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At the moment I'm basically starting off with a darker green to base the skin, then I progressively applying lighter greens but each time being more
selective on the areas I paint. I try to blend the different shades together by feathering but my ork skin always ends up looking horrible. I'm fairly new to warhammer
but I've painted quite a few orks and none of them look good at all.

Could I be feathering wrong, or is it likeely something else? I essentially apply the paint then wet the tip of another paintbrush and brag the paint into the muscle
recesses.

Any advice?

I've been basecoating the skin with Dark Angels green, than highlighting the muscles with snot green, than using a layer of Thraka green wash. Fast, and looks pretty good.

bombboy1252 wrote:I've been basecoating the skin with Dark Angels green, than highlighting the muscles with snot green, than using a layer of Thraka green wash. Fast, and looks pretty good.

Thanks, I think I've been using too many different tones. I've been too ambitious for my own good.

Kind of a basic general tip rather than Ork-specific, but remember to thin your paints down.

I tend to work to an almost milky consistency. You can use water, but I often use a drop or two of Vallejo thinner which works really nicely.

Blending works better if you're patient and do a number of almost un-noticable layers that gradually work in and do their magic. Of course, it really depends on how patient you are.

@bomboy. I do nearly exactly the same thing with my boyz. Does the job and you can knock them out really quickly.

When i first started my Ork army i went super ambitious with the skin tones and all the details. I soon realised that i had about 90 of them to do and i wanted to fnish before this century is out haha. There are tonnes of speed painting tutorials that are really effective out there, have a little google in my advice you can always add fancy extra details and tones or whatever later on if you want to.


edit. Oh and the advice about paint consistency, very helpful. I wish i had been told that a few years ago but i had to work it out myself. In my experience water works fine to do this.

Bewareofthephil wrote:I tend to work to an almost milky consistency.

I'm new to the hobby so I'm trying to find a sweet spot with consistency. How should the paint react when you paint the model? It seems like there is a very small line between "too thick" and "too thin", and I seem to always come up with the latter: My paint is often streaky and barely covers the layer below it. With whites it's especially bad. I've been doing a 2:1 ratio of paint to water on a wet pallete, but I may be overdoing it with water.

If you work with thin layers, you'll find that sometimes you do have somewhat iffy colour coverage if you just do one or two layers. Again, it's mainly a case of letting it dry and just applying a number of thin layers until you get a nice finish.

Some paint makes are better than others, but even within ranges certain colours have pretty poor coverage. GW's yellows and golds in particular are hard to work with.

If you're only using one brand of paint, I'd definitely recommend trying some other brands to see what works for you. I have a mix of Citadel (best foundations and washes I've found), P3 (great coverage generally, really bold colours) and Vallejo Model Colour.

I'm no expert as my gallery will show, but I've found online tutorials on painting very useful.

Another wonderful archive of information regarding all of this would be Youtube.

Tutorials are awesome
Tutorials with pictures are even better

but Tutorials with a video and somebody explaining it to you step-by-step as they do it is freakin' amazing.

Best of luck. I'm no pro either, I just research a lot

I painted the majority of a green tide for a user on here, and my method was pretty good, I think. If I would have done highlights, I have feeling it would've been very nice.

Basecoat Model with Orkhide Shade
Lay on goblin green until it looks good (this may take several coats)
Wash with Thraka Green (REALLY HEAVILY)

When you get to the boundaries between skin and other things, just wash the entire area devlan mud. I find orks are particularly easy to paint with washes. I can't imagine doing them without washes.

I've started to dry my brush slightly before painting which gives it a more chalky texture and i've noticed a huge improvement in the quality of my painting.