Monument: Monument: Monument: Monument: Monument: Monument: Monument: Vallejo: Black
Bright Pale Bright Yellow Caramel Dark Green Dark Orange Orange Dark Green Surface Primer
Yellow Ochre Brown Brown Brown Brown Brown 70% +
Black 30%
Mix G5: Mix Mix G4: Mix Mix G3: Mix Mix G2: Mix Mix G1: Vallejo: Vallejo: Flat AK Deep
G1 10% + G1 35% + G1 70% + G1 85% + Ochre Brown Ochre Earth Shades: Black
White 90% White 65% White 30% Black 15% 60% + Flat Brown Night
Earth 40%
Vallejo: Vallejo: Vallejo: White Grey Vallejo: Vallejo: Vallejo: Vallejo: Silver
Dark Grey London Grey Sky Grey 60% + Sky White Grey Leather Brown German C. Grey
Grey 40% Pale Brown
Monument Monument Monument Bright Neutral Monument Monument Monument
Hobbies: Dark Hobbies: Hobbies: Grey 70% + Hobbies: Hobbies: Hobbies: Bone
Neutral Grey Neutral Grey Bright Neutral Dark Green Dark Umber Light Umber
Grey Brown 30%
Monument Vallejo: Red Monument: Vallejo: Black Vallejo: Vallejo: Tan Silver Grey Bone 85% +
Hobbies: Mahogany Red Khaki Earth 85% + Tan Light Umber
Burnt Red Earth 15% 15%
In this tutorial I will use Pro Acryl paints from Monument Hobbies, but keep in mind that you can use any brand you like,
just try to find similar colors to those presented in the boxes.
If I didn’t use Pro Acryl, I would paint this miniature with Vallejo Model colors and you can see on the list
alternative paints to those from Pro Acryl.
In this tutorial I will use my own set of paints that I designed specifically for painting Golden NMM and you can get it
directly from Monument Hoobbies store if you are located in America:
[Link]
And from Pk-Pro if you are located in Europe:
[Link]
and from many other stores.
In this tutorial I will not make smooth color transitions between the layers of colors, but you can watch a video tutorial
on this subject here: [Link]
Welcome to my last tutorial about painting The Steel Rook miniature!
As you already know, on the first page you can see a photo of the miniature which I use as reference that allows me to
paint shadows and reflections on the model in a consistent way.
I take my reference photos in the same place where I later take final photos of my models (and all of the wip photos,
everything is permanently set on my desk) and thanks to that, real reflections of light will appear in the same places
where I paint reflections on the model.
Vallejo: Black
Surface Primer
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Dark Umber
My plan for the model was to make him stand a bit higher, so I would have space to which I
could glue skulls that wouldn’t cover the legs of the miniature. For that, I used Milliput Standard
and I made the shape of this area inclined.
Next, I started painting the raven and the branch that he sits on.
In this step, I painted the entire branch with Dark Umber, then I looked at the reference photo
and painted parts of raven that shine the most brightly with Neutral Grey.
I already made a video tutorial about painting this branch, and you can watch it here:
[Link]
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Bright Neutral
Grey
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Dark Green
Brown
Bright Neutral
Grey 70% +
Dark Green
Brown 30%
Now you can really see step-by-step how I painted the raven and the branch.
At first, I painted reflections on the Raven with Neutral Grey, next I painted parts of him that are
bright in the reference photo but don’t shine as much, and thin lines around the Neutral Grey Vallejo:
reflections, both with Dark Neutral Grey. After that, I gently glazed the borders of the areas Khaki
painted with Neutral Grey with the tip of my brush and diluted Dark Neutral Grey.
In the end, I gently glazed with very diluted mixture of glossy and mat black paint the borders of
the areas painted with Dark Neutral Grey. Normal mat black paints usually seem too grey for this
task, that’s why I mix it 50/50 with glossy paint.
You can learn how I use glaze technique from this video tutorial:
[Link]
Then, I painted his beak with Dark Neutral Grey and highlighted it with Neutral Grey.
After that, I painted thin lines on the branch with Dark Green Brown in order to create an illusion
of a wooden pattern in there. Next, I highlighted them with a mixture of Dark Green Brown and
Bright Neutral Grey. After that, I glazed the corners and shaded areas with Dark Green Brown.
I worked in the same way I did in the video, only this time I forgot about the last, black glazes.
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Dark Green
Brown
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Orange Brown
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Dark Umber
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Hobbies:
Light Umber
Now I started working on his arm and sword.
