Thankfully, this week was more normal and less bad or stressful things happened. That helped me get back on track with Minerva. I worked on what might be the most technical part of the mini. To explain why, I’m going to have to discuss NMM painting a bit. Some of you will be thrilled by this I’m sure but hopefully its useful for someone out there.
An easy way to learn NMM is to use the Darren Latham approach. He is/was a sculptor and painter for Games Workshop and he’s very talented. If you have an Instagram and like Warhammer at all, he’s a great follow. If you don’t know Darren, you might know Juan Hidalgo who does a lot of NMM Youtube tutorials based on Darren’s technique. Essentially, you paint your mini using this image as a guide.
The yellow dots are sources of light so you base your highlights on those and then you work backwards on where to put the mid-tones and shadows. In a way, this makes painting NMM more formulaic and digestible, which is great when you’re starting out. You also edge highlight with white a lot which is Games Workshop’s favorite painting technique as many of us know. Here’s an example that Darren painted a few years ago that has all of these elements at work.
In my humble opinion, this technique, while it helped me get started in NMM does not lead to the most realistic results and it has a few limitations. Generally, the emphasis is going from light to dark with your paints but with some miniatures, this is impossible. Take for example what I painted on Minerva this week. Its almost all edges on the armor so you can’t do a lot of the typical blending you do on flatter pieces of armor because there just isn’t any room. In addition to the scale, this miniatures is challenging me to do some new things which I really appreciate.
Instead, you have to figure out how the light hits the parts you’re painting and try to match that. It took me two attempts and quite a few adjustments to get it right. Hopefully when you see what I painted below, you can tell the difference from Darren Latham’s approach and will agree that Minerva looks a bit more realistic in the lighting of the armor.
I probably will paint her helmet next and then after that, I’ve got some decisions to make as nothing else can easily be attached to her and then painted. It probably needs to be painted separately and then assembled at the end. I also have the feathers on the helmet which are by far the most likely part of the miniature to bump into something when I paint her so I’ll have to figure out when I’m going to paint those as well. I painted a lot of gold this week so I might even take a tiny break from the miniature just to keep me from feeling burnt out. We shall see!
While I could talk about some fun gaming I did this week, I think instead, I’d rather focus on Comics Corner which is going to return to my favorite format. Reviews that are as rapid fire as I can make them are back and likely will be the focus for the next couple of weeks.
Beta Ray Bill: Argent Star – First up, we have a book about Beta Ray Bill, which places highly in the pantheon of Marvel names that haven’t aged well. Right next to Dum Dum Dugan and Fin Fang Foom! Truthfully, I didn’t know anything about Beta Ray Bill before this. He basically is in Thor’s armor but looks like a dead horse. Very strange. It turns out, he’s actually a tragic figure in Marvel lore. Beta Ray Bill was an alien who underwent some kind of surgery and ended up looking like a horse. He’s nearly as strong as Thor but gets no credit for what he accomplishes. Bill also feels rejected by others because of his grotesque appearance. The first issue of this series explains Bill perfectly and it really hits you in the gut.
The rest of the 5-6 issues are about Bill’s adventure to Surtur’s realm to claim a sword that will allow him to regain his old form that is more humanoid and palatable. Its a great adventure and if you like Skurge, Karl Urban’s character in Thor: Ragnarok, you’ll enjoy seeing him in this one. This book is a great superhero adventure but it also offers something more. A character you want to root for and one that has a tragic life. That makes it stand out from the crowd.
Also, Daniel Warren Johnson wrote and drew it, which is pretty unusual these days. This is my first time reading anything he’s written and drawn and he is a talent. The art in this is so good because it is both detailed and kinetic. Every superhero comic book has action in it, but almost none do it so well. This book gets a healthy 4.5 stars out of 5 from me because its one of the best things I’ve read since getting back into comics last year and I can’t wait to read more from Daniel Warren Johnson. He seems like the best new creator to come to comics in a while.
Ozma of Oz – Not to be outdone, I also read the next Oz book from Marvel which was also delightful. Dave Stone will be pleased to know that the Wheelers show up in this one. In fact, I’d guess that the Return to Oz movie is heavily based off this book. Dorothy is back as well. She is on her way to Australia on a boat and gets carried away to Oz. Is this where Australia got that nickname from!? It would make sense if so.
This book does the same as previous ones where all your favorite characters return along with some new ones. Tik-Tok is a cool and entertaining character. I also really enjoyed the comedic character, Hungry Tiger, which is kind of like Bruce in Finding Nemo, except he really does want to eat a fat baby, if he’s honest.
The Nome King is a great villain too and I loved how the artists drew his Nome minions like Blue or Pink Horrors in Warhammer but made of rocks. All in all, the Oz series is the perfect blend of fantasy and fairy tale. I’m so glad I’ve had the opportunity to read them and I can’t wait to read the rest of them.
Next week, we’ll change things up in Comics Corner a bit further as I’m going to take on Marvel’s Star Wars comics. I’ll reread some that I’ve practically forgotten and give new ones a try. It should be a fun and an interesting challenge to see if the comics are any better than the movies and some of the more TV shows I’ve watched.
Kuribo's Painting 
Nice progress on the armour! Interesting to see that picture you posted on nmm light sources in that style of painting, explains a lot!
Im going to guess that Oz as short for Australia comes from Australian’s need to shorten everything, but who knows!
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Thanks, Nic and I’m glad the NMM discussion wasn’t too boring as well!
As an actual Australian, your opinion is pretty valuable here 🙂 I was thinking that Aus and Oz sound so similar that that might explain the nickname. We may never know the truth behind this one though it sounds like!
