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Ok so let me start with I have not painted in years, I left in 5th addition I've always wanted to come back but things were getting in the way responsibilities and so on, children,job change,not enough space,not enough money,lack of friends, so on and so forth but now I'm back and loving it more than ever.
The way I see the hobby now is very different to my old stance before i use to LIKE painting and loved modelling I did some crazy uneaque conversions on my old ork list but i was not paying much attention to the fluff or history of the army's in 40k and fantasy i started buying models based on the stat lines, I then started to replace my painted/converted models with "cheesy" stat line models and I started to earn a reputation as a "power gamer" this was both a compliment and insult, the compliment was I had the ability to crush my oponants (yes with orks) hard to believe that in the current state of the game, and the insult side of it being that I did not care for the hobby and only about winning which was partly true.
This eventually led to me owning a sea of grey plastic people did not really want to play with me any more and I had lost the will to paint, but I'd did not quite end there running out of things to do with all this plastic I decided to do what I did best within the hobby.... compete.

I can't remember the date but it was roughly 6-7 years ago there was a doubles tournament me and my friend decided to take our best armies to it and win the prize £100 worth of your chosen army I believe, excited at the idea of earning more plastic with my plastic was very appealing and no one could beat me other then my friend who I happend to have on my team.... team unstoppable.
The sun was shining I was excited my friend extatic,ping there was the confirmation email our army's confirmed legal, beep beep I jumped up hastily from the chair in my living room where I had been purched waiting for my friend I rushed out side there he was in his clapped our Ford Fiesta, we floored it arriving 20 minutes early this was our first tournement heads turned to watch us as we walked through the door no body recognised us unfamiliar faces there expression the one of wonder guessing what was in our carry cases .
We sniggerd and joked that we were sharks swimming with the fish and they hand no clue as to the power that was in our carry cases.
We were quickly matched up with our oponants double space marines,blood angels and space wolves playing for kill points we lost 10-2 crushing defeat, then eldar partnerd with necrons objective mission, defeat and the next game defeat.
We never won a single game that day and came last and won a certificate for coming last this was the best and worst day in the hobby I had had the grand finally and the end of 40k.

I've come back with a different view altogeather my current list will be completely fluff based I have even started to read the Horus heresy I hated everything marine in the old days, could not understand why every one played them they seemed boring to me, that was untill I started actually reading these books full of history although the books are about space marines it's made me appreciate the hobby more your not just buying plastic your buying into a rich history, one does not have to win to have fun but in the off chance that you do win it makes the game even more exciting and enjoyable any way enough of my history here's gruk and his nobs I intend to split them up using gruk as a regular war boss and the nobs will lead boys in trucks to take objectives while my mass of orky dakka rains death down upon the enemy stompa, deff dreads, morka/gorkanaut grot big guns id say lootas but there heavy supourt now kanz and so on.

Here he is be as brutal as you like all criticism welcome.

They look great to me. You obviously have a process in mind and the skills to execute it.

Welcome back to the hobby,

I have also recently dusted myself off and joined the fray. A lot has changed, and a lot more is about to change. Pretty exciting time to be re-entering the hobby.

Good work on your Orks. Painting must share certain qualities with bicycle riding, as you seem to be doing quite well at it, despite your hiatus! Shading is looking rich and adding a lot of depth.

I am looking forward to checking out more of these as you get on.

All the best,

-Matt

Welcome back to the hobby! I'm just getting back into it myself.

I think your orks look good. I really like the teeth on the squig. I know, odd compliment right? But I noticed them right away because I've been trying very hard to figure out how to get that bone look right for teeth, horns, etc, and whatever you did looks fantastic!

 Luciferian wrote:
They look great to me. You obviously have a process in mind and the skills to execute it.

Thanks man.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

MattricularStrange wrote:
Welcome back to the hobby,

I have also recently dusted myself off and joined the fray. A lot has changed, and a lot more is about to change. Pretty exciting time to be re-entering the hobby.

Good work on your Orks. Painting must share certain qualities with bicycle riding, as you seem to be doing quite well at it, despite your hiatus! Shading is looking rich and adding a lot of depth.

I am looking forward to checking out more of these as you get on.

All the best,

-Matt

Thank you I plan on starting an official thread and uploading pictures squad by squad hopefully you will be able to see my painting skills improve over time.

