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Im getting ready to paint an Ork army and i need a few ideas on what colors to paint them.

I have already painted one ork army back in 3rd ed it was Codex grey & Scab Red as the main colors with a defferent highlite color on each mob my skin was darkangles green the goblin green with a green ink wash was then a bilious green drybrush for a bright skintone with some depth.

Im really considering doing a Muilt Skin tone Ork army like in this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpmZHUmzWCA

but with the varing skin tones Im wondering what colors to paint the army Id like to stay with 2-3 main colors for the army. to keep that unified army look.

Im not realy a fan of brown cloth on orks. Or orks in strange colors, but i want them to be kinda brite and I prefer a black base coat. so im kinda stumped. If anyone wants to offer some suggestions Id appreciate it.

This is how I paint my orks.

Skin base coat is orkhide shade followed with a 1:1 chaos black and badab black generously washed
Skin second coat is knarloc green while avoiding deep crevices
Skin third coat is pure goblin green avoiding minor crevices to let the knarloc show through
Skin final coat is 4:1:1 Goblin green, golden yellow, bleached bone
Armor plates - dehneb stone base coat, then blood red
Pants - Rotting flesh base coat, catachan green
Shirt - chaos black from spray can
Leather - khemri brown then snakebite
Weapon of course is boltgun metal

Skin is courtesy of white dwarf article...not sure which one at the top of my head

[quote=jehjr1337


Skin base coat is orkhide shade followed with a 1:1 chaos black and badab black generously washed
Skin second coat is knarloc green while avoiding deep crevices
Skin third coat is pure goblin green avoiding minor crevices to let the knarloc show through
Skin final coat is 4:1:1 Goblin green, golden yellow, bleached bone
Armor plates - dehneb stone base coat, then blood red
Pants - Rotting flesh base coat, catachan green
Shirt - chaos black from spray can
Leather - khemri brown then snakebite
Weapon of course is boltgun metal

Skin is courtesy of white dwarf article...not sure which one at the top of my head

I don't use catachan green for anything other than the pants...it is a HUGE pain IMO to deal with, same goes for rotting flesh. You'll see when you start using it.

Oh I highlight red armor/plates on troops with blazing orange.

The green skin tone wasn't used on that nob but the pictures I'm about to upload will show it better on the regular boy. Also the trukk was painted when I first started playing 40k in 2008 so it's not exactly how I want it to be now that I progressed as a painter. You'll see the driver and the big shoota is poorly painted lol.

Also what I do to help denote squads of boyz is the pants/shirts color. I play it mostly as footsloggin boyz so I field over 100 boyz alot. Right now I have 30 that are primed with chaos black, 30 that are unprimed, and 30 that are painted to help differentiate the squads. Sooner or later it's going to be 30 boyz with black shirt catachan green pants, 30 boyz with red shirts and black pants, and 30 boyz with red shirts with khaki pants.

Thanks jehjr1337

I see what you mean you have defently improved since you painted the trukk but it is not bad.

I really like your army and your boys. and I will consider varing the pants/shirt color to denote units. In my last army i used a diffrent color to pick out a detail on the models in a unit. For example my burnas all had a blaze orange pouch, topnot, wristbands or something which looked good when just looking at one unit. But I ended up not liking the effect when muiltiple units were together.

Glad you like them

I like painting ammo pouches catachan green with a bordering highlight of snot green.

Yeah I know what you mean about the negative visual effects of multiple units jumbled together but I read on a blog somewhere that if you want a timed tournament to go smoothly it's best to paint each squad different but without having to second glance them to make sure, such as pants. And in friendly games it's much easier to avoid the headache of arguing with your opponent about who is who in the squad.

My orks are blue-skinned (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/262978.page: my first miniatures painted) and they all wear whatever they could grab from under the tree. Them having blue skin forces me to keep their dress toned down a bit. I use my bases to make a disctinction between mobs. We have a board in desert style.

I painted the bases of a group of 12 (boys, nob & PK, big shoota) in desert yellow, one mob in bleached bone and one in some light brownish color. They can join up as one unit (all sand-ish tones) of as different units. Another group of three mobs will have their baes painted in the darker shades. And so on.
In big units it gives some variation (nice) in smaller units it gives easy distinction.

My bosses are quite flamboyantly (?) painted. They have random base colors, as they can either join or not join various mobs.

(I think i improved a bit after the pictures i posted before. I'll add some pics later.)

Interesting....blue orks, I bet that's a shock to people for the first time.

Actually, i played at the Dutch Tournament in Tilburg in october, and i got positive reactions only :-) They may have been shocked, though, and just have hidden that.

Kim
I really like the Blue tide and your fluff is great.

I don't know about everyone else, but I personally like orks with dark skin, but varying tones to give them some individuality.

I tend to pant mine with random clothing colors. I'll grab about 5 at a time and do either thier pants or shirt some grey, brown, tan sort of color.

I figure theyre kind of rag tag as far as clothing goes- not like they go to Orkmart and buy matching pants for the whole Waaagh

To tie the army together color wise-I use the markings on thier armor plates, weapons, and vehicles- dags, or check mark pattenrs for differnt mobs and so forth.

For the Skin I use

Orkhide shade -> 1:1 Orkhide shade/goblin green -> Badab black wash -> Fine edges (e.g. eyebrow ridge) goblin green.

Pics are in the gallery for examples, for clothing like Mistress I paint various different colours but based around a limited selection (black, blue, red, grey) and then unify with either black or red armour plates.