Knight Models Iron Man [Completed]

Crawling over the finish line just about sums up the completion of my attempt at painting the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition white metal model kit. After finishing the main parts comprising the red and gold armour, I had procrastinated on putting the finishing touches to the miniature namely the arc reactor, hand repulsors, eyes and base - partly but not entirely due to laziness.

Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition [Completed]

Perhaps at the back of my mind I felt that I could have done much better painting the non-metallic metal (NMM) effects - especially the gold portion of the armour. But I eventually let it go and moved on as it was my first try at painting NMM. There will be plenty more NMM projects in the future.

Pure white highlights helped to enhance the NMM effect

For Iron Man's eyes, hand repulsors and arc reactor, I decided to use pure white with some light greyish blue as the shadows. Object source lighting (OSL) effects were kept to a minimum because most photos of Iron Man showed that the light from the eyes, hand repulsors and arc reactor did not really affect the armour around them. Majority of the OSL effects were on the ground which isn't very clear from the photos due to the angle of the shots.

Gold armour on the back thigh came off grittier than I had intended

To me, the colour transitions on the red armour turned out better than for the gold armour. One reason could be that I have had more practice painting red than yellow. Moreover I was trying out a new colour combination for the gold armour - comprising of yellows and browns -  and my inexperience with the colour mixture contributed towards a less than satisfactory result on the gold armour.

Back view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition

One of the things that I like about this miniature is the pose that Iron Man has. It reminds me of a fight scene between Iron Man and Thor in the Avengers movie, specifically of Iron Man being pegged back after he was on the receiving end of a head-butt by Thor.

From this angle, the red armour makes Iron Man look like a lobster

Meanwhile, I used muted colours comprising varying shades of grey for the ground so that one's focus is directed towards Iron Man without being too distracted by the base. Though I flirted briefly with using brownish hues for the ground, I felt it would have been too similar to Iron Man's colours.

Side view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition miniature

Other than letting me practice NMM, the Knight Models Iron Man miniature also gave me the opportunity to try a variety of painting techniques such as wet blending and layering with the help of a wet palette. In fact, I now no longer use a dry palette as I find it to be extremely limiting, especially in the warm weather I paint in which results in the acrylic paints drying up very fast.    

Arc reactor was predominantly white with some light greyish blue for the shadows

All in all this miniature was a pleasure to paint and put together. Although assembly of some small parts made this miniature a bit of a challenge, it also made the feeling of achievement more palpable. 

I love the pose adopted by this special edition Knight Models Iron Man miniature

360 view of Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition
For a 360 degree view of the Knight Models Iron Man Special Edition, please check out the video of the miniature below. For other videos, check out my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures.

So my first superhero is now completed. It has certainly wet my appetite to work on other characters from the Marvel Universe. Up next in my Marvel project will be Logan and The Hulk. I can't wait to get started. With so many stuff in my to-do-list, it is indeed a great time to be a miniature hobbyist.

Knight Models Iron Man [WIP - Gold Armour]

Continuing with my non-metallic metal (NMM) work on the Knight Models Iron Man miniature, I was now faced the task of trying to paint the gold portions of the armour. Referencing the same triad of light sources as described in an earlier post, I proceeded to tackle painting non-metallic gold. My main challenge was trying to maintain a fine balance between having a smooth transition and having a stark contrast between the colours. A task complicated by the many angled surfaces of Iron Man's suit which made predicting how light reflects off the armour extremely difficult.       

Knight Models Iron Man - Work-in-Progress (WIP) on gold armour

Using only four Citadel colours namely Scorched Brown, Bubonic Brown, Snakebite Leather and Skull White, I tried to achieve non-metallic gold to somewhat mixed success. To say that NMM is a very difficult technique is a huge understatement. It not only requires a painter to have good blending skills (something I am working on) but also know where to put the highlights and shadows which is basically a good understanding how light reflects off metal (my knowledge is rudimentary at best). 

