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I have catachan green, desert yellow, chaos black, goblin green

I have no idea how to paint them and have tried a few ways but none of them have come out good.

I think you will have trouble with your limited palette of colors.

I think you could do green skin as follows

1) Base Catechan Green
2) wash with mix of 2:1 Cat Green/Black
3) Highlight Catechan Green

4) highlight Goblin green. I'm worried that catechan and goblin are really not in same family of greens, the prior having more yellow in it.
or
4) highlight mis of Catechan green 2:1 w/ Desert yellow

However, You can do the pants in Black and your shirt Desert Yellow.

The weapons should be metallic of some sort.

Here is a tutorial I did on painting Orc boys. While not all GW colors. you can find suitable colors the same shade in most instances.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/238479.page#695303

Thanks

Sorry i forgot to say that i had trouble with the ork skin.

The wash is a bit weird for me. My mix is kind of bad so i decided to just mix catcha and black together and instead of washing, then highlight catcha and then catcha with yellow

It works very well but the base coat stands out quite a bit. Should i be highlighting more of the upper skin to fix this?

p.s. When doing the second highlight, do you highlight completely over the first highlight? I am new to painting skin so i have no idea

daemon wrote:p.s. When doing the second highlight, do you highlight completely over the first highlight? I am new to painting skin so i have no idea

This depends, on what effect you want. Where are your orks based? Forest? City? Desert? What clan are they?

As for the skin there's a very simple and effective way, all you need is Dark Angels Green. I use theis method, except a more thourough version, but this will give you an OK look.

Base Catchtan Green
Paint skin gobbo green
Overbrush Dark Angels Green
Also a few higlights of Goblin green may be a good idea in a few places.

I'm not a brilliant painter and jgemerich's advice is probably better, mine is just a simple quite effective way.

I recently found my assembly line for a decent look for orkz.

1. Start out with a base black i use armory black
2. Dry brush a dark green on skin ( i use a poster paint for this green actually, havent found one i like better)
3. Dry brush Beastial brown for boots,gloves and axe handles.
4. Dry brush metal weps and armor plating/helmits.
5. normal coat of blood read in mouth and anything else read you want on them like their arm wraps or can do them skull white. RED GOES FASTA!
6. dry brush goblin green on skin. ( this gives me a good texture for the skin with a lot of depth) they are a little darker then what you see from GW but can dry brush again with goblin gren to go a bit lighter)
7. dry brush bultgun metal over the metal. this will give you a very nice looking worn metal look for your wepons and armor.
8. paint teed with a bleached bone then skull white it will give them a dirty look.
9. and finally lightly drybrush their pants with skull white to give them texture and a worn look. and i go over with a heavy coat of beastial brown on the armor straps.

This will give you a great start for painting a horde sized army in a time that you could actually play w/o spending 5 months on painting. Go a little more in depth with some of the detail and you will be getting close to pro paint with that.

I can normally do 20 or so in a a couple of hours with that line doing one colora on every model at a time.

Thanks Hydeckadecka

I tried the dark base with light drybush but wasn't satisfied with the result. There just wasn't enough depth. I think i will stick with the highlighting and try to perfect my technique.

I like the white on the pants though. It sounds interesting and will certainly test it out

If you look at the tutorial I did. The highlights get smaller as you go up in value (lighter). I usually keep them entirely inside the base or previous highlight.

You base of black+Catechan is very dark. You can try to go less black. ie. 4:1. This will still provide a variation as you go back to Catachan.

I think desert yellow is not the best highlight tone, it tends to be pretty flat. I'll see if I can whip up what your doing and take a shot of a test model.

Thanks jgemrich

i just read your tutorial lol. I do not think i could paint my models that well as i am pretty noob and my army before orks was tau. Is there anyway to paint somewhat identically to that but with fewer paints ? I am willing to buy paints but not a lot.

OK. here is what I did. No Desert yellow in my collection though. I also think, looking at the swatch, it is too dark to highlight up significantly, IMO.

