Non-metallic metal (NMM) is a miniature painting technique that simulates the appearance of metallic surfaces using only matte paints and careful placement of highlights and shadows. Instead of using actual metallic paints containing metal flakes, NMM painters use regular colours — greys, blues, browns, and yellows — arranged to mimic how light reflects off polished metal. The result is a stylized, painterly aesthetic that is widely considered the pinnacle of miniature painting skill.
NMM is an advanced technique that requires strong understanding of how light interacts with reflective surfaces. It is not a beginner technique, and attempting it before you’re comfortable with basic layering and blending will lead to frustration. However, understanding NMM theory improves all your painting because it forces you to think about light placement consciously rather than intuitively. This tutorial covers the theory, provides step-by-step recipes for gold and steel NMM, and includes practice exercises to build your skills.
What Makes NMM Different from Regular Metallic Paints?
Traditional metallic metal (TMM) paints contain actual metal flakes suspended in acrylic medium. When light hits these flakes, they reflect it genuinely, creating a real metallic shimmer. TMM is easier to use — apply a metallic base, wash it, and highlight with a brighter metallic, and you get a convincing metal surface with minimal effort.
NMM replaces those real reflections with painted ones. You’re essentially painting a picture of what metal looks like rather than using materials that are actually metallic. This means you control exactly where the light appears to come from, how sharp the reflections are, and how the metal reads from every angle.
The advantages of NMM are artistic control and visual impact. NMM allows you to compose your miniature like a painting, directing the viewer’s eye with deliberate highlight placement. In photographs — which is how most people see display miniatures today — NMM often looks more impressive than TMM because real metallic paints can create distracting specular highlights that shift with camera angle.
The disadvantages are difficulty and viewing angle dependency. NMM looks best from the angle you painted it for. Rotate the model and the illusion weakens because the “reflections” don’t move as real reflections would. It’s also dramatically more time-consuming and technically demanding than TMM.
How Does Light Behave on Metal Surfaces?
Understanding NMM requires understanding how light reflects off metal, because you’re simulating that reflection with paint.
High contrast: Metal surfaces have much higher contrast than matte surfaces. A matte red cloth goes from dark red in shadow to light red in highlights. A polished metal surface goes from near-black in shadow to near-white in highlights, with very little mid-tone between them. This extreme contrast is what reads as “metallic” to the eye.
Sharp transitions: On curved metal surfaces, the transition from dark to light is abrupt, not gradual. A polished sphere has a distinct, bright highlight spot rather than a soft gradient. The sharper your transitions, the more polished and reflective the metal appears. Softer transitions read as brushed or matte metal.
Environment reflections: Polished metal reflects its surroundings. A knight’s armour reflects the blue sky above and the brown ground below. Incorporating these colour influences into your NMM (cool tones on upper surfaces, warm tones on lower surfaces) adds realism and visual interest.
Inverted highlights on undersides: This is the counter-intuitive part. On a downward-facing curved surface, the bright reflection appears at the bottom (reflecting the ground/light from below), not the top. This inversion is what makes NMM so challenging — you have to think about where reflections would actually appear on every surface, which is often the opposite of where you’d normally place highlights.
How Do You Paint NMM Steel / Silver?
Steel NMM uses a palette of black, dark grey, blue-grey, and white. The key colours in Citadel paints are:
Palette: Abaddon Black, Dark Reaper, Thunderhawk Blue, Fenrisian Grey, Blue Horror, White Scar
Step-by-Step Steel NMM on a Sword Blade
Step 1 — Basecoat: Apply Dark Reaper (blue-grey) over the entire blade. This is your mid-tone.
Step 2 — Shadow: Paint Abaddon Black into the deepest recesses — the junction where blade meets hilt, any fullers (grooves), and the areas furthest from your chosen light source. The transition from Dark Reaper to black should be fairly abrupt.
