkar - the hero. Didn't get much in the way of WIP for him, but I was mostly creating and using him as test case for the rest.

I'm also leaving the basing for when everyone's completed, that way they'll all be uniform.

I'll also admit to breaking one of my rules during this project. Usually, once I start painting a miniature, it gets pulled from the battlefield until complete. But I've been working on them for so long, they've continued to see their fair share of combat.

Axer Blademaster [part 1]

This is going to be the first post detailing how I created my Hordebloods Axer Blademaster. Today, I'll cover the painting stages, later you'll be able to read about basing him and after that I'll post a last post with the final photos.

Got a chance to airbrush more and more smoothly, which I think has finally convinced me I want to get a second finer airbrush. Had a lot of fun making him, always cathartic to paint when life (work) gets busy.

Painting Non-Metallic Metals (NMM)

This is a simulated look using colour to fake a metal appearance. As an example, using greys for silver, blues for steel and yellows for gold. You might also hear it referred to as a "European" method of painting due to its wider contrast and softer blending.

Honestly, NMM isn't much more difficult than painting any other part of your model - Shade, highlight.. you're already familiar with it. But is IS harder and does require more patience with a little more skill. The difference is to make it look good, you need to use more shades of colours to blend from dark to light and choose where you want the reflection coming from. For now, we'll focus on an NMM overview and look at simulating real reflections later.

Really well done NMM stands out and Internet likes to place people who can create the effect with a solid technique on a pedestal. With all things Internet though, don't look at it as a necessity, just a neat skill to pick up at sometime.

The problem with NMM is that you're using the same paints to simulate metal as you're using to paint the rest of your model. This means that without strong control of your colours and contrasts, metals can disappear. Instead of standing out, they'll blend in with cloth and skin.