Prime White:
Base 4:1 Catechan Green:Black
Highlight 1: Chatechan Green, recapturing all but the lowest areas and crevices
Highlight 2: Catechan Green: Goblin Green 1:1
Highlight 3: Goblin Green

I did a last highlight mixing golbin green 1:1 w/ Filthy brown (this could be Bleached bone 3:1 too). Very subtle though.

Hopefully you can see the layering in the big picture.

As you can see your base coat is super dark

I think i might try and do something like the skin in your tutorial but instead mix catachan with something to make it look a bit more like flat green and then end off with goblin green. If it doesn't work i may just go get black and flat green along with another brown for the straps, the bronzish colour for the base of the metals and some regal blue as i am painting my boyz deathskulls (no real fluff involved, just like the colour)

you put the paint on the orks congratz

Hmm, for my orks i used basicly the same greens as you have, catachan green and goblin green.
I started with the catachan grenn, then just drybrushed it goblin green, all the raised areas get covered, and the recceses are left dark, hope it helps

I literally use 2 colors of green on mine. I base the mini black, and then dry brush the dark green over the skin. I do this usually 2 times to get the green on the black looking good and clean (as I water my paints down)
Then I high light the base green with my lighter green, but its only a few shades lighter. Same thing usually 2 quick coats. Then I bust out the white paint and start the mix the white with the lighter green to make nice highlights. I rinse and repeat a couple times until the final highlight is a really light green (I like light green skin on me boyz) It takes a little practice but once down, its GREAT for "assembly line" painting. Heres a pic of GrotNob for an example

Here the games workshop 'eavy metal team will tell you : http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?catId=&categoryId=800017a§ion=whiteDwarf&aId=3600006a

You need a gw account to view this.

I haven't tried it yet since my scorpion green paint hasn't come in the mail yet but my recipe is going to be:
Black primer -> orkhide shade -> scorpion green highlighting -> ogryn flesh wash

Hopefully it gives me the darker green I'm looking for.

My established way to paint Orky skin is a really simple 3 stage process. After doing 32 boys, and looking at another 24 to build/paint, trust me, you'll learn a quick and easy method.

I start with a base of Snot Green (whenever I see the label I seem to always proclaim "Iz TOO!!")
Then overhighlight with Scorpion Green
Then tone it all back down with Dark Green Ink

I practiced a bit with crumpled paper till I got to the point where I was confortable doing this to actual models, so I'll do it again here:

Heres my test/practice 'model' the wrinkles and valleys will be the muscles and other raised detail I would find on a model- this is practice in highlighting afterall.


Heres the basecoat. Just straight, simple, orky green (cause green is best, yaknow)



Then a quick drybrush with Scorpion Green hits all the highlights- but at this stage things are startign to look a little chalky. Thats ok though


Then I solid painted straight Scorpion Green on the high spots- this end result is a bit overhighlighted, but thats on purpose...


.. because after applying watered down Dark Green Ink, the light/dark areas sortof even out, and the ink does all the shading for me; it takes away all the harsh color edges and auto gradiates down into the cracks and valleys.



Heres the shading under the harsh brutal light of camera flash, to better show what was going on in the above gloomy desklight images. You can also really see the varying shading the ink adds to the to the green in the smear I dragged across the plain paper (I'm almost tempted to do straight ink over white primer). The shiney bits you see in the crevasses are simply little puddles of not yet dried water/ink, and will dry as darkest green overnight.

All of these steps and camera shots were done in the timespan of about 3 minutes, and I wasnt even really trying to make it look good. With a little practice of using inks, I get just the right kind of "chlorophyll in the veins" orky skin I want, with minimal effort.

So there you have it: my own personal "inking" method. Using crinkles paper is also a good way to practice a bit to find your own personal way, or a set of colors that you like best to get the kind of orky green that suits you, before you start painting up yer boyz.

