Can I Paint Photo Realistically?

[@Miniac]

At this time I have reason to believe that Broken Anvil the company might not be able to fulfill their promises to their consumers. I would be wary of investing into their products until they prove to the community that they can keep their commitments.

[@GoobertownHobbies]

OK this was a really cool experiment. Kudos to you on the attention to detail at every step along the way, very enjoyable to watch.

[@calveras86]

I think the end result looks more realistic than the photo though

[@MidwinterMinis]

I like that we independently bought new glasses at the same time, and ended up with pretty much identical frames. Total losers.

[@Miniac]

If my total losers, you mean absolute winners, then I agree 🤓

[@TheGuyWithWifi]

The fact this community watches each other’s videos makes me so happy

[@p-thor]

Do you also in wacky style turn it upside down? Just like Scott and Jon.

[@Capta1nChaos]

Yaaaay! Twins!

[@silverbackprime]

NEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRDS

[@Pfaeff]

To me it looks better than the extremely shiny original, though. I think it really helped to have an exaggerated reference to achieve such a nice result.

[@j.m.4508]

Nah yeah, I reckon if he had a less violently colo0urful ref image, the outcome would be even more muddy.

[@robkuijer9273]

With photography you always run into the issue of scale. It's one of those cases where I think a 3d render is a more realistic depiction of what a full life-sized model might look like. For in the end we just cannot downsize the wavelengths of light along with the model. Still as an exercise its very interesting what you did here. Love your results!

[@joshcraig1735]

The nmm suits the model more, I get it wasn't the point of what you were trying achieve but still looks sick

[@jedrzejwilinski8148]

Love the editing, background music choices and the whole flow of this episode. Maestro, you're definitely leveling up.

[@LDellosa]

all the joke scenes that are cut in and interspersed among all the painting footage is so refreshing and shows just how much Scott cares about the joy of painting. Thanks for another awesome vid!

[@kristiyandimitrov467]

I found your point about applying the color with a brush not changing the hue as much as applying it with an airbrush very interesting. Sounds like a great subject to investigate, would love to see a video where you explore that. In any case, great work, thanks!

[@kevinstemmler176]

I always liked Scott for his creative and fun skits as well as the wealth of painting tips he provides. After listening to most of the trapper under plastic podcasts I have grown to appreciate the amount of editing that Scott and Jon do on their videos. For example 1:06 flashes by with some beep booping, the transition is so subtle. I don't think most people noticed how the text turned into the next shot, it transitions the viewer from the monologue to the teaching portion beautifully.

[@raf74hawk12]

That's one of the unfortunate things about good editing. You don't really notice it unless you're looking for it

[@52Miniatures]

Awfully smart process. I want to try if it works straight off on an Infinity mini. Not as chrome shiny as that Molotov paint, but almost. Hat’s off!

[@Miniac]

I'd love to see you give it a shot! Your videos are always fun to watch :)

[@52Miniatures]

@@Miniac Well why not! Thanks a bunch :)

[@Nikolaijuno]

Honestly I like the color you ended up with better, even if it doesn't match what you were going for.

[@JoshLikesFuzz]

Ah man; I'm essay procrastinating and I thought I'd chuck on a little Minac background vibe and I see you've just uploaded a new video! Seriously, once this essay is in I've got a bunch of minis ready for paint - thanks for getting me back into this hobby.

[@vanstroud2077]

Your videos have always been such an inspiration for me, and I never would have gotten as far as I have without your content and experience

[@ZombieApocalypse09]

Thank Dracula you were able to get the upside-down glasses guy back from Jon's channel. Worried there'd been some kind of contract dispute. Great video! Very cool to see that comparison.

[@Crivicus]

This is very cool, one of the things you are missing is that due to light bouncing between the metal plates some of the recesses that you have made dark are in fact light trap points that should be near white. Other than that there are tinges of orange, purples and browns in the mid tones and shadows that brighten without loosing vibrancy. Red is one of the hardest colours to nmm though and it looks good so well done Scott!

[@muppetminded7183]

Scott: spends countless hours and effort with total effort The Vampire: *O*

[@Ainar86]

If you look at the photos, as soon as you limit the color range it seems to drop the highest highlight, which is a warm yellow, so you ended up with a cold palette while the original is in warm tones. Maybe that's why the nmm looks different?

