Ork Painting Technique
Earlier this year I worked on an enormous Ork army. The brief of the commission was to paint all the basecoats and highlights of the clothing and skin, leaving details and finishing up to the client. The idea being that they could finish them off at their leisure, having all the hard work done. A good idea I believe, and a nice compromise.
I want to share the painting technique I used in case it may help others out there. It’s fairly different to other Ork skin tones. Much more muted yet still in contrast because of the darker colours used on the clothing and cloth. Addition of red or yellow final details and markings and checkers would make them pop.
Chaos Black undercoat. Basecoat skin Knarloc Green, cloth and belts Scorched Brown and metal with Boltgun Metal.
Give the model a wash of black. I used a custom mix of chaos black, matte medium and Vallejo glaze medium but you could just as easily use Badab Black or any other black wash.
Highlight the skin with a 70/30 mix of Knarloc green and Gretchin Green, leaving the undersides and recesses. Highlight the upper surfaces with a 70/30 mix of Gretchin Green and Knarloc Green. I thinned the paint quite a bit and did a couple of coats, using the transparency of the paint to create multiple levels of highlight.
You could give the uppermost edges a final highlight of thinned pure Gretchin Green.
Highlight the belts, straps and cloth with Bestial Brown, and the metal areas and armour edges with Mithril Silver.
The black pants/shirts can be highlighted with Adeptus Battlegrey.
Finish with the teeth, eyes and details as you like.
I'll be posting more tips and techniques on my blog. Thanks for looking and I hope this comes of use.
