Ultramarine Chapter Master - My first go at NMM

[Müller]

So... I know this is out of the ordinary but since I'm going to take part in a duals tournament with my pal Dennis over at: minisofdeath.blogspot.com very soon at GW Stockholm and my wolves aren't anywhere even remotely close to done (as you all can attest to ) I will be playing with my tabletop standard Ultramarine army (I painted this army about 10 years back, and I started with Ultras back in the 2nd edition when I was just a juve so don't go bashing on me for having kept with my chapter all this time ;P).

I needed a Chapter Master armed with nothing but a normal CC weapon and a bolt pistol, which none of my HQ's had (I'm not used to playing only 750p games ) I went out and bought Sicarus, because he screams Ultramarines.

My original plan was to make him tabletop standard, but I failed quite large when I realised I spent quite some time on the head alone, so not the entire model had to be painted to a good standard, but I figured that since GW Stockholm are holding a painting comp. real soon I might as well paint him nice and add him to my line-up of competing models

This was my first go at NMM (Having not read any guides on it either), he will have golden NMM shoulder pads, a crimson red/decorated tan cape and white ropes when done on top of what's painted now. Might also add some freehand on the cape.

Since this is my first NMM model ever, comments and critisism are greatly appreciated on this one.

Cheers!

 

[Necroghast]

NMM looks like a good start. However, when painting it you always need to go all the way to white for the brightest reflections. Otherwise it just looks like yellow. (I realize you may know this and just not be done yet)
Also, it looks like you might need to thin your paints a bit more. Especially on the blue armor.

 

[Müller]

Actually the paints are quite thin, though the lighting and the real close-ups makes the paint look thickened (I realize that now re-looking at the pics), with the eye barely even the brush streaks are visible.

I will go up a bit brighter with the NMM on the gold, was just looking for input on it and not go all the way only to have it turn out that something I did was wrong and I have to redo it all

Thanks for the input, it's greatly appreciated

 

[Dragonsreach]

I'll echo necroghast's comments on the painting as it does look lumpy in places.
In regards to the NMM I've done aquick example in Photoshop to show how I'd take up the NMM.

If you concentrate all the effort to ensure that all leading points in the same area have the same level of highlighting then you'll get a good visual response to the effect.

 

[Müller]

Did my final work on the NMM (thanks for the remark on getting the highlights up to white, I'm much happier with it now);

And I did work on the cape as well (the blodgyness have been taken care of, some was actually miscast "bubbles" which I had to scrape off and repaint) I've also added a red wash to bind the colors together better after the pic was taken;

 

[cheelfy]

The nmm is nice. The cape is not bad but i think the shadows are a bit too dark.

 

[exilesjjb]

the sword is very nice well done, agree that the cloak shadows are a bit dark, maybe a wash of the base colour would pull them back.

 

[Müller]

I agree that the shadows are way too dark for looking "real" but I wanted the cloak to really pop, and I wanted to have it give off a fire/lava-looking colorset nad I think that these colors did what I wanted pretty good.

Now I'm off to paint the inside tan (I have never had to do such a large, shaded area of tan before so this will prove...interesting ) and give it some freehand decoration on the inside as well.

 

[CreganTur]

I can understand wanting the cloak to pop... but I would suggest adding a little more of a midtone color to ease the transition between the highlights and shadows. Doing a couple glazes of a midtoen color where the shadows and highlights meet would make a big difference.