[@nazarkovalchuk7792]

woooow its like blood its awesome

[@micahlewis4452]

I just love the shots from that new camera of yours.

[@ThePickleJar]

End result on that armour is brilliant. I really enjoyed painting my Crimson Court box, proper nice models.

[@Rulo709]

Great video Scott 100% ballsack on that production and editing. Watching this video was a pleasure. Felt like a nice meal on a fancy restaurant.

[@tomaveryta]

Outstanding as always my man! Love that model too GW finally got a pose right!

[@tassosmoukas5247]

Often I forget how great a painter you sre Scott. And I love the analysis you do in each video. Keep it up!

[@RoofusKit]

I loved this one. It's really nice seeing you experiment and getting to watch the journey. I Like the way your painted model turned out better.

[@robandrews4813]

I love how scientific you make everything and at the same time getting them lolz in... I genuinely laughed out loud... top job and love trapped under plastic!!

[@MasterGankdalf]

Nice! Seeing that you uploaded a new video always lifts my mood.

[@Deathbomb9]

I played some table top RPG battles back about 15-20 years ago and had painted a good portion of my medieval army in basic colors. Some were just pewter minis with a black wash so they weren't just bare. I've also come across a few WH40K players while I was in the military but now I'm getting into gunpla. Hope to see you around and I'm working up to custom paint schemes and scribing. Getting some of the basics down first and learning how to build and create custom things that can add to my builds. Your videos are very informative and have me really thinking about metallic colors that can shift in intensity based on the natural lighting around them with no need to define it on the model alone and allow the world to dictate shadows and highlights without having a gradient on the model itself being a larger platform but a larger scale. Panel liner definitely helps, but being able to add shadows that seem to disappear when light is direct is something I'm playing with at the moment. The physical environment having an effect and casting heavier shadows is interesting as there tends to be a singular light source that would change based on observation, and letting the environment light the model is an interesting topic to me and adding that realism to them can be a challenge since in the shows and movies they were never really leaking fluids or having any carbon build up from thrusters and exhausts or anything like that so having to think of those and still resist the temptation to go too far with some things can be a difficult line to walk but I think I'm on to something with the whole soothing concept in certain places. Just need to find something that looks more like soot than streaked oil or wetted soot. I'm thinking dry pigments but want to be sure I'm getting a good product. Sort of stuck in a place with very little when it comes to hobby shops past hobby lobby level involvement and focus. Mostly comic shops and card gaming shops, maybe some D&D but I haven't found any shops that have a stock that's really the whole hobby focused like the shop you love and show off when you built that little mechanic shop with an alien on the roof.

[@roberthowie]

Great video Scott! It was great to see NMM based on real reflections. Really impressive attention to detail with the photography and the painting! I'm planning to paint a few realistic models in the near future and this is going to be a great foundation; thanks!

[@half_painted_hero]

Cool experiment. I liked the result. Super jealous about the minis. Anxiously waiting for the vamps to come back in stock at my local gamestore!

[@MrDjpaulh1982]

I think it looks better than the first one. Your painting is awesome.

[@gnometroll1717]

Some of the shots in this video were really cool, I'm equally interested in the mini painting and filmography thanks to you Scott. Great video.

[@MC_Deamonking]

Then why don‘t you start a youtube channel. 😉

[@NikkiAnnMarie]

Love the video, the concept and the execution! Great result even if you didn't get the 100% match you were looking for. Something I would mention is that the goal to create realism isn't to create the sensation of light on a miniature object, but to instead render what those lights would look like in real scale. I think that's why you weren't as happy as you would be normally, because replicating the light on a metallic miniature in scale is different to rendering what the same light would look like on a 6ft vampire. You would likely have the more interesting bounce lights and reflections you mentioned were missing underneath the arm. Obviously shrinking that down and preserving the detail is impossible, and you did just about as many steps as possible to replicate what light on metal would look like in a real scale, but as you said artistic liberties are definitely needed to take the idea further.

[@bpronka]

Scott, I absolutely love this video! Congratulations! I tend to like all of your content, but I *really* like it when you take us with you in your journeys of exploration. Awesome editing, awesome filming, awesome painting and awesome ideas! Always a pleasure to watch your work! Thanks for sharing, man!

[@ltjosh9584]

Can't wait to see what other videos with this format you have coming!

[@j453]

You did a really good job, whether or not you hit the mark you set. It looks really good.