Don't have a name for my lord yet but I was thinking of a name along the lines of Iron spanna and the dakka stompers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ryla wrote:
Welcome back to the hobby! I'm just getting back into it myself.

I think your orks look good. I really like the teeth on the squig. I know, odd compliment right? But I noticed them right away because I've been trying very hard to figure out how to get that bone look right for teeth, horns, etc, and whatever you did looks fantastic!

There's a lot of people coming back GW is heading in the right direction I feel despite the prices still remaining high they are connecting with the fans, it's an exciting time to be coming back being able to play a game and not plan your week end around it

Base it brown then wet blend ushabatti bone with which ever brown you chose to base it with, sounds simple but you probably know it's not already watch a video on it on YouTube, pay close attention to his brush strokes and you MUST use a wet pallet if you are not already.

You'll get lots of little tips and tricks and paint recipes as you go along.

Here's something folks aren't so common to mention:

Think about the direction that light is coming from - at the moment your highlights are 'middle-of-surface' no matter the direction that surface is facing. This (paying attention to an imaginary light source) is commonly referred to as 'zenithal' highlighting (but that more often still is used to describe a spray / airbrush technique).

Have a look at where the highlights are on these Ogres (in particular the skin and green clothing) - note they're blended up to quite a sharp 'upper' edge and fade down to a midtone 'block' highlight.



This is done over the top of the 'dark in the recesses' look. and helps exaggerate the shape of the piece more as it's a 'natural' pattern for it to be lit in.

winterdyne wrote:
You'll get lots of little tips and tricks and paint recipes as you go along.

Here's something folks aren't so common to mention:

Think about the direction that light is coming from - at the moment your highlights are 'middle-of-surface' no matter the direction that surface is facing. This (paying attention to an imaginary light source) is commonly referred to as 'zenithal' highlighting (but that more often still is used to describe a spray / airbrush technique).

Have a look at where the highlights are on these Ogres (in particular the skin and green clothing) - note they're blended up to quite a sharp 'upper' edge and fade down to a midtone 'block' highlight.



This is done over the top of the 'dark in the recesses' look. and helps exaggerate the shape of the piece more as it's a 'natural' pattern for it to be lit in.

This is the exact type of Critisim I was looking for, I did not realise zenith high lighting was a thing, I thought I'd come up with that method my self.
I can see what you mean looking at the right ogre in particular his right fore arm high lights at the very top of the muscles blends into a almost perfect white, this is the next level I can also imagine it being a lot harder blending green to white, and harder still adding that they are under coated black, maybe I should multi undercoat skin tones white, leather and metal black it's possible as I don't use tinned paint.
I'm going to study directional lighting and apply it to my next squad.

I almost exclusively work over black undercoat and from dark tones up, using a block colour then wash process before highlighting with 2-3 mixes.

Paying attention to the light direction is a pretty important skill, especially if you want to lead on to more advanced highlighting techniques such as OSL (where you're highlighting with different tones for multiple light 'sources'). It's worth getting it right for general environmental light (in most cases 'sunlight') before moving on to adding other sources.

Good work, especially considering it's your first paintjob in some time.

It's very difficult to critique one's work because you never know what they're looking for in terms of learning. Seems like you have good feedback here though.

My honest advice: never paint with just one style. For many years I followed the same pattern of layering/washing/highlighting or some variation of that. The hobby often became boring or felt like a chore because I was painting models in an assembly line fashion. But when I started free-styling models, I noticed my skills drastically improved because I was no longer holding myself back. The hobby became a lot more fun at that point too.

Trapper wrote:
Good work, especially considering it's your first paintjob in some time.

It's very difficult to critique one's work because you never know what they're looking for in terms of learning. Seems like you have good feedback here though.

My honest advice: never paint with just one style. For many years I followed the same pattern of layering/washing/highlighting or some variation of that. The hobby often became boring or felt like a chore because I was painting models in an assembly line fashion. But when I started free-styling models, I noticed my skills drastically improved because I was no longer holding myself back. The hobby became a lot more fun at that point too.

Thanks man I'm definitely looking to use more techneaques in my painting I feel like I've pushed the ones I've learnt to the limits every time I have felt my self progress it's been through criticism and some body litterly saying "hey try this" and just keep adding them to my painting skills I want to get another unit or model but I'm holding back waiting for 8th to drop so I know weather or not they fit in the list I want to build.