Bob Hunk's painting tips #3 - Painting Non-Metallic Metal (NMM)

Paints you will need:

Several shades of two colours.

How it's done:

The technique of painting non-metallic metal is used for painting flat areas that are meant to be shiney or reflective without using any of the metallic paints. It's difficult to give a colour-by-colour guide for mixing and painting this effect as it depends on which colours you wish to use. I think it's best illustrated with a picture; take a look at the sunglasses on this Ork Nob...

Essentially his glasses are divided into top and bottom areas, with the top being a light blue and the base being a dark brown. So when you come to do your own NMM effect, you'll need to decide on two colours; a light one for the top and a dark one for the bottom. But you'll also need to have several shades of each colour, which you'll blend from top to bottom as described below...

1. ***Top of surface***
2.  Light colour (dark shade)
3. Light colour (medium shade)
4. Light colour (light shade)
5. ***Middle of surface***
6. Dark colour (dark shade)
7. Dark colour (medium shade)
8. Dark colour (light shade)
9. ***Bottom of surface***

As you can see on the Ork I started off with a dark blue (Regal blue), blended that into a medium blue (Enchanted blue), and then into a light blue (50/50 Ice blue/Skull white). The blue is then interrupted halfway down the surface with a solid line of dark brown (Scorched brown), blended into a medium brown (Graveyard Earth) and finally finished with a light brown (50/50 Graveyard Earth/Bleached Bone).

So that's all you need to do, select two colours and blend dark to light with the first one, then dark to light with the second. You could even do this with a single colour, providing you had access to a wide range of shades of course.