[@mcockerham2003]

I had never considered using photos for references in my figure painting. I have always just looked at the object and made choices that way. Now I can see how having a static reference would really help with nailing down the light sources and reflections.

[@gomezzara_creative]

Truly loving this new format of videos papa, incredible job! :)

[@aegidaeon]

amazeballs, yet again! Thanks a ton! Waiting for my last-chance-Jazza-Art-Box - and then i'll finally - after about 30 yrs back to PAINT MORE MINIS!

[@Hynesight2020]

I know you've been struggling with motivation lately but thank you for making this video. One of your best and most useful, to me at least, in a long time. Bonus points for the reference album. Thanks Scott!

[@AMattyDevil]

Scott. I love your videos. Keep up this amazing work. X

[@blake.everyday]

That's an incredible challenge to take on my man. Thank you for all your content, you've help me become an better fishing lure painter and increased my interest in the miniature hobby. One thing I may suggest is that the photos and computers process colors in an additive method so luminosity and brightness increase with colors, versus paints being subtractive so matching the colors on screen then mixing them causes them to lose saturation and luminosity. As to how you would achieve the colors to match the photo by painting, I'm not entirely sure but it may require starting with a white primer and fewer layers of paint? I don't know for sure but I'd love to see you figure this puzzle out because I'd love to see how to do this in my hobby of lure making.

[@ethanbarrettdebattista5124]

The ISO scene!! Cracked me up. Love seeing you paint what you love man. Hope they bring back Wood Elves, for both our sakes.

[@AviTheFire]

it looks absolutely awesmome

[@7sharp9b5]

I love the end result! This is something I've been thinking of doing for ages just too lazy to actually do. It sort of feels like inks would be the perfect medium to replicate the chrome and vibrancy albeit having to fight a little against the shininess. The other thing I thought was re-lighting a NMM painting is going to change the perception of colours too so you would have to paint it under the same light that you photographed it at the end too.

[@shaunkhing]

Good breakdown of the process here. And interesting that the TMM model is so vibrant and super saturated, to the point it kinda looks bad. Bad in the sense that it's just confusing to look at. But it also shows how understanding the reality can also allow you to "improve" on the reality. By taking liberties to make the nmm model look better that aren't strictly real but easier on the eye.

[@Prikelywombat]

I love the cracking on the cape it looks like dragon scales to me

[@KabinMiniatures]

A very interesting experiment! I feel these kind of concepts are great platforms of discovering new things, both for you and the audience. Also I love that humour 😄

[@RobbinsNestStudios]

I think the NMM turned out fantastic! To get that red tone you were looking for at the point in the paint job you noticed it, you could make that glaze in the airbrush a tad bit thicker. That should allow the tinting to be more noticeable. However then you almost definitely would of had to put more time into bringing those highlights back up and if the glaze mix ends up too thick there is the chance of blowing it all out. Although I'm sure I'm not saying anything you don't already know lol. Love the vids!

[@DanMirkz]

Your brush is always so sharp looking... mine always seems to have a strand or two stick out or have a gluggy paint hair looking thing on the tip

[@thom-novi]

Looks really bloody good. I think one reason the red might be more vibrant on the original is because of the reflective pigment.

[@mrpylak7103]

Your version looks fantastic. When looking at a mini, the drastic difference in colors helps define such a small thing. People want to emulate realism on a 28mm scale, but realism doesn't actually look good IMO. I want a Fantasy painting, or something to stand apart from what I see every day. Excellent video.

[@ben9689]

Your attitude in this is really motivating, thanks scott

[@db6013]

Awesome video! Was really interesting to watch. I'm a digital and gouache painter, and I think I have a few ideas if you're going to attempt this again. The first big thing is - don't colour match to a monitor. That thing is backlit, it's going to throw off your colour perception. Do a print out of the mini and colour swatch to that instead. You started on a brown base colour painted on top of black, which seemed to have made your life far more difficult in terms of getting that saturation up. Both the brown and black will have a lot of cool tones in it, so you're already fighting against those tones desaturating and cooling your reds. Your chrome mini was red on top of silver, so the saturation came through a lot more easily. Maybe it would have been easier to start with a white undercoat? (I always basecoated my minis white because I hated how much of a struggle it was to bring up saturation from the black base.) It's so much easier to tone down the saturation of a shade with a light wash of its complimentary than pump up the saturation of a muddy colour. Reds and yellows are generally a huge pain in the butt to shade and highlight without muddying up. What I've learned is instead of just going up and down the value scale, adjust the hue as well. So a red highlight can shift more towards orange and yellow, and a red shadow can shift towards purple. Helps keep things more vibrant! Also boost the saturation of the colour immediately around the highlight. It helps create that 'hot' specular. Sorry for the long ass comment! If you ever want to talk colour theory I'd be more than happy to :D have a lovely day!

