Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I picked up the Assault on Black Reach box and a few other bits n bobs in January after years away from the hobby, and this is the first ork unit off the line
il call it 95% done as im always going back to things and doing some more.















I seem to have lost close ups of one of them (the one with blue/white split down the middle) but its largely the same as the others except the blue/white.

sitting part painted iv also got the warboss, 10nobz, 30 slugga boyz , 15 shoota boyz, 5 lootas and 5 burna boyz
I've never painted much in the way of greenskins before... I did bretonnia, dark elves and space marines when I was younger.
what do you think? any tips/advice for me?

Nice job. I'm really liking your color scheme. However, the skin looks a little "cartoony" to me. Any way you could blend the skin highlights a bit more?

They look quite good, to me. If the skin suffers from cartoonishness (spell check be damned, there's no better way I know to say that ), I'd attribute it less to stark transitions than the fact that there are only two shades present. The leather is in the same condition, more or less.

While I'm loth to echo the single most painfully over-prescribed "remedy" on Dakka, I'd suggest giving it a wash. A relatively thin layer of Thrakka green on the skin and Devlan Mud on the leathers would quickly and (almost) effortlessly soften the transitions, while providing a touch more definition, as it settles around the more subtle contours of the body and clothes.

Aside from that potential, but by no means necessary, addition, I'd suggest some light edgelining of the blue on the... fuselage? Nose cowling? Front armor? Whatever you call it, it's a prominent feature with hard edges. Compared to the blue cloth that trails behind it on some of the models, it's completely flat. Just a touch of extra brightness to those corners is all it would take to really make the shape pop.

Honestly, you're in pretty good shape, already. The scheme is striking, the metallics are nice, and, while using the same color (Graveyard Earth, is it?) to highlight two very different browns looks a tad odd up close, it works well enough at arm's length. I'd suffer no shame putting these on the table, as-is.

Thanks for the feedback.
Theres a real variety of paint brands in here, the leathers are mostly gw colours, scorched brown, bestial brown and bleached bone mixed. The highlight I think was scorched brown mixed with bleached bone, and I can see what you mean hehe.
I'l have a think about what kind of wash to put on it (dont have devlin mud or thrakka green gw colours - the black wash used extensively on the metals is Liquitex Carbon Black acrylic ink thinned out loads with water (1 drop ink to 5-6 drops of water), I could probably mix a green ink up but it might be a bit opaque... the liquitex blue is pretty strong. will have a play about, maybe just by some gw green wash

the blue is a mix of winsor and newton's winsor blue (thinned with acrylic thinner) and some real old enchanted blue (from the 80's - round fliptop with white cap )
The green is a mix of that windsor blue and some createx opaque yellow - I made a dark and a light shade in some lil jars
and the metals were done with loads of layers (dry brush, stipple and painted) of boltgun metal,chainmail,mithril silver, shining gold, burnished gold, a cheap artists acrylic copper colour, and mixes of the above with many washes of black and an old gw flesh wash over a black base coat.

What could I use to highlight the white parts of the armour?(thinking of putting a drop of electric blue-another of my old flip tops into the blue mix from before for those parts) I could use a metallic white or a pearl colour (got some of those kicking round) or maybe make it a pale grey with a white edge?
(some of you may think I'm strange using all mix n matched paint brands and you might be right, but I airbrush and have many paints already)

Massive thanks for your comments feedback is very useful and will help me rehone my mini' painting skills.

its very good, but are you going to weather the blue and white? i faced a similar problem with my orks, the metal was weathered, but the patterns seemed a bit out of place. Great work

If anything, I'm more impressed, considering how much mixing and thinning you've done. Personally, I love the GW washes, but nothing says you can't make your own. Generally, I prefer my washes on the thin side, allowing me to apply subtler effects or build up deep shade in layers. If you're going to make your own, I'd say add more water and a bit of matte medium (helps keep the pigment from going all chalky and splotchy at very low concentrations, if using paint, and helps with proper flow and pooling, if using inks).

For the white, there's really no good way to highlight what you have, now. Using a metallic or pearl white will provide an odd shine, but it won't look like a highlight. Best you can do is darken what you currently have, then use pure white on the edge. I'd suggest either dulling it down to a very pale gray or dirtying it up with an off-white/bone/cream color. You might even be able to get away with applying an even, dilute coat of your black wash as a glaze, then highlighting with your original blue and white. That would help not only the shading, but also give things a touch of griminess to tie them in with the metals.

Its not really that I dislike the gw washes that made me use ink, more that I have plenty of that to hand, its what I normally spray through my 0.2mm airbrush for fine detail illustrating. Its a pretty high grade, acrylic binder based ink, which I have used with dip pens and brushes on paper before also. however straight out of the bottle it is impressively opaque for how thin it is, to spray I reduce it 50% and its still rather solid black, so I watered it down a lot and found anywhere from 1part ink to 5 -8 parts of water and it still dries reasonably well without making funny looking patches.
they do quite a few colours, their pthalo blue makes a nice wash too, but their yellow is actually an opaque pigment so I might well get some gw green wash as I can only make solid greens with those Liquitex colours.

The inks would make huge amounts of wash colours rather cheaply for people out there who needs lots of wash for a big project. They're about £3-4 for a 30ml bottle and needs reducing quite a lot to give you ample wash!

Looking good. I like how viberant the colours are.

Thanks, hehe you must have been really digging through the forums to bring this back up
The force to go with these has been put on the sidlines :(
I'm working on a Skaven Horde at the moment because my local GW is doing a Fantasy event I wanted to join in with.

The Orks are upto 45 Boyz, 10 Nobz, 5 Lootas, 5 Burnas, these Deffkoptas and the Warboss.
The Nobz, Lootas and a good 30 boyz are painted/half painted
When I come back round to them, the plan of action is more boyz, and some vehicles. I really like the FW closed cab truck And deffrolla wagons, Maybe need 2 wagons for a boom gun too hehe. And I would like to have a nicely converted looted wagon but.. no plans for this as of yet.