What makes resin surfaces different for wet blending?

The smoothness works in your favor here. Wet blending on a very smooth resin surface produces cleaner, softer transitions than on the slightly rougher surface of cast metal or injection-molded plastic. The paint flows more freely and the blended transitions don't pick up surface texture the way they would on a rougher material. The challenge is that the smooth surface also means paint slides rather than grabs: you need a thinning medium to control flow rather than letting water thin the paint too aggressively.

What is NMM and why does it look better than metallic paint?

Non-metallic metal is a painting technique that simulates the appearance of polished metal using normal matte acrylic paints rather than metallic particles. Actual metallic paints contain mica or aluminum flake that catches light when the model moves. NMM creates the same illusion statically, using high-contrast gradients (nearly white reflections against near-black shadows) that the viewer's brain reads as polished metal. On a display piece or competition model, well-executed NMM tends to look more dramatic and controlled than metallic paint because the contrast is sharper and the gradient can be precisely placed.

What thinning medium should I use for wet blending?

Dedicated thinning mediums work better than water for wet blending because they slow drying without thinning the pigment too aggressively. Vallejo Glazing Medium, Citadel Lahmian Medium, and Liquitex Slow-Dri Blending Medium are all used in the miniature painting community for this purpose. Water alone evaporates too quickly and thins the pigment unevenly: a thinning medium gives you a more consistent working window.

Is wet blending practical for painting a full unit?

No. Wet blending is a technique for individual showcase models, display pieces, and characters you want to look their best. The technique requires working fast, with one area at a time, and redoing passes until the blend reads cleanly. A single large area of armor might take 30-45 minutes of active work to blend correctly. Applying this to 40 rank-and-file minis is not a reasonable goal. Use contrast and drybrushing for units; use wet blending for your centrepieces.

How many glaze layers does NMM typically require?

More than you expect. A completed NMM steel sword usually has 5-8 distinct layers: a dark shadow base, two or three mid-tone gradients, an initial bright reflection, one or two additional glaze layers to tighten the reflection, and a final specular dot at the very peak. Each layer is thin and transparent. Rushing the layer count produces a striped look rather than a smooth gradient. Thin and patient is the whole technique.

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Wet Blending and NMM for Resin Miniatures: Advanced Technique Guide

Resin's smooth surface changes how wet blending and non-metallic metal painting work compared to cast plastic or metal. Here's the advanced technique for painters who have mastered contrast and drybrushing and want the next level.

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You’ve painted a few warbands with contrast paints. You know how drybrushing works on resin, you’ve got your zenithal priming dialed in, and you’re looking at the models on your shelf and thinking they’re fine but they don’t look like the painted models you see in competition galleries. The gap between tabletop standard and display standard is wet blending and NMM, and resin surfaces, it turns out, are actually well-suited to both.

This guide assumes you’re comfortable with the basics. If you haven’t worked through contrast painting and drybrushing on resin, start there. Wet blending and NMM built on top of that foundation are what take a single character or centerpiece from tabletop to display quality.

Why Resin is Actually Good for This

Cast miniatures in metal or resin have slightly rough surfaces from the casting process. Injection-molded plastic has mold release texture. Both of these mean the paint grabs slightly unevenly during fine detail work.

MSLA-printed resin at 0.05mm layer height is smoother than either. That smoothness, which can cause problems with contrast paint pooling and drybrushing (you have to go drier on the brush), becomes an advantage for wet blending and NMM glazing. The paint flows freely across the surface without catching on texture. Glaze layers sit consistently across broad faces. The blended gradient you’re trying to build in wet blending has a better substrate to sit on.

The practical difference: on a polished-looking armor plate, wet blending on a well-printed resin surface produces a cleaner transition than the same technique on cast metal or plastic at equivalent skill level. You’re not fighting the surface.

Wet Blending: The Core Technique

Wet blending works by keeping two or more colors wet simultaneously and blending them in the transition zone while they’re both still workable. The result is a smooth, seamless gradient that reads as a single tonal transition rather than separate layers.

The challenge is time. Acrylic paint dries fast. You have roughly 60-90 seconds of workable window with standard acrylics thinned with water, and the edge of that window is when the paint starts to drag and streak rather than blend. The solution is to use a thinning medium that slows the drying time.

Thinning medium options

Vallejo Glazing Medium is the most commonly used option in the miniature painting community. It thins the paint while preserving the pigment concentration and extending the working window. Citadel Lahmian Medium is the equivalent from Games Workshop. Liquitex Slow-Dri Blending Medium extends the window significantly further and is preferred by painters doing very large blended areas.

Don’t thin with water alone for wet blending. Water thins the pigment unevenly, evaporates quickly, and tends to produce tide-lines where the thin edge dries first. A proper thinning medium is a real difference in the outcome.

The wet palette setup

A wet palette keeps your loaded colors from skinning over between brush strokes. This is optional for single-color applications, but for wet blending with 4-5 colors you’ll be moving between constantly, it’s almost required. Load the full range for the area before starting: shadow, 2-3 mid-tones, highlight. Keep them in value order so you can load intermediate mixes without thinking.