I worked in the same way like before, so I painted the armor on his forearm with Dark Neutral
Grey, then I painted the main part of the scabbard with Burnt Red (because I decided that it’s Monument
Hobbies:
time to stop painting them in neutral, grey, brown and black colors) and after that I painted Burnt Red
metallic elements of the scabbard and the pommel with Dark Green Brown.
Then, I painted a highlight in the middle of his belt on the back with Light Umber.
In the end, I painted a reflection on the side of the golden element of the pickaxe that you can
see on the right side of the picture with Orange Brown.
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Neutral Grey
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Dark Green
Brown
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Orange Brown
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Bright Yellow
Ochre
Now I painted shadows on the scabbard with Mahogany.
I want this element to be dark red, because I always paint red as very bright and saturated and
I would like to try out something a bit new. Monument:
Mahogany
Then, I painted reflections on the pommel and metallic parts of the scabbard with Bright Yellow
Ochre for the same reasons. This is be the brightest color that I will use on the elements of the
sword. Next, I looked at the reference photo and painted the first reflections on the forearm in
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places that look look bright in the reference photo and places where I feel that it would make Hobbies:
sense to paint a reflection of light with Neutral Grey. Burnt Red
Unfortunately, the reference photo with a miniature painted with black paint, unlike real metal is
able to present only the strongest reflections of light. Next, I painted the back side of the helmet
with Dark Green Brown and Dark Neutral Grey. In the end, I painted small reflections of light on
the golden element of the pickaxe with Bright Yellow Ochre.
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Bright Neutral
Grey
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Dark Green
Brown
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Orange Brown
Now I painted with Orange Brown darker reflections of light on the metallic parts of the scabbard
and the pommel. Next I created smooth color transitions between the darker and brighter layers
of red color on the scabbard by painting tiny stripes with diluted Burnt Red paint on the borders Monument:
Bright Yellow
of layers painted with Burnt Red. Ochre
It’s the same technique that I always use, and you can learn more about it from this short video
tutorial: [Link]
After that I created smooth color transitions on the belt on the back of the miniature.
Next I painted with Bright Neutral Grey the brightest reflections of light on the forearm, and then
with Neutral Grey and Bright Yellow Ochre I painted the next reflections on light on the back of
his helmet. This part of the black handle of the pickaxe that is facing the light and is brighter is
painted with Dark Neutral Grey, and the rest of the sides are simply black.
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Dark Green
Brown
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Dark Orange
Brown
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Orange Brown
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Bright Yellow
Ochre
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Bright Pale
Yellow
Now I diluted Dark Orange Brown and painted tiny stripes between the layers of color painted
with Orange Brown and Dark Green Brown on the scabbard and golden part of the
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pickaxe in order to create smooth color transitions between them. Hobbies: Dark
Next, I made smooth color transitions between the layers of Neutral Grey and Dark Neutral Grey Neutral Grey
on the forearm.
After that, I painted edges of the golden parts of the scabbard with Bright Pale Yellow in order
to make them look a bit different than yellow parts of the sword like the pommel. Monument
Then, I highlighted the back of the helmet with Bright Neutral Grey and Bright Pale Yellow. Hobbies:
In the end, I decided that the back of his belt and this some sort of baggage attached to it are Neutral Grey
too flat, so I mixed Light Umber with White and highlighted them with it.
Light Umber
20% + White
80%
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Hobbies: Dark
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Neutral Grey
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Hobbies:
Bright Neutral
Grey
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Orange Brown
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Bright Yellow
Ochre
Now I made smooth color transitions between the layers painted with Bright Neutral Grey and
Neutral Grey on his forearm. You can also see that on the bottom sides of his fingers are tiny
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reflections of the Ground painted with Light Umber. Bright Pale
Then, I painted smooth color transitions between the layers of colors on the back of his helmet. Yellow
Now I didn’t paint anything but I glued onto the base a few skulls from the „Citadel Skulls” set manufactured by Games
Workshop, which is really great and I highly recommend everyone getting one, because there are 340 skulls in it and
that’s enough for many, many bases and conversions.
This step might look easy, but it actually took me a bit of time to find the perfect positions and the right amount of skulls
fo the base. Once they were glued and I was sure about them I once again took Milliput, changed the shape of the
base a little and covered parts of the skulls with it in order to create an illusion that they are partially buried.