Step 3 — Initial highlights: Layer Thunderhawk Blue, then Fenrisian Grey onto the upper portion of the blade. On a flat blade, imagine a horizontal line roughly one-third from the top — above this line goes lighter, below stays dark. The transition zone at this line should be sharp, creating a clear division between light and dark that reads as a metallic reflection boundary.
Step 4 — Bright highlights: Apply Blue Horror and then pure White Scar to the very edge of the blade and the sharpest highlight point. White should appear only on the absolute highest points — the blade edge, the tip of the fuller, the very peak of any curve. Too much white kills the effect; too little makes it look flat.
Step 5 — Edge highlights: Run a thin line of white or near-white along the cutting edge of the sword. Metal edges catch light sharply, and this bright line is essential for selling the metallic illusion.
Step 6 — Reflected light: Add a thin line of Fenrisian Grey or Blue Horror along the very bottom edge of the blade (the edge closest to shadow). This represents light bouncing off the ground back onto the underside of the metal. This small detail massively improves the NMM effect.
How Do You Paint NMM Gold?
Gold NMM uses warm tones: dark brown, orange-brown, yellow, and ivory/white. The key colours in Citadel paints are:
Palette: Rhinox Hide, Mournfang Brown, Skrag Brown, Zamesi Desert, Yriel Yellow, Flash Gitz Yellow, Screaming Skull, White Scar
Step-by-Step Gold NMM on Armour Trim
Step 1 — Basecoat: Apply Mournfang Brown over all areas that will be gold.
Step 2 — Shadows: Paint Rhinox Hide (or Rhinox Hide mixed with black for the deepest shadows) into recesses and the areas opposite your light source. Gold in shadow reads as a warm, dark brown.
Step 3 — Mid-tones: Layer Skrag Brown, then Zamesi Desert onto the surfaces catching light. Build these up smoothly — gold has slightly softer transitions than steel because it’s a softer, warmer metal.
Step 4 — Highlights: Apply Yriel Yellow, then Flash Gitz Yellow to the highlight zones. These bright yellows are what read as “gold” to the viewer.
Step 5 — Maximum highlights: Mix Flash Gitz Yellow with Screaming Skull, then apply pure Screaming Skull or White Scar to the absolute peak highlights. On gold, the brightest highlight is a warm ivory rather than pure white — gold reflects warm light.
Step 6 — Contrast adjustment: Go back and deepen any shadows that look too flat. The contrast between the dark Rhinox Hide shadows and bright yellow highlights is what sells the gold illusion. If the contrast isn’t strong enough, it reads as brown cloth rather than gold metal.
What Blending Techniques Work Best for NMM?
Layering
The most accessible blending method. Apply successive thin layers of increasingly light colours, each covering a slightly smaller area. The overlapping transparent layers create a graduated transition. This is the method most NMM tutorials teach because it’s reliable and controllable.
Wet Blending
Apply two colours side by side while both are wet, then use a clean brush to blend them together where they meet. This produces smoother transitions than layering but requires speed and confidence since you’re working against drying time. A wet palette is essential for wet blending.
Glazing
Apply extremely thin, translucent coats of paint over dried layers to smooth transitions. This is the refinement technique — after your initial NMM blocking is done with layers, glazes soften any remaining hard edges and unify the tonal progression. Many competition painters do their NMM in three phases: block in values with opaque paint, refine transitions with glazes, and sharpen final highlights with precise opaque marks.
Loaded Brush / Two-Brush Blending
Load your brush with the highlight colour, then use a second clean, damp brush to feather the edge of the stroke immediately after applying it. This technique, popularised by painters like Ben Komets, produces incredibly smooth transitions and is particularly effective for the sharp-to-smooth gradient transitions that characterise polished metal.
When Should You Use NMM Versus TMM?
Use NMM for: Competition and display pieces where the model will primarily be viewed from one angle (usually the front). Photography showcases where you want maximum visual impact. Models with large, flat armour surfaces that benefit from dramatic light composition.