[@pixel2plastic832]

AlumaLuster is also super fun to play with and what they used for the armor in Mandalorian but you gotta airbrush it

[@talonjansen8926]

I gotta say Scott, you got some serious talent, this episode was smoooothe like butter, or mayo... Or maybe creamy blends. You know.

[@godinnicolas5692]

This is a definite BOP, an BANGER as is often said.

[@sirdrakey]

that crackle effect is nice!!

[@4SelfmadePromise]

Very interesting video. Love the methodical sciency way you produce your reference!

[@brexitisdank39]

This looks like a lot of fun. Awesome

[@MrSuperflowus]

Gotta say, that was an interesting video Scott, great job!

[@benjaminmoser6890]

This is crazy good...yeeeeet. Killing it once again Scott

[@ohyeahforsure]

Pro tip for you: Alclad II Lacquer Gloss Klear Kote ALC 310 sprayed over top of the molotow chrome and left to dry will preserve the chrome luster and allow for acrylics to be sprayed over top without cracking. It's the only sealer I know of that plays nicely with this particular paint.

[@marcjones5862]

Oh man that airbrush ISO skit mate me laugh. I once added mr colour leveling thinner to Vallejo paint and it turned to chewing gum in the airbrush. That was fun!

[@Herfervampire]

It looks really cool. One of your best videos.

[@cheesedanishable]

Props for the attempt, it's a really informative and interesting video regardless of the outcome

[@DarianSilk1]

The NMM red looks awesome even if it isn't the exact same as your photo. As you say - it's an art form and your art is amazing

[@brianbrinegar6086]

Always look forward to your videos. Thank you for your efforts!

[@juzzapm3252]

I love this channels super silly but also super serious vibe.

[@gggfx4144]

I really enjoyed watching your experiment and though I appreciate time is a consideration I strongly believe in your abilities and that if you continued or tried something similar again you would reach photorealism. In your comparison photos the left hand highlights read closer to orange (for me anyway) and the red is saturated; you have the lights and shadows in the exact right locations, so it's just a case of different colour mixes. Easier said than done ofc but I think you could do it. You often talk about wanting mini painting to be seen as an artform and I think this is a great technical showcase. Thanks for the vid!

[@tombombadil9338]

Love the video. Great concept and idea.

[@isisnmagic1812]

Great video, thanks for letting me know nmm is way out my skill range even though I bought a set of nmm paints from Vallejo.

[@rivertlevandowski]

2:22 had me in stitches!!

[@albertakesson3164]

Man, I really love this studio lab theme with studying the colour red. Going through methods to understand metallic features in high-tones and so on. And the end result looks good! Small objects tend to look more saturated in one colour. Having less redness put into the lightest and darkest tones makes the object look "bigger" - as if there are more going on in the surrounding reflections. I know from my studies in 3D CGI that metallic properties tend to wash out saturated colours in the lightest and darkest tones. 10:25 - The picture our paint job here, it can't be confused with the metallic subject. Because when faking light effects in this fashion, the left image need to be equally lit from all angles! *Taking photos of the end result with the same lighting will actually add more shadow and some highlights on top of your paint job. Perhaps that explains why your colour aren't popping that much?* It's not your paint job that is wrong - it's the studio lighting that makes the photo look dimmer, especially in dark tones. Though, just a little pinch of orange in the mid-high tones probably would do it =] and maybe some more scarlet in the low-tones, perhaps? I can't see because of the lighting I just tried to explain.

[@TheHobbyCorner]

Ooosh that's a tough one. Definitely a niche art form in the hobby in terms of photo realism, especially because it only really pays off from a front and back angle only. Anyways, keep up the great work!

[@theLP100]

This was awesome. I think your final result is sweet. Looks great

[@HannesMrg]

One cool thing about 3D printing minis is, that you have the file and can render it as every material and with every light setup you like.

