Legio Custodes - Painting Gold Non-Metallic Metal

So its been an interesting day, as I've been attempting to paint Non-Metallic metal!!

For me, its a big ask, as I've never tried it before. It seems to be a technique reserved for only the best miniature painters, and well beyond my skill set. HOWEVER you never know until you try, so today i bit the bullet and had a go!

Firstly i needed a template on which to base my attempts, an idea of what I'm trying to achieve. I already had something in mind; Scibors miniatures (where i got those cool Custodes models from) had done some excellent NMM on some of their Sci Fi minis! This is what i definitely want  my Custodes to look like. (image used without permission, but hey, its good publicity!)

The next job was to decide on colours. My only focus at this stage was the gold, and as the only golds that GW do are metallic, i had to mix a new colour. To help i made a colour chart! Yeah, its a bit anal, but  i tend to forget what i mixed! I really wanted to replicate that yellowy-brown that Scibors minis have created.

 (not sure why  it came out sideways but you get the jist!)

So i went for this one, 1:1/2 Sunburst Yellow: Blazing Orange. This colour would form the base coat and subsequent layers will be built up from this base by adding more and more Sunburst Yellow.

As it was a day of new things, i also decided to make a wet pallette. I saw there was an excellent tutorial up on FTW by Corvus, so i followed his Vid and gave it a go! I thought it would be helpful with all the blending and mixing!

Now i wasn't about to butcher one of my new Custodian models trying out this difficult painting method, so a lowly Space Marine was to be the object of my experiments! Well, part of him anyways! I went for a Skull White undercoat so the gold and NMM effect could be accentuated as much as possible.

SO, the first coat of Sunburst Yellow and Blazing Orange was applied.

Then i washed the whole model in a 50:50 mix of Devlan Mud and H2O

A layer of the original base coat was applied next, taking care to leave the recesses dark.

Now it was time to start building up the layers of refection and highlight. Before i started I chose three areas that i wanted to be reflective: the inside of the right leg, the outside of the left, and the groin area. I concentrated the next layers of highlight in these areas to try and make them lighter and brighter than most of the model, in an attempt to make it appear reflective. So i took some of the original base colour and mixed it with some Sunburst Yellow in a 1:1 ratio. I then applied it to the areas that i wanted to be reflective and highlighted.

This picture is after two stages of highlighting, each successive highlight having Sunburst Yellow added to it in a 1:1 ratio.

This is another two stages of highlighting. The reflective areas are starting to shine!

A further two stages of successive highlighting were added before a stage of pure Sunburst Yellow was added finely to the reflective and highlighted areas

You can see here how far i've come from the origional base colour!

FINALLY, a very thin and fine stage of Skull White was added to the reflective surfaces and extreme areas of highlight, effectively highlighting the highlights!!

Here are some pics of it in a light box for a better view.

So, i do like how it turned out, but I'm not sure it its perfect. Did i achieve NMM? I'm not  sure! I am however happy enough with the colour mixes to give it a go on one of the actual Custodian models. I'll no doubt refine the process a bit more as i go along! I'll also add a few of the other basic colours that'll be featuring on the finished model to see how it looks!

Thoughts and opinions please, every little helps!