Coke
versus Pepsi. Ford versus Chevy. Metal versus Punk. These are the
eternal debates of our time. And now TMM versus NMM ranks right up
there with the rest of them, at least for Miniature Painters.
First of all, what the heck is "TMM" and "NMM"?
"TMM"
is short for "True Metallic Metallics", and in miniature painting, it's
the use of metallic paints to represent metallic surfaces. Most
"metal" paints have a bit of colour pigment in the body of the paint,
but also have ultra fine flecks of metal suspended in them as well, in
order to give the paint its metallic shine or sheen. The better the
quality of paint, the more finely ground the metallic flake, which makes
for a smoother appearance when dry (conversely, cheaper paints have
course grind flakes, which makes them much rougher in appearance, almost
pebbly).
"NMM" is short for "Non Metallic Metallics",
which refers to the technique of simulating shine without actually using
shiny paint. The paints used are often matte finish, but by utilizing
maximum contrast and a few other mind games to trick the eye, the viewer
reads the painted miniature as "ooh... shiny". There are no metallic
flakes or pigments, but we are somehow given the strong impression of a
metallic surface.
Up until the 21st Century, there was
no debate. We pretty much all used metallic pigmented paint. I
personally have fond memories of such classic GW staples as "Boltgun
Metal", Chainmail", and Mithril Silver". There were also metallic
paints in bronze and gold as well, and even ones in rusty, weathered
tones.
Application was very straightforward and
simple. Most of the time, we applied a dark or mid tone of metallic
paint, gave it a ink wash for shading, and then highlighted with a
brighter version of the base coat. If you wanted to use a cruder,
quicker method, you would simply drybrush over a black undercoat in
successively brighter layers of metallic paints. If you wanted to
really take your time for a more polished look, you would thin out your
metallic paints a bit on a palette, and gradually build up smooth
transitions of blended metallics (just as you would with a non-metallic
paints on a non-metallic area).
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| Classic GW 'Eavy Metal paintjob from the end of the 20th century. This is what we all aspired to paint like. |
Metallic paints had /
have different painting characteristics to non-metallic paints. They
tended to dry very smooth and slick, so ink washes worked exceptionally
well on them. A rough slap dash of black wash of the right consistency
would run right into the crevices of the model's detail in a very
predictable manner. But the drawback of metallic paints is that if you
thinned out your paint too much, the body of the paint would quickly
loose cohesion and you'd get very patchy results when it finally dried.
When
light falls on a model painted with metallic paints, it reflects off
the metallic pigments, and thus you have a realistic shine. The manner
in which ambient light hit the surface created the majority of the
contrast our eyes and brains needed in order to read it as metal.
Straightforward and simple. We didn't even call it "TMM" at the time,
as it was pretty much the only way to paint metal areas (and "TMM" as we
know it today is actually something very different to what I've just
described... which I'll explain in a little bit).
So,
life with metallics was good, right? Well, we all thought so, until an
upstart rogue French miniatures company came along and upset the balance
of the Force.
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| Classic Rackham / Confrontation paintjob. While the NMM looks a little flat by today's standards, it was mind blowing at the time. |
Rackham had a miniatures game called,
"Confrontation", and produced some of the most beautiful miniatures we'd
ever seen up to that point (in my opinion, some sculpts still stand as
some of the best... ever). The proportions were different to what we'd
seen up until then (no oversized hands and feet, and blades and wrists
and ankles were not made chunkier to withstand the rigours of gaming
like GW did at the time). Stylistically, the sculpts were more akin to
something in between Asian anime / manga and euro comic book art too.
And the miniatures had an almost ethereal flow to them... even though
the models were static, the way the clothes draped and wrapped around
the subjects gave the viewer the strong impression that the model was in
caught in motion.
But what really blew our minds was
the radically different approach to painting that the Rackham studio
painters used. It was as if they had no prior experience with
traditional miniature painting methods, and instead took conventional
and heavily stylized 2d canvas and comic book art techniques and
training to the 3d models. They really looked like the cover art of all
the fantasy games and novels that had come before, especially when
viewed in the pages of a magazine or on a computer screen.
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Google "Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell" if you ever need a NMM reference. Their 2D art features it in spades.
|
"NMM",
or "Non Metallic Metallic" was the biggest challenge to traditional
miniature painting. I have no idea of how that term was even coined, or
who was primarily responsible for coming up with it. All I know is
that the seemingly ridiculously contrary term gained immediate
traction. Seriously... calling something "Non Metallic Metallic" is
like calling a veggie burger a "Non Meat Meat Patty". It's not a
particularly well thought out or elegant definition, yet it somehow gets
the message across.