Now I mixed sand with wood glue and covered the base with it, trying not to cover too big parts of the skulls.
In this step I applied Black Primer from Vallejo with a brush, and as you can see the paint didn’t get everywhere, but
there is no better way of doing it, and in the next steps I will cover those spaces with other paints anyway.
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Hobbies:
Dark Umber
Vallejo:
Leather Brown
Now I painted the entire base with Dark Umber, but if I were painting with Vallejo, I would use
Leather Brown. Once again, everything is painted with a brush.
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Hobbies:
Dark Umber
Vallejo:
Leather Brown
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Hobbies:
Light Umber
Vallejo:
German C.
Pale Brown
Now I painted the sand with Light Umber and the tip of my brush. At this point I was not trying
to exactly paint all of the grains, so I moved my brush very quickly, just trying to create some
feeling of a structure on the base.
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Hobbies: Bone
Vallejo: Silver
Grey
AK Deep
Shades: Black
Night
Now I painted the skulls with Bone paint from Matt Cexwish’s paint set, which is a color I actually
fell in love with. For me this is now the best color for painting bones and skulls.
In the first photo, you can see how the skulls looked like after applying the first layer of color and
then after applying a few more.
After that, I painted them completely with Black Night Deep Shade effect from AK which allows
me to create colors and structure that I wouldn’t be able to create with my standard techniques.
In my opinion, you can also just add a bit of retarder to very diluted black paint instead, but I
already have this effect and really like to use it. As you can see, it went very smoothly over the
skulls.
Monument
Hobbies: Bone
Bone 85% +
Light Umber
15%
Monument:
Light Umber
Vallejo: Silver
Grey
Silver Grey
85% + Tan
Earth 15%
Vallejo: Tan
Earth
Now I looked at the photos that you can see in page 8 and painted places on the skulls that shine in them with Bone
paint.
Next, I mixed Bone paint with a small amount of Light Umber and painted layers of colors around those reflections,
and a few new reflections that would appear on the sides of the skulls but would be a bit darker.
Then, I diluted this mixture a lot and painted tiny, half transparent dots around the brightest areas, working on creating
smooth, but not too smooth color transitions between them (photo in the bottom right corner).
Painting dots creates a different feeling to the surface of the model, but as I can see it looks very smooth anyway.
Yes, the idea for those skulls will make them look a bit reflective and some people will call them NMM, but I don’t care,
because I like to paint in this way, and I really like the final effect.
They look like very polished skulls because of that. More realistic, matt and more grey skulls would simply look flat
an uninteresting in this scale.
In the end, I painted the beak of the raven skull with Dark Neutral Grey, next I highlighted it with Neutral Grey, and in
the end I painted the final highlights with Bright Neutral Grey.
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Hobbies: Bone
Bone 85% +
Light Umber
15%
Bone 80% +
Dark Umber
20%
Light Umber
30% + White
70%
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Light Umber
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Dark Umber
Now I mixed Bone paint with a small amount of Dark Umber in order to create a bit darker mixture than the previous
one, and once again I painted many tiny, half transparent dots around the previously painted areas in order to create
smooth color transitions between them and the basecolor. After all of that, I mixed Light Umber with white paint and
with this mixture I painted all of the grains of sand. I know how it sounds, but if you don’t hurry yourself and are just
present in the moment, painting all of those dots is actually very relaxing and satisfying. Of course, it took a while (but
not as much as you might think) and after that, because I saw that all of this was too bright, I made glazes with very
diluted Dark Umber in spaces where I felt it would make sense to have a shadow, and where I thought that it would
make the surface look more interesting. After that, I diluted black paint and made those places that could actually be
shaded a bit darker. Thanks to all of those steps, I can have all of the grains visible, a slow color change into darker
ones, and more saturated grains with brown tonations. While it’s not realistic, I really like the final effect, and it works
well with the rest of the model that is painted ina contrasting, comic book aesthetic.
I hope you enjoyed the series of tutorials about painting The Steel Rook and thank you for your support!
Regards
Flameon
Now I would like to thank my philantropists:
John Mccardell
Grant Black
Bradley Voorhees
Ryoji Yoshimura
Karl Viksnins
Jon
Robert Howland
Alexander Chung
Jino Lee
Kenneth NG
Nathaniel Cooper
Thomas Knowll
Jay Sheeler
Billoudav
OF COURSE A BIG THANK YOU GOES TO ALL OF YOU, THANK YOU FOR LETTING MY PASSION BE MY JOB!