In this Royal Retinue Review (December 2024), I jump into one of my favorite streams to do: giving on-the-spot feedback to patron submissions. I don’t pre-plan anything and I don’t look at the minis beforehand, so you’re seeing my real-time thought process—why something reads flat, where the gradients need to be longer, and how tiny changes in placement can make a massive difference. A big theme in this session is making surfaces feel believable: True Metallic Metal (and NMM) needs cleaner, longer gradients and less “super sharp angle” banding, especially on swords and daggers. For armor and horse barding, I keep pushing a more volumetric approach instead of pure edge highlights, because otherwise the model looks super flat. Horses come up a lot: I treat shiny horse fur almost like NMM—yes, that means highlights can land in recesses, and transitions should be softer on big volumes like the neck and back. I also talk about OSL and how, if you’re going to do it, you should lean into it: spill light on nearby surfaces, strengthen the contrast, and use it to separate materials (shiny metal vs softer skin). Finally, I point out quick “finish” details—metals on straps, gems for color harmony, teeth definition, and simple cleanup—because those little fixes are what make an army-standard paintjob look properly finished.