Colours for non-metallic gold

If you Googled for images of 'Iron Man Mark 3', you would have been bombarded with loads of pictures showing how light reflects off the armour. But rather than helping it actually makes things more confusing as you can only roughly guess at where the actual light source is coming from. Nonetheless, it did provide some surprising images that showed light reflecting in ways that I did not anticipate. That was something I consciously tried to incorporate when painting NMM for Iron Man.

Knight Model Iron Man's thigh gold armour

As with the red armour, the brightest highlight had to be pure white to simulate metal. Of the two colours - red and gold - the latter is much easier to paint as NMM. There are perhaps still some sections of the armour - both red and gold - that I could revisit to improve the NMM effect. Some parts may need a higher contrast gradient between the highlights and shadows but more research on my part is needed to determine for sure or I would just make things worse than it already is.   

Back view of Iron Man's armour, with the gold portions painted

Angled sideways view of Iron Man's armour, with the gold portions painted

To get a good idea of whether the NMM has achieved its desired effect, it's best to see how both the red and gold armour look together as a whole - in terms of the much sought-after metallic effect (see last photo below). While I am generally happy with the results so far, I am under no illusions that I should do much better to get a more realistic NMM effect. The solution to that is more practice.   

Right side of the right thigh gold armour received the least highlights based on light sources

Overall shot of how the gold and red metallic armour interplays with each other

Other than touching up the NMM effect, work remains to be done on the base, arc reactor, hand repulsors and some minor object source lighting. It feels good to be making further progress on my Marvel Universe project, and I hope to post more updates on Iron Man in the coming weeks.   

Knight Models Iron Man [WIP - Red Armour]

Akin to jumping into the deep-end of the pool, trying out the non-metallic metal (NMM) painting technique for the first time was made much more challenging by the many reflective angles provided by Iron Man's suit of armour. Without a doubt, this has been my toughest challenge yet in miniature painting and I was initially overwhelmed by the task I faced in painting Iron Man using NMM. To make things more manageable, I decided to break each task up into small digestible pieces and tackle them one at a time. I have a ways to go before I master NMM but at least I have made a start.

NMM light sources for Knight Models Iron Man

Firstly, I decided on where my light sources were going to be (see above). In this case, I imagined light coming from three different sources spaced roughly 120 degrees from each other. Secondly, I tried to paint NMM layers on Iron Man's suit of armour by treating each small section as separate geometric shapes and paint them based on how I think light would reflect off a metal surface. Things were made easier by the use of a wet palette which helped in blending paints, a key component of the NMM painting technique. It also allowed me to work for longer stretches during a single painting session as the wet palette prevents the paint from drying up to too fast. 

Using a wet palette for NMM helped ease blending of colours

Work on the red armour is by no means finished as I will most likely have to rev-visit it once I completed NMM layers on the gold sections or Iron Man's suit of armour. This is to ensure that light reflections of the gold armour is consistent with how light plays off the red sections of the armour. Nonetheless, I guess the bulk of the NMM work on the red armour is done.

Knight Models Iron Man (WIP Red Armour) - facing Light Source 1

Pure Skull White was used for the brightest highlights to make it look like metal

Back of red armour most likely still needs further touch ups for the NMM to work convincingly

In the case of Knight Models Iron Man, a lack of patience is one factor that can derail my efforts at painting a presentable NMM effect. The many individual armour panels on Iron Man means light reflects slightly differently from each one. A tendency on my part to paint too fast can mean overlooking small details that will cause the NMM effect to look wrong to the human eye.    

Knight Models Iron Man (WIP Red Armour) - facing Light Source 2

Knight Models Iron Man (WIP Red Armour) - facing Light Source 3

Still at basecoat stage - the arc reactor, hand repulsors, gold armour and base

Knight Models Iron Man (WIP Red Armour)

Hopefully when I have finished painting NMM on the gold sections, the overall metallic look of Iron Man will be more convincing. Additionally, object source lighting effects of the Arc Reactor on Iron Man's chest and repulsor weapon's on his hands will enhance the NMM effect, assuming I can pull it off. Well that's it for my progress on the Knight Models Iron Man miniature. Many hours of work lie ahead and I will need every ounce of my willpower to not rush things as per my usual (bad) habit.