Need Help Making Realistic Gold/Metal

[Pyro2o6]

I'm trying to make realistic gold/metal. Here's the unfinished picture:

I tried searching for metal tutorials, but most of them were for brushed metal or liquid metal. The closest one was Ash's chrome tutorial, but it only works with gray.

I tried putting a radial gradient then a reflect gradient, like this:

But it doesn't look too metallic.

Thanks!

~Doan

[Ash]

I see you've already found my tut, but no, it can work with all colors.

golden blade, no problem.

Use either Color filter, Color tint or Curves (Curves+) to change the chrome/metal color.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck

Ash

[Toy Killer]

Try Extreme shading and highlighting..?

Make the dark parts really dark (Not black, but a very dark golden brown) and the light parts almost white. here is a good tutorial for painting minitures, same concept, different medium:Metalic painting

[KJslove1994]

Have you tried the gold text tut? That might give you the colors that you need.

[Pyro2o6]

I see you've already found my tut, but no, it can work with all colors.

golden blade, no problem.

Use either Color filter, Color tint or Curves (Curves+) to change the chrome/metal color.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Good luck

Ash

I never thought of that! Well, then again, I don't know how to use Curves and I don't have Color Filter/Tint (unless they're not plugins lol)

Well, this is what I did though. I used magic wand to select the gold chest, then I copied it into a new layer. Then I followed the tut and changed the blending mode/opacity of the layer, and it looked metallic, but it didn't have the light source I needed. I need the light source to be in front of the character, so that it shone on his front. Is there a way I can change it?

Try Extreme shading and highlighting..?

Make the dark parts really dark (Not black, but a very dark golden brown) and the light parts almost white. here is a good tutorial for painting minitures, same concept, different medium:Metalic painting

That is actually really close to what I want! It's realistic, but not too realistic, so it fits with my piece of art. How do I blend those colors though? (Step 4 and above)

Thank you Ash and Toy Killer for the help!

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't see the last post until now!

Have you tried the gold text tut? That might give you the colors that you need.

Ah, I saw it before, but I didn't give a good look before. I looked it over again, and it doesn't really look gold. It's shiny, though.

Thanks!

[Nicad]

I usually use a gradient and then bevel the edges. Just look at my sig for example!

EDIT: I changed my sig and last time I tried to put this edit, the site suddenly went down. Then I forgot to try again.

[Pyro2o6]

I usually use a gradient and then bevel the edges. Just look at my sig for example!

It doesn't really look metallic though =[

[loganart]

does this look like gold? i just did it right now, if it looks like gold then i can tell you how i made it

[david.atwell]

Dial down the green a bit.

[loganart]

ok hows this idk about it, is it to light?

[Pyro2o6]

ok hows this idk about it, is it to light?

Yeah, that looks pretty gold, but it's brushed =[ If you know how to make gold kinda like that, not brushed, and with a vertical reflect gradient (so it's brightest at the middle and darkest at the edges) I'd love to learn. I'd like to learn how to make gold like what Toy Killer showed, but Idk how to blend the colors. I tried smudge, doesn't work too well.

[Curmudgeon]

Ever since Max posted his tutorial earlier this year making medals, I've liked to use his ideas.

You can check out the tutorial here: http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25452&p=195708

[loganart]

ok hows this idk about it, is it to light?

Yeah, that looks pretty gold, but it's brushed =[ If you know how to make gold kinda like that, not brushed, and with a vertical reflect gradient (so it's brightest at the middle and darkest at the edges) I'd love to learn. I'd like to learn how to make gold like what Toy Killer showed, but Idk how to blend the colors. I tried smudge, doesn't work too well.

ok let me try again

EDIT: toy killers looked like a cartoon gold, are you going fr that?

[Pyro2o6]

Ever since Max posted his tutorial earlier this year making medals, I've liked to use his ideas.

You can check out the tutorial here: http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=25452&p=195708

I like the one that says "Max Power Quality Check" and the "Paint.NET Award" ones, they look metallic.

ok hows this idk about it, is it to light?