[@grud8495]

Scott; could you do the same thing, but first paint in all the other parts of the model ? Right now you have so much black, that you used as a relfection color, that I feel we lack some insight if it was done with the colors that would otherwise be reflecting if the entire model was painted. Colors in shadows gives a whole new view on mini painting, one that I want to tackle myself too and it is something I see many great artists do. I also think it's something we need to teach more newcomers. To often we do the straight forward darker base color for shading. while using alternative colors can create stricking and interesting creations. Thanks for the vid!

[@Lexi_Chi_5]

looks incredible, I'd love to have the talent to paint as well as you do, Scott

[@vincentyea3363]

I do prefer the nmm one. It looks more suited to the vampire esthetic rather than a pearlescent red supercar paintjob on the armor. Very good job on that one. I'm really impressed by your work as always !

[@s.w.4409]

I'm a simple man. I see miniac & vampires - I click.

[@davidekstrom9595]

Same!

[@n6356583]

I thoroughly enjoyed this experiment.

[@rpgeoffrey]

I really wanted to see you try a yellow glaze after the comparison. The paint job was still pretty wicked though, definitely looked metallic maybe more worn than the hyper bright TMM.

[@tommasoridolfi3561]

Love this kind of videos, keep up with this awesome content

[@bentosan]

Great video concept

[@oFARSIGHTo]

Not gonna lie Scott, your hand painted version is better than the first example in my eyes. It looks like NMM and gives a nice and very fancy take on a vampire than just the usual black and red vibes that most people put on them

[@frannyfranfrancis]

Glad you are finding your style!

[@mikeparker9812]

That was really interesting. Nice work Scott 👍

[@adianbotha5109]

thanks for this. I feel a little more confident about tackiling NMM now!

[@sergeyorlov1234]

Great vid and an interesting experiment! I noticed that red doesn't like being painted from brown of violet of whatever darker base, you cant get full intencity of color. To get rich red you'd better paint from lights to shadow, applying most vibrant red over white base first, and them move to shadows

[@komakon]

more experiments like this please!

[@gh00ph]

You nailed the values but as you said you missed the saturation level in your reference. It's quite possible that opaque mat paints can't quite achieve the same level of saturation of shiny metallic paint, but my first guess would be to look into how you're moving up through the value scale. Besides starting off with a warmer and more saturated red, lightening with lighter reds and then oranges, then adding yellow in priority should help you preserve saturation. Looking at the reference, it looks something like alizarin crimson, cadmium red medium, cad red light, cad orange, cad yellow, and white should do the trick.

[@jasondonaghey8684]

I'm wondering that if for the final glaze you used the X-27 instead of the Contrast if that would have made a difference in pulling it closer to the original. It is a much more candy red than the Contrast and would have still preserved the rest of the work.

[@caseydawson537]

Taking a photo at your desk with your camera phone. I felt very attacked. LOL

[@jherazob]

Did you have your glasses upside down too?

[@caseydawson537]

@@jherazob I am a glasses wearer though...LOL

[@petsdinner]

You sure do like making life hard for yourself don't you Scott! Trying to replicate a high gloss, TMM candy in (naturally matt) NMM was always going to be a big challenge!! Fantastic final result though, even if you feel like you didn't achieve your goal you still showed the best of what NMM can achieve. Stellar!

[@zeldakitsch]

Fun experiment. So cool to see you are happy to experiment and show us your journey, rather than pretend to be an expert about this. What I mean is thanks for doing something different and great video!!

[@brotherchaplainkage3495]

It may not have come out the way you wanted, but I think it looks damn good. On top of that, you gave the internet some great ideas on how to get reference pics for anyone wanting to attempt NMM.

[@partialprops]

It’s definitely tough to get the same level of saturation from acrylic paints, but what you did does look great. From what I can see, it looks like you were missing the orange tones from the highlights, perhaps due to lightening the reds with white. You may get a better result by adding a touch of orange to all of the highlight mixes to get more of a peach as you mentioned in the video. It’s a great idea though and I think has given you a fantastic result regardless!

[@autumnhannah2368]

The end result looks way better in my opinion. Great video brother

[@maxpears1]

Hey, love the video. Wondering if anyone here knew how he selected the colours and distilled into 3-9 shades in Photoshop. If anyone knows. That would be ace. Thank you