1) Orkhide Shade
2) Drybrush Catachan Green over the raised areas
3) Heavily watered down Thraka Green wash over the model.

Voila. Studio quality Orks.

Thanks for all the help guys. I will definitely be trying out a few of these.

One question though because many of you said to use a wash as the final layer but i've found that the wash makes the skin a bit grainy instead of a solid colour. Is it suppose to be like that or am i just mixing my washes wrong?

I noticed the same chaulky effect when I tried to make my own washes out of 4 parts water, 1 part color of my choice or so...

.. Until I tried washes bought out of the bottle.. like Badab Black. WOW that is some awesome stuff! You can literally just slop it all over a model for instant blacklining and shading. (althought I suspect its just a watered down wash with the detergent dishwashing soap everyone has read is needed to break the water tension)

Saw one on another thread
base gnarloc green
wash badab black
highlight gretchin green

Also saw another one
base dark angels
highlight snot green
wash thraka
highlight snot green

anyone know if any of these would look good? I really want to make sure i buy the right paints this time!

Saw one on another thread
base gnarloc green
wash badab black
highlight gretchin green

I suppose this would work, but it would make your orks look very earth-tone, a bit close to brown, rather than green. It would also make then "pop" a bit too much (knarloc green+badab black is MUCH darker than gretchin green, to the point where they look like seperate parts of the model, rather than a cohesive highlight)

Also saw another one
base dark angels
highlight snot green
wash thraka
highlight snot green

This one is pretty good, but depending on how you do it, it might "pop" too much, the same way the previous one would. The wash would have to be very precise, with just a little bit of water (I'm talking super small drops here).

I think it might be a bit easier to help if you posted some pictures of the orks you already have done.

I use:

1.Goblin Green base
2.Thrakka Green Wash
3.a moderate Goblin Green dry brush(to bring higher areas back up to a brighter look)
4. light dry brush of Scorpion Green (to hit extream raised parts for the highlights).
=table top quality orks.

With the colours you have available, I would go for a chaos black under coat, then a coat of catachan green all over including the creases, then a coat of 50/50 catachan green/goblin green over that onto all but the deepest creases, then a coat of pure goblin green onto the raised areas, then a final highlight of 70/30 goblin green/desert yellow

The way I do my ork skin is, an under coat of chaos black, a base coat of orkhide shade, then knarloc green on top apart from the deepest creases, then goblin green on the raised areas, thats it for the rank and file, but for characters I add an extra highlight of 70/30 goblin green/bleached bone.

I tend to go:-

Black primer
Knarloc Green (foundation paint)
Goblin Green - leaving the recess showing darker base colour
Wash (2 parts water to 1 part Dev Mud)
Goblin Green/Bleached Bone highlight
Final Wash (6 parts water to 1 part Dev Mud)

Zoomdakkadakka-The ones i have done are not satisfactory but i have gotten one that is alright but just doesn't accent on the highlights enough. I think it is the paints i have as they just aren't the same groupings of green shading.

I want to paint my ork skins to look a bit like gw standards but in a much easier way for assembly line painting. (so it won't look gw with all the coating and stuff but as close as possible in the simplest way if you know what im talking about. Like good but simple sorta thing..like...the best of the worse sorta thing instead the best looking of the simplest way...)

i go for:

base- Knarlok green
wash- Thraka green
drybrush- 50/50 goblin and cammo green

its quick and looks good. makes them a little paler than usual because im not a fan of it being really dark

Sounds good Gorechild. It sounds like the type of painting that is easy and quick (which is what i need). Do you have any pictures though?

Not at the moment, I don't play orks, I just help my mate paint his because I'm the only person out of our group that actually enjoys painting and hate games with 2000 points of unpainted mini's
if your really looking to do mob's fast though you could just forget using camo green for the drybrushing. ill look if I've got any lying around and take a pic if I find any.

cool thanks Gore

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpmZHUmzWCA

Watch and be amazed! That's how I paint my orks. I have a few ancient pics of mine in the gallery.