Yeah, that looks pretty gold, but it's brushed =[ If you know how to make gold kinda like that, not brushed, and with a vertical reflect gradient (so it's brightest at the middle and darkest at the edges) I'd love to learn. I'd like to learn how to make gold like what Toy Killer showed, but Idk how to blend the colors. I tried smudge, doesn't work too well.

ok let me try again

EDIT: toy killers looked like a cartoon gold, are you going fr that?

Hm.. I guess I am. I think what I'm going for is realistic, but not too realistic, like Toy Killer's. That one was excellent and exactly what I was looking for.

It's kinda late right now, so I'll try these methods tomorrow.

[Toy Killer]

The technique I showed you is called Non-Metalic Metalics, used in miniture painting to get a realistic metal look without using metalic paints (which are, simply, Paints with metal flakes in them). If you have any questions, Just look it up! you'll find plenty of tutorials, just mentally change out water blending with gaussian blur plugin and Model with drawing.

How you can recreate it in your work:

1. seperate your metalics from your fabrics/flesh/wood in your painting in it's own specific layer. If you colored in cells this should be pretty easy.

2. Make 5 blank layers above your gold. I personally making the rest transparent for now, but that's up to you. Label them something like 'shadows/deep shadows/Highlights/bright works/ambiant light' or anything to that effect.

3. On the 'shadows' Layer, pick a nice sized brush and go over where the light would recess on the armor (like the grooves behind ridges that block the light) with a deep Terracotta/Red Clay color.

4. On the 'Deep Shadows' Layer, take a finer brush and go over the spaces again, further or less touched by the light with a darker, more mulched brown color (think dark chocolate).

5. use the Gaussian blur tool, and individually blur the Shadow and Deep Shadow layers. choose the blur to fit the color blend, but don't worry if it blurs into area you don't want them, you should need to touch it up anyway. Typically, the Deep Shadows doesn't have to be blurred as much, while the Shadows may need to be blurred a fair bit to look right. Once done, you may have to touch them up so the colors don't bleed into areas that are supposed to rise up, or off the armor completely.

6. the armor should start taking shape now. Now it's times for highlights. Where the light touches the armor strongest needs to be brightened to a nice pastal yellow on the 'Highlights' Layer.

7. Just like with 'Deep Shadows', Bright Work needs some luvin' too! Touch up the very top of the ridges with an off white color (like a sun bleached bone).

8. Again blur to your liking and fix up as with step 5.

9. Now, for Ambiant light. All surfaces reflect light just like a mirror will. It's just not as strong. Shiney surfaces, like gold, show this effect the strongest and require a touch of strong Ambiant light. This is just like Bright Work, but reflecting the exact opposite way of the main source of light. this will have to be blurred, but just slightly. the more you blur it, the more it will throw off the mind's eye in understanding what was intended to be the main source of light.

10. Your armor should look nice and sparkling. I would personally suggest taking the primary color layer and making a copy, putting it higher then all the other layers, and playing with, overlay, multiply, lighten, darken, screen, etc, and most importantly, the opacity. Those colors, most likely are not linear to each other, but by having a layer of one color over them with at 10% opacity, It will draw them together. you can also experiment with noise and and a whole slew of other filters to experiment with the finish of the armor.

Side Notes:

The stronger the difference between the shading and the highlights, the object appears to have a stronger gleem or luster to it.

The more area the highlights take up opposed to the shaded areas, the brighter the source of light appears to be.

The darker the shadows, the closer the light source appears to be.

The more area the shaded areas take up, the dimmer your light source appears to be.

If you have trouble deciding how you want it shaded, try finding a refrence picture and adjusting the curves so it suits your color scheme. Don't just eye dropper the color(you want to learn how to do pick colors yourself!)!

[Pyro2o6]

Sweet tyvm! I can't wait to try it out. I don't have time until the weekend though =[