However there are two things I dislike about GW orks:
- The green skin. I know it’s a little heretical but I’m just a bit bored of it and want something different!
- You have to paint a lot of them. They are the polar opposite my hyper-minimal Grey Knights.
To that end I wanted to experiment with producing a really
quick and efficient way to paint non-green Ork skin to use on the line troops.
Even in a 500 point army there will be at least ten boyz I need to paint so I
wanted something quick and dirty to use on them.
I decided to base my scheme around the more naturalistic
earthy skintones of the World of Warcraft Orcs. I’ve never really played WoW
but I love the direction that blizzard has taken the Orc’s appearance in their
latest expansions. To this end I was looking for an orangey-brown base being highlighted
up into yellow given the palette presented by these images.
Conveniently enough, Element Games acquired the entire Scale
75 range of paints this week, and given the hype surrounding them I really
wanted to try them out! To that end I decided to purchase a few bottles and
used a lovely Savage Orc Boss I had lying around as a tester model. After some thought and color comparisons
online I ended up selecting their “Mars Orange” to use as a base and use their “Tenere
Yellow” as a highlight.
Given that I’m looking for something really quick and simple
to do on the line troops, I wanted to do everything through either my airbrush
or washes, no brushwork allowed! To that end I began with a black spraycan
primer, and then did an initial coat of Mars Orange mixed about 70/30 with Army
Painter Uniform Grey in order to allow for better coverage over the black.
After this I went over everything again with straight Mars Orange. I have to say it is an absolutely gorgeous color that went on like a dream, it gives a really
naturalistic earthy tone that looks superb. I was almost tempted to start
washing straight away, but after such great results from one pot I just had to
see the other.
Unfortunately the Tenere Yellow was a bit of a weird color,
the paint had a curious texture that didn’t want to thin nicely in the
airbrush. While I love getting unusual colors like this that make an army look
really unique sometimes they can be real duds and I was afraid this might be
the case. I tried different levels of yellow over the mars orange and it ended
up looking alright at points, but I definitely think I went overboard and that
it should only really be used for a single minimal zenithal highlight rather than covering
the bulk of the skin like I did here.
However the results improved significantly after a wash of
orange ink. I made this from a 50/50 mix of scale 75 red and yellow inks kindly
borrowed from Byron. The scale 75 inks are incredible but damn are they ever
vibrant! It feels like your using ink from a pen they have so many pigments in
them. But I’ve never seen a more vibrant orange ink than the mix I got out of
these. I did the wash over the entire model but as I went over sections I’d
immediately go over them again with straight water in order to push the inks
into the recesses. This could have been done better with some Vallejo Glaze
medium but i'm out at the moment, so water had to do! A tempting
alternative to this would be to glaze it with the mars orange again which might
look more cohesive but I'll try that on another miniature.
I decided it still looked a little too bright so I did
another wash all over with Army Painter Soft Tone ink, also going over everything
with water after I’d put it on. The result darkened things down nicely and made
it look a bit more like skin. While I’m far from 100% satisfied with this it gave me a pretty good idea of what to do for a line troop, especially considering there isn’t that
much skin showing on the typical 40k boy. I think with a lot less of the
yellow involved so more of that lovely orange shows through, and the use of a proper glaze medium with the inks it will be
perfect for churning them out en-mass.
Obviously I will spend a lot more time on the leader figures pushing
the contrast more and highlighting up from an orange-brown to almost a pure yellow tone. While this
might sound like it will clash with my line-trooper scheme, something I love about the orc
fluff is it allows for a range of skintones within the army. Especially given
the fact that orks who keep winning fights literally undergo massive physiological
changes. It only makes sense to me that the biggest and best orcs would have
the most vibrant coloring!
Thanks for looking,
-Tom
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