Still, as a snobby former English Lit student, I'd like to beat the guy who came up with "NMM". Seriously buddy, WTF?
I'm
not going to turn this article into a NMM tutorial, as there are plenty
of those online, in print, on DVD, and on Youtube. What I can do is
define what it is (see above), and generally how it works.
The
difference between NMM and simply painting something grey or brown
(steel or gold / bronze) is maximizing contrast to simulate light
reflection. And precise and thoughtful placement of where your
highlights and shades go is key.
Maximizing contrast
is the "easy" part, in a sense. Any part painted in NMM will have pure
matt black (or at least very close to it) as the lowest point of it's
spectrum of colour, and pure white (or at least very close to it) as
it's highest zenith. Really the hardest part is being able to cram in
every mid-tone inbetween, blending as smoothly as humanly possible to
ensure no chunky transitions.
Where you place your
highlights and shades is also a big part of maximizing contrast. Every
black point has to contact a white point. Black against white are polar
opposites, so your eyes read the contact between them as a sharp
contrast. So, instead of highlighting the peak of a bevelled sword dark
to light, and then light to dark once you go over the edge of it, you
would go dark to light, and then as soon as you cross the peak of the
bevel, you'd go dark to light again so that the light part contacts the
dark whenever possible.
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| Pic pulled off the Tutofig website. Fantastic example of how dark is carefully placed in direct contrast with light, and how smooth blending is key. |
The painter can then add
interest in the areas between the extremes. While you may do various
tones of grey to simulate steel, and tones of brown to yellow to
simulate gold or bronze, you can also add subtle glazes of other colours
too. Blue works well when glazed into the shades of NMM steel, for
example, as it simulates the blued effect of some metals. If you're
truly ambitious, you can glaze in a similar colour to the areas
surrounding and facing the metal areas, to simulate the metallic
surface's reflective properties (the "mirror finish|, so to speak). If
you really want to go '80s airbrush mural art style, you can even work
on developing your "SENMM" (Sky Earth Non Metallic Metallic) where you
simulate a chrome mirror finish, and the surrounding earth and sky
horizon reflecting off of it.
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| Mini painters call this effect, "SENMM". Normal people call this, "Chrome effect". We mini painters are NOT normal people... |
Gah, this is starting to turn into a tutorial article now, and I try to avoid those when possible. Let's get back on track...
"TMM"
or "True Metallic Metallics" as we know it now, came about years and
years later after NMM started to lose its novelty and wow factor (not to say that it was any less impressive... just that it wasn't "novel" any more).
People were pushing the boundaries of NMM into ridiculous areas, just to
impress the masses (SENMM being the most obvious example). I
definitely admire that drive to expand the horizons of miniature
painting, but I was just so happy when TMM came along, as it truly was
something unique to mini painting as an art form.
NMM
may have been relatively new to mini painting, but it was well
established in canvas and 2 dimensional art. It's what people did since
the first caveman started scratching drawings on the side of his
man-cave. It's in comic book art, it's in computer animation, it's in
commercial art, and it's even in historical art. You simply don't use
metallic flake paint for those things, so you simulate the illusion of a
metallic surface using NMM.
NMM looks fantastic in
pics, as you are forced to view the model from the exact angle that the
photographer chooses. Thus it looks, "right" when viewed as intended
(this is sometimes called, "forced perspective"). As it should be, as
you are essentially viewing a 3 dimensional model in 2 dimensions.
However, the paintjob doesn't always look quite as good when viewed in
person, as you are now able to view it in ways the painter never
intended.
Think of it this way: What we build and paint
are solid, three dimensional sculptures. They can be viewed from all
sorts of angles by your eye when held in your hand, sitting in a display
case, or on the gaming table. However, when you take a picture of it,
and viewed on a computer screen or in print (a 2 dimensional surface),
you have flattened that 3 dimensional model into a flat 2 dimensional
impression of the original piece, much like a piece of canvas art or
comic book page. Thus, it only makes sense that a 2 dimensional
painting technique "works" when you are viewing a model reduced to a 2D
impression.
I'm sure Rackham knew this when they
embraced NMM. Most people around the world would never get a chance to
see those models "live" and in person. They would only see pictures of
those models. Of course those models would look very artistic and
painterly, and evoke feelings and impressions of classic fantasy and
comic book art... after all, they were painted using the same painting
techniques used by those artists!
Of course, this is
not to devalue NMM at all. It's a damn hard technique to pull off (much
easier once you've got the hang of it, but definitely difficult to
master in the first place). And it looks amazing... less so in person,
but not by much. It's still awe-inspiring to see a well done NMM piece
in hand, but primarily because of the incredible and buttery smooth
blending work involved, and the thought processes (care and attention)
put into the model.