Use TMM for: Gaming armies where models are viewed from all angles. Speed painting projects where time is limited. Models with complex geometry (many small metal details) where NMM placement becomes impractical. Beginners who want convincing metal without advanced technique.
Consider “Sky-Earth NMM” (SENMM): The most advanced form of NMM that incorporates colour from the environment — blue from the sky on upper surfaces, brown/green from the ground on lower surfaces, and colours from nearby objects reflected in the metal. SENMM produces stunningly realistic results but requires painting experience and strong understanding of colour theory.
What Practice Exercises Build NMM Skills?
Exercise 1 — Value scales: Paint a smooth gradient from black to white on a flat surface using 5-7 steps. This trains your ability to control value transitions, which is the foundation of all NMM work.
Exercise 2 — Sphere study: Prime a large bead or ball bearing and paint it as a metallic sphere using NMM. This teaches you how reflections wrap around curved surfaces. Place the highlight slightly above centre, the dark band below it, and a thin reflected light line at the very bottom.
Exercise 3 — Spare weapon practice: Paint spare swords, axes, and shields from your bits box using NMM. Weapon blades are the simplest NMM subject because they’re relatively flat surfaces with clear edges. Practice on these before attempting NMM on complex armour plates.
Exercise 4 — Study reference: Search for photos of polished metal objects — chrome spheres, swords, gold jewellery — and study where the dark and light areas fall. Understanding real metal reflection patterns is the single most valuable NMM learning activity. Many painters print reference photos and keep them next to their painting station.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is NMM better than metallic paints?
Neither is objectively better — they’re different artistic approaches. NMM produces a more stylized, painterly look that photographs exceptionally well and offers total artistic control over light placement. TMM produces genuine metallic shimmer that looks correct from every viewing angle with less effort. Many top painters use both techniques on the same model (NMM for focal areas, TMM for small details).
How long does NMM take to learn?
Expect 3-6 months of regular practice before your NMM looks convincing, and 1-2 years before it looks polished. NMM is a technique that improves gradually with each model. Your first attempts will likely look odd — this is completely normal. The learning curve is steep but the results are worth it if you enjoy display-level painting.
What colours do you need for NMM?
For steel NMM: black, dark blue-grey, medium blue-grey, light grey, and white. For gold NMM: dark brown, orange-brown, yellow, ivory, and white. A basic NMM palette of 8-10 paints covers both metal types. You don’t need dozens of colours — NMM is more about value placement than colour variety.
Can you mix NMM and TMM on the same model?
Yes, and many painters do. A common approach is NMM gold trim with TMM steel weapons, or NMM on a character’s armour with TMM on smaller details like buckles and chains. The key is consistency within each area — don’t mix NMM and TMM on the same surface, but different surfaces can use different methods.
Why does my NMM look like grey plastic instead of metal?
Insufficient contrast is the most common problem. Metal has extreme value range — near-black shadows directly adjacent to near-white highlights. If your NMM uses only mid-tones (grey to light grey), it reads as grey plastic. Push your darks darker and your lights lighter. The second most common issue is transitions that are too smooth — metal reflects light sharply, so some hard edges in your transitions actually help sell the illusion.
How do you paint NMM on an Imperial Knight?
Imperial Knights are ideal for NMM because their big, smooth armour panels give you room for dramatic reflections. Choose one light source and paint each curved plate with a dark band, a sharp horizon line and bright highlights on the top edges. Then add a thin reflected-light line along the lower edge. Start with the trim or a single panel before you try the whole carapace.
What brush do you need for NMM?
Use a good-quality size 0 or 1 round brush with a sharp point, ideally sable or a high-grade synthetic. You need the point for crisp edge highlights and the belly to hold enough thinned paint for smooth layers and glazes. Keep a second, slightly larger brush for two-brush blending, and a wet palette helps a lot.
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