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Zzzzzzz….hmmm….NMM what…?! Just kidding, I’m always interested by technique! The process of working backwards from light to dark is definitely different. I’m also surprised that paint with pure white. I’ve always heard that’s something to avoid. I like to add white (or other light colors) to make highlights, but I can’t say I ever go to pure white.
Beta Ray Bill is an odd name. The others you mentioned were back from the 50s, so I can excuse the silliness, but BRB was from the 80s! Still, the character drew on me quickly. I’m not sure if you would like it, but I’d recommend reading Walt Simonson’s run on Thor. He’s the creator of BRB. Most importantly, he did a wonderful job of bringing Thor back to his mythical roots. He’s also one of the best artists Marvel had at the time. He wrote, drew, and lettered the series. Might have inked it too. His lettering added a lot of weight to the comics and was the inspiration for the lettering you see in Invincible. Unfortunately, it took me many years to finally read that series, but it’s now a treasured set of books I own. 😃
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Haha, some people like to talk painting techniques and others don’t and fair enough to both sides! I don’t use pure white a lot myself in NMM. I use Ulthuan Grey and Pallid Wych Flesh much more frequently. Most metals don’t have a pure white look to them when you think about it.
I might have been unfair comparing those names but I do think they all are noticeably silly. I’ve heard great things about Simonson’s run so I will have to try an issue or two and see what I think. When I get tired of reading Star Wars, I’ll give it a shot on Marvel Unlimited!
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Simonson’s art is very stylized, and probably isn’t to everyone’s tastes. I sometimes like it and sometimes not so much. I should have mentioned that the Thor in the movies is mostly ripped from Kirby/Lee and then Simonson. Also the Jane Foster/Thor run, which I haven’t read yet. Have you read that? I was interested, but I also heard it was a bit of a mess. Someday I should check it out though.
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I’m even more intrigued to check it out now! I have read about half of the Jane Foster/Thor run. I thought it was really good and I intended to go back and finish it a few years ago and never did. That’s probably something else I should do since I’ve got Marvel Unlimited going right now!
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Nice, I’ll add the Jane Foster/Thor run to my list too!
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Great progress on Minerva, while I don’t paint NMM I can appreciate great work, I think your approach on this one is heading towards the more realistic style of NMM, rather than the more cartony style that GW likes, as we all know how fond they are of edge highlights ! LOL
Some interesting comics this week, both sound good , and it does indeed sound like the movie was based on this book.
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Thank you, Dave! I like realism the most so I naturally gravitate towards it. GW loves edge highlights because they’re a “cheat” for painting something fairly nicely quickly. It won’t get you very far in a painting competition though, not even at Golden Demon! 🙂
I was lucky to read two good ones this week and I think you’re right that Return to Oz is based on Ozma of Oz. They skipped a book or two in there to get to Return to Oz but I think that was probably the right call.
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Minerva is coming along very nicely, Jeff! 🙂 That other GW mini does nothing for me I’m afraid – I must be getting more grumpy with age!
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Thank you, John! Slowly but surely! Sigvald, the mini in question, is pretty old and GW re-did it and made it look a lot more impressive. I would guess that was painted ten years ago and miniature quality and painting skills have advanced quite a bit since then!
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Thanks for the update on that figure, Jeff! 🙂 Of course, me being me, doesn’t mean I’m going to like a new version any better! 😉
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Absolutely! Even though the newer one looks better, he’s still smug and poncey. Hopefully I used that British word correctly here 😀
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Not a word I use but very appropriate! 🙂 We’ll make a Brit of you yet! You maybe just need to start spelling words properly now e.g. colour, grey etc. and you’ll be well on your way! 😉
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Blimey, bruv! Its a real ‘onor to ‘ear you say that 😉 I’ll definitely have to work on my spellings and don’t ask me too much about metrics either haha!
I first learned poncey from old White Dwarves where they used to call the High Elves that. And who says its just Americans who export their culture globally? 🙂
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🙂
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Nice post – I am mid way through Baum’s book Ozma of Oz – and it appears that the comic is directly taken from it as the words are the same! I guess because it’s public domain. BTW, I am completely unfamiliar with NMM?
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I’m glad to hear you’re reading Ozma and yes, its very impressive how the comics distill the books down into a less wordy and more visual format. I think you’re right on the public domain thing too.
NMM is using non-metallic paint to represent metallic surfaces. So if I’m painting steel, I use shades of grey to create the appearance of metal instead of using actual metallic paints. Most gamers use TMM which is just a fancy way of saying, they use metallic looking paints on metallic parts of the miniature. I hope that makes sense and helps you understand NMM better!
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It was an exciting discussion on NMM. I’ve never done NMM (or at least never on purpose) and I’m fairly sure I don’t want to try.
Your results look good to me. 😀
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Haha, you were someone who I figured would not be especially interested in the NMM breakdown and there’s nothing wrong with that! Everyone should paint in whatever way they like or what works for them. Thank you for the kind words as well! 🙂
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It’s amazing how far techniques/paints have evolved, concerning GW started with square bases painted green.
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It does seem to get more advanced and time consuming to paint things well as time goes on. It also makes it so miniatures painted ten or twenty years ago can look a bit amateurish to what’s done now (or at least that’s my opinion anyway). I guess that is a big reason why MESBG fans want to see some new troop sculpts from GW too! 🙂
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Continually amazing work make. Top level.
Every time I think of Oz these days I think of Mark Morin and his Wars of Ozz blog posts. 🙂
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Thank you, mate! I’m the same way. I can’t prove or disprove that his Ozz project made me want to read the comics 🙂
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That’s really interesting about the NMM. I guess it’s a sign of your expertise that you know when to go with the classic approach and when to go your own way.
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Cheers, mate! Honestly, I use the classic approach as a fallback for the most part but its nice to have that knowledge or skill when I need it.
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