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So I'm in the process of painting up my ork army, and I've almost finished up my first squad. I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve the basic color scheme, mostly with the addition of other colors somewhere in the squad. I'm trying to keep everything to a relatively simple paint scheme, as I still have 120 more orks to get painted to finish up the army. Before I would really call these finished, I plan on doing the following:

1 - paint the eyes
2 - grass flock the bases (and add some random bits to the bases as well)
3 - highlight the flesh with a brighter red

Also, what do people think about the possibility of glowing eyes? And if so, what would be a good color to try?

Also, what would be a good way to paint them up so I can distinguish between mobs of 30 boys? I'm going to have 3 squads of 30 shootas, and another squad of 30 choppas, so this would be important.

Any and all suggestions welcome.

what i do is paint the rim of the bases different colors. like one group is red, another blue. simple stuff like that. or just keep on doing different color skins, thats really cool too.

Thats pretty cool, I like the red skin idea!

Looks like an army of HellBoys. Ok I have always said a good base can improve te look of you army alot. SO if you have not built your other guys yet spend some time making some nice bases on those and retor fit these. Mix up the rock texture , maybe use some cork, a little static grass. It will really help.

Now as for the color, try white body paint. Dags on the sholders, half a face painted white here or there. Use a light grey color to do your base designs then a thin down ( make use its not runny though) white over the grey that way it wont be chunky. That will help it stand out. You can go really crazy if you want but with 120 ( and I speak from experience) that will take a while.

I use a different color vertical line in the back of their base to denote squads/mobs. I am not a fan of rainbow bright bases where each squads base is toatal one color. It keeps the army from haveing a unified look. You can see them just fine from behind them and the opponet can easly look if there is any question as to what fig belongs to what mob.

Hope it helps.

red skinned orks?
gives a whole new meaning to "let'skill the redskins!!"

diden't think it would be nice with red but.. it's awsome!
and yes, paint the rims of the bases in diffrent colours or make diffrent coloured "dags" on the arms

they are awsome

I'll second the bit about basing being an important part of the paintjob.

I like to paint my models fairly darkly, and as such, I find a midtone or light base really brings it together.

Can't remember the exact colours I use, but it starts with Scorched Brown and ends up with a light drybrush of Bleached Bone or White. The edging I tend to do in Graveyard Earth, as it is a nice light natural tone.

i myself play orks... and to be honest... the only differing markings i use on mine are different colors on the heavy weapons. if you have 90 shoota boys in the army, does it really matter which squad they go into each game? i mean... organization does not seem to be an ork strong suit. the slugga/choppa boys are already going to stand out, so... really... personally i would just say say... hey... here's 90 boyz... shoot them.

i like the red skinned orks. i myself fiddled around with blue and yellow skinned orks, but went with green in the end... for painting red, which is the army theme color for my orks (just on the wrappings, arm bands, straps, and a few glyphs) i undercoat everything with a flat black spray paint (there is a 96 cent can of flat black at wal mart that i have found to work great, it covers very nicely, it's cheap!!!! and it gives a nice texture for painting on) and then i tend to use the new foundation ball color or scab red as a base, and paint blood red over the top. then i use the devlan mud ink wash to tone the blood red tone, and then pick out the highlights with blood red again, and then the highest hightlights with a bit of blazing orange. as a general rule, every color i put on amodel is actually going to be 4-6 colors layered. it takes a little longer... but, the hobby is most of the fun for me, personally

for eyes... with green skin i would go with yellow. a yellow ochre base, with sunburst yellow (if they are still making this color) highlights and the popular white dots in the corners for the last touch. i don't personally use pupils on orks...

for basing, i go to wal mart and buy a 2 dollar bottle of brown acrylic paint in a bottle, and paint the base kind of thick and dip it in sand... and then paint random areas over the sand and drop some static grass on the paint. you can leave the excess on the model, i assume you're going to be putting a clear coat on them... and the clear coat will finish the job by holding the sand and grass down.

DAMMIT! im painting my orks red skinned as well. oh well at least its just you and me that have red orks around here lol.

fluffwise, do they actually have red skin or do they daub themselves in red paint (or the blood of their enemies)?

I suggest yellow eyes

Clang wrote:fluffwise, do they actually have red skin or do they daub themselves in red paint (or the blood of their enemies)?

I suggest yellow eyes

It's red skin. The explanation I was going to match it with was the the fungus that they've been "born" from expresses itself in a red color. Obviously, not all fungus is green, and it could probably be tied in fluff wise somehow that an isolated batch of orks somehow mutated genetically to have red flesh/skin.

I want the squads to be distinguishable on the tabletop. I want it to be clear when you're looking at the mass of boyz which squad is which. I've been thinking of adding warpaint to the boyz, most likely on a shoulder, indicating their squad.

with actual red skin due to a mutation, consider green eyes (i.e. the opposite of 'normal' orks) also due to the same mutation - the colour contrast is good.

Or use no green at all - these orks will be constantly harrassed by green orks and so they compensate by insisting that green is an unlucky colour and never using it.

different warpaint markings for each squad will be good if you can do it convincingly, but painting the sides of their bases different colours would be a lot easier

It could be their atoms and molecules that are different to other Orks...

Try yellow eyes. That would serve as nice contrast and make them even more Hellboy-ish.

Also, please don't use grass flock on the bases. You have a real nice army here and flocking the bases with something bright green would make them look worse. I suggest you try the citadel modeling sand with the edges on the bases painted in scorched brown.

Wow, what a coincidence I also have started a red ork army, I started 3 years ago so I AINT COPYING!11!, lol.

Main differene is my boyz have white as there secondry colour, white seems to go well with red.

EDIT - I use blue eyes, which contrast well with the red.