The technique, step by step

Apply the darkest shadow color to the recesses and low points of the surface. While this is still wet, apply the first mid-tone to the adjacent area. While both are wet, use a clean very slightly damp brush to drag short feathery strokes across the transition zone, pulling from dark into light and from light into dark. The goal is to blur the hard edge between the two colors into a soft gradient over 2-4mm.

Do not scrub. Do not go back over paint that has started to dry: it will drag and streak. Work the transition zone while the paint is fresh, then let it dry before the next layer.

One pass of wet blending rarely looks finished. Two or three layers, each adjusting the gradient slightly, produce the smooth result you’re looking for.

NMM: Non-Metallic Metal

NMM is a technique for painting the appearance of polished metal using matte acrylic paints. It relies on a very specific principle: polished metal reflects its surroundings, so the color of metal is not gray or silver: it’s a high-contrast gradient from near-black to near-white with crisp, controlled transitions between them.

When NMM is executed correctly, the viewer’s visual system reads the sharp dark-to-light gradient as the reflective behavior of a polished surface, even though there’s no metallic particle in the paint. At competition level, well-executed NMM looks more controlled and dramatic than metallic paint because the contrast can be placed exactly where you want it.

Understanding the gradient structure

For a sword blade held upright in ambient light, the NMM gradient looks something like this, from bottom edge to top edge: very dark (near black), dark mid-tone, mid-tone, light mid-tone, bright highlight, very bright specular point. The gradient isn’t linear: the dark shadow and the bright specular occupy small areas at the extremes, with the mid-tones occupying the broad middle of the surface.

On a round surface like a helmet, the gradient follows the curvature. The specular point (the brightest reflection) is typically placed near the top of the dome, with the gradient darkening as it wraps toward the back and edges.

For steel or silver NMM, the palette is desaturated: warm near-blacks, medium grays, light grays, off-white at the specular point. For gold NMM, the palette is warm: deep brown-black shadow, rich ochre mid-tone, warm yellow, bright cream at the specular.

The layer structure

Base shadow: Dark gray (or warm brown for gold) applied to the shadow areas and recesses. Can be applied as a regular basecoat at this stage.

Mid-tone gradient layers: This is where wet blending does its work, or where careful layering builds the gradient. 2-3 intermediate tones, each applied in progressively smaller areas and blended into the previous layer while wet, or applied as thin glazes after each layer dries.

Highlight glazes: Fine detail brushes for precise application. A size 00 or 000 brush for these narrow highlight areas. Load the brush lightly with a glaze-consistency highlight tone and apply in thin passes, building opacity gradually.

Specular point: The final brightest reflection. This is typically an off-white or pure white point, applied with just the very tip of a fine brush. On a sword blade, it might be a thin line along the upper edge. On a helmet dome, a small dot or short stroke at the crown. This single bright point is what makes the NMM read correctly at a distance. Without it, the gradient looks like careful shading; with it, it reads as metal.

Where Resin Surface Texture Matters

The smoothness of resin helps, but layer lines can work against you. On broad flat surfaces of an armored character, any visible layer lines from the print will channel glaze layers in the direction of the lines rather than flowing freely. This produces a subtle striped texture in thin glazes that’s visible under raking light.

The mitigation: sand broad flat surfaces before priming if they’re important to the final result. Light sanding with 400-600 grit wet/dry paper smooths the layer structure without losing detail on most surfaces. For surfaces with fine relief detail (scrollwork, faces, fine texture), don’t sand: the detail loss isn’t worth it. Accept that the layer lines will be there and plan the NMM gradient to minimize the area of broad flat surface in the highlight zone.

Practical Starting Points

Start with a sword. A sword blade is the best practice surface for both wet blending and NMM: one broad surface, simple gradient from edge to edge, no competing detail. A single sword blade can be stripped and redone multiple times until the gradient reads correctly.

Use a separate test model. Don’t practice wet blending on a centerpiece model you’ve already spent hours painting. Print a simple flat-surfaced shape as a test slab, prime it, and practice the gradient technique until you understand how the paint moves. Then apply it to the real model.

Accept that the first attempt won’t be good. Wet blending and NMM have a genuinely steep learning curve. The first blended surface will have visible brush marks and an inconsistent gradient. The second will be better. By the fifth or sixth attempt on a test piece, the technique starts to feel controlled. This is normal. It’s one of the few miniature painting techniques where the early results don’t telegraph the final skill level.

Products Referenced

Vallejo Glazing Medium: thinning medium for wet blending and glazes
Liquitex Slow-Dri Blending Medium: extended open time for large blended areas
Masterson Sta-Wet Premier Palette: wet palette for keeping colors workable
Winsor & Newton Series 7 size 1: fine detail brushes for NMM specular highlights and glaze work

The full painting workflow from primer to finished display piece lives in the how to paint 3D printed resin miniatures guide. If you’re batch painting a unit first and saving wet blending for the characters, the speed painting guide covers the contrast-drybrush workflow for getting the rank and file done.