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| One of the most influential NMM works of all time, Darren Latham's Sanguinor. |
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| And his NMM has only gotten better over time, as evidenced by this WIP Stormcast. |
I think anyone who is still reading
this article by now, and hasn't yet quit and started surfing pics of
Megan Fox by now will start to get the feeling that I'm more of a TMM
man (and more of a fan of Kate Beckinsale too). I definitely don't hate
NMM... I just think that TMM is a bit more versatile, as it looks
slightly better in person (in my opinion).
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| Did someone mention Kate Beckinsale?? |
So what is
"True Metallic Metallic" anyway? Well, put simply, it's very nearly the
same as NMM, only done with metallic pigmented paints.
Whaaaaa??? How the heck does that work?
Well,
you have the extreme contrasts of NMM, but with the real shine and
reflection (and not JUST the impression of it) of a real metallic
surface afforded by using micro-metallic flake paint. You still have to
put some thought into placement of your highlights and shading, in
order to ensure that the extremes butt up against each other for
maximized contrast. However, you can also play with the contrast of
shine vs dull, by making sure your dark areas have little to no
reflection (a matt glaze of black or other shade colour usually works
for this).
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| A quick Google search pulled up this pic. It perfectly illustrates the use of NMM techniques with "true" metallic paints, to achieve fantastic TMM. |
With the latest generation of quality
metallic paints, the metallic flakes are ground so fine as to be nearly
imperceptible as grains, thus giving the dried paintjob a smooth shiny
finish. When carefully blended (as opposed to coarsely layered or
haphazardly drybrushed on), they give a really nice, fairly realistic
result that is still just as "artistic" and "painterly" as NMM.
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| TMM : Combining shine AND contrast! |
You
can also apply coloured glazes to TMM to simulate reflection, just as
you would with NMM. You can imply rust, dents, wear, bluing, chrome,
etc, just as effectively as you would with NMM, but it requires
additional work (just like you would with NMM).
The
problem with TMM is that the term encompasses just about every approach
to painting with metallic paints... the good and the bad. When done
carefully, with all the same attention and thought as most NMM
paintjobs, it's a thing of wonder. When slapped on like house paint,
sprayed on from a rattle can, or drybrushed on with a large drybrush,
it's damn ugly. The end effect is overly reliant on the natural shine of
the metallic pigments in order to achieve contrast, and many people
dislike TMM for this reason... badly done and with little control, the
effect is left to chance.
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| Painted back in the same decade that brought us piano-key skinny leather ties, and Samantha Fox singing, "Boom boom boom, let's go up to my room...", I guess this would be a good example of me executing what could technically be called, "TMM", before I knew any better. |
Control is also marginally
more difficult with metallic paints. If you thin them too much, the
metallic pigments have a hard time binding together, and the paint
"breaks". I find that mixing a tiny bit of medium in helps with this,
but there are still limits to how far you can push a metallic paint.
Lastly,
photographing TMM is not as straightforward as taking pics of NMM
models. With NMM, you know which angles are the best to photograph
from, and light does not bounce off the model in unpredictable ways.
With TMM, the lighting used will actually reflect off the model,
creating contrasts and shine that may be picked up by the camera in ways
the human eye wouldn't. Luckily with digital photography, you can
simply take multiple pics from different angles, and discard the pics
that didn't turn out as well as you liked.
So, which approach do I personally prefer?
At
the moment, it's TMM. I believe that with the right amount of thought
and technique applied, TMM has many of the same characteristics of NMM
(contrast is precisely controlled, and the effects are planned), but
more accurately resemble METAL when viewed in person. It's not an
"artistic interpretation" of what metal should look like, but rather, it
IS metal... a form of metallic medium, in any case.
I'm
not as concerned with the piece looking good on a computer screen or in
the pages of a publication. Most of my models are meant to be
appreciated in person, by the human eye. I paint for competition, where
the judge will see the model for themselves, and I have no control over
which angle he/she looks at the piece. I also paint to play with the
models, and the angle and distance you view the models is nothing like
the angle and lighting conditions under which models are photographed.
I'm
kind of simplifying things a bit when I contend that NMM is better for
photography, and TMM is better in person. Generally, this is true, but
there are many examples of NMM models that look fantastic in person, and
TMM models that look fantastic in photos. Try both methods for
yourself, and see which works better for you. But I urge you to master
both techniques, as the skills and techniques involved in both easily
transfer over to other areas of your painting, and will make you a
stronger painter overall.
Plus, that way you will have two tools in your tool chest of skills, rather than just the one.
