Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I love blood-axes! All the mayhem of orks mixed with real excuses to use non-orky tactics and strategy - not to mention really cool painting themes!

If you read my previous post on ork skin you know that I prefer realism over cartoon-ism. Too many ork armies IMHO look like a colour wheel rather than a dirty, grimy, alien hoard that could actually exist and really be coming to dakka your silly 'umans ta bitz!

So when it comes to camo, I borrow from imperial guard patterns, but I simplify them/ make the pieces bigger (like they've been painted with one of those orky hairpieces)/ and generally less neat - so it looks like the ork painted it themselves rather than some imperial sweat shop on Terra.

I go for a 'sense' of uniform - so I only camo trousers, shoulder-pads, and helmets and I put them in mobz of the same general colours. After the 'sense' is achieved I vary the patterns, colours used, heaviness of ink etc. and add in lots of checkz and jaggz so they still look a wee bit chaotic & orky!


I'm going to put a few examples on here of what I do. By no means do I think this is the best paint job - but its so hard to find good orky camo tutorials out there, I thought I'd at least put something up - maybe it will inspire some better ones or some more effective tips! Do post pictures if you have more examples!

I'll put the separate schemes up in replies - so do scroll down to see all of them:

[p.s. I'm working on some new stuff comprised of Lightning bolts on my ard boyz - if it worx, i'll put them up.... if it doesn't, then you'll never see them mwahaa!]





Scheme 1 - Dark jungle

- Paint the pants in graveyard earth.
- Then add scorched brown horizontal fine lines with tapered edges. Next repeat this with bleached bone, running alongside the first lines.
- Finally add three little dots of chaos black over or near the lines (these are the leaves on the branches)
- Add a fine (50.50 mix with water - don’t overload brush) coat over the pants with devlan mud. - I do this over the whole model so usually wait until I’ve painted most of the skin, straps etc. before I do this.

[n.b. all paints with 50.50 water - you may need two coats to get even coverage when painting the whole pants.)
(small tip - its good to not paint too much camo over obvious highlighting areas... so you can highlight... )
(another small tip - be careful to taper the edges, stray hairs/solid edges just look rubbish)

Scheme 2 - Desert

- Paint the pants in bleached bone.
- Then add little messy letter ‘Y’s and ‘C’s in scorched brown.
- Next repeat this with graveyard earth, intersecting here and there with the brown bits.
- Add a fine (50.50 mix with water - don’t overload brush) coat over the pants with devlan mud. - I do this over the whole model so usually wait until I’ve painted most of the skin, straps etc. before I do this.


[n.b. all paints with 50.50 water - you may need two coats to get even coverage when painting the whole pants.)
(small tip - its good to not paint too much camo over obvious highlighting areas... so you can highlight... )

(sorry about the blurry 2nd pic)

Scheme 3 - Urban

- Paint the pants in some kind of blue, or grey (both illustrated below)
- Then add small/medium squares and squared letter ‘L’s in chaos black.
- Next repeat this with spacewolf grey, overlapping here and there with the black areas.
- Add a fine (50.50 mix with water - don’t overload brush) coat over the pants with badab black.

[n.b. all paints with 50.50 water - you may need two coats to get even coverage when painting the whole pants.)
(small tip - its good to not paint too much camo over obvious highlighting areas... so you can highlight... )

Scheme 4 - Jungle 1

- Paint the pants in some kind of green (I use 60.40 mix of goblin green & chaos black).
- Then add very slightly curvy lines / stretch ‘S’ shapes with chaos black.
- Add fine lines of graveyard earth either side of the black. Tips shouldn’t meet
- Add a fine (50.50 mix with water - don’t overload brush) coat over the pants with badab black.


[n.b. all paints with 50.50 water - you may need two coats to get even coverage when painting the whole pants.)
(small tip - its good to not paint too much camo over obvious highlighting areas... so you can highlight... )

Scheme 5 - Jungle 2

- Paint the pants in some kind of green (I use 70.30 mix of goblin green & chaos black).
- Then add very fine little messy letter ‘Y’s and ‘C’s and stretched ‘H’s and ‘S’s in scorched brown.
- Repeat this same step (overlapping the first here and there) with chaos black.
- Repeat this same step (overlapping another step) with graveyard earth/bleached bone mix (60.40).
- Add a fine (50.50 mix with water - don’t overload brush) coat over the pants with devlan mud. - I do this over the whole model so usually wait until I’ve painted most of the skin, straps etc. before I do this.


[n.b. all paints with 50.50 water - you may need two coats to get even coverage when painting the whole pants.)
(small tip - its good to not paint too much camo over obvious highlighting areas... so you can highlight... )

poor un-visitied tutorial...