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There's a TON of cool, awesome paint jobs of Ork Vehicles here on Dakka. Techniques on those run the gamut from painted weathering, to sponge weathering, to salt weathering, and include weathering powders, painted rust, oil paint weathering, and everything else inbetween. However, there's something I almost never see:

messy grot paintbrush work

I mean, usually these beautiful models are painted, either by hand, or airbrush, or spray can, and then lovingly detailed and weathered, chipped and stained. However, the 'paint job' on the model is a smooth, even one, which is then disrupted by battle damage, weathering, and dirt.

Presumably, however, 'in game' these vehicles are painted by grots. Are paint grots that neat and careful? Wouldn't an actually 'orky' paint job have visible brush strokes, missed spots, blobs, and runs (and then still get weathered to hell and back)?

I'm not criticizing any of these awesome paint jobs. I'm a terribly slow painter, and my best usually looks about like their worst. However, I'm curious why so many accomplished, clever painters choose to start with a clean, elegant, smooth paint job.

Is it because it's hard to distinguish a deliberately orky, slapdash paint job from an unintentionally bad and careless one?

Is it because it's difficult to get the visible brush strokes and messy paintjob at the right scale (which means that it looks like a model and less like a 'real' vehicle)?

Is it just ingrained in us that your best results start with a smooth and even paint job, so that's what people lay down first?

I don't have a good example to show you of what I mean, but it seems like it would be possible to start with a metal basecoat, and then, using a stippling brush and sponges, apply a paint job that looked like it was done by a load of lazy grots. Have people seen this done? Does it look like crap?

I've thought this myself, my first check board on one of my boyz is a little messy but I thought that if an ork was painting it, it would make sense for it to be messy.

I guess grots could still use stencils on vehicles though.

One of my favorite paintjobs I ever saw was on an Ork superheavy. It was painted by grots, and as a result there were subtle grot footprints all over it since they were walking on the paint while it was wet.

If you look through my gallery (namely my IG, also in my Valhallan thread linked in my sig) you'll see that I did this whitewash technique on my tanks that makes it look like they were hurriedly painted white by regular soldiers. As a result they look really rough and I love the look.

I don't know if either of these are exactly what you're looking for, but I thought they were interesting ideas that may inspire you.

Remember the effect of scale on 'untidiness'. Presuming an approximate 1:50 40K scale, that means a real-world line wobbling by 50mm would be the equivalent of just a 1mm wobble on a 40K model. And similarly, even the thickest messiest real-world coat of paint would be almost undetectable at 1:50 scale.

Da Butcha wrote:
Is it because it's hard to distinguish a deliberately orky, slapdash paint job from an unintentionally bad and careless one?

Is it because it's difficult to get the visible brush strokes and messy paintjob at the right scale (which means that it looks like a model and less like a 'real' vehicle)?

Is it just ingrained in us that your best results start with a smooth and even paint job, so that's what people lay down first?

It's something I've thought about, too, and I think it's far more of the first two points than the last. I tried, once, to have a glyph on a bosspole painted "orkily" - it just looked like I somehow forgot how to paint for a brief moment. As much as you can justify and conceptualize recreating a crude paintjob in your head, it just doesn't translate properly to the models, in most cases. Successful examples of grot paintwork have to take a rather heavy-handed approach, actually displaying the grots in action (along with the footprint example, I've also seen grots with paint rollers modeled on a Stompa (or was it a Battlewagon?) - to really drive home the point, the painter had to use a different shade of red for the fresh paint). There are so many skilled painters (and experienced "armchair painter" posters, like myself ), even just on Dakka, that I'm sure it's not simply an issue of habit.

 Clang wrote:
Remember the effect of scale on 'untidiness'. Presuming an approximate 1:50 40K scale, that means a real-world line wobbling by 50mm would be the equivalent of just a 1mm wobble on a 40K model. And similarly, even the thickest messiest real-world coat of paint would be almost undetectable at 1:50 scale.

Clang beat me too it but at this scale you just wouldn't notice anything like brush strokes, etc.

As others have said, it's hard to replicated splashes of paint on such a small scale, even if you're painting a battlewagon/skullhamma. This, combined with the fact that most of the great painters are major perfectionists, clean up mistakes on their ork vehicles instead of leaving them. They want their models to look GOOD, not realistically messy. Sure, they'll use weathering powder and hairspray+salt to make things rusty, but the actual paintjob will be smooth. I try to emulate that look of "grot painted," but it's very hard when you have to distinguish highlights and edges when it's done. Using thicker paint might help, since gretchin are either using big brushes or sprayguns to paint.

On another note, gretchin are usually more coherent than your ork boy, so maybe they are neat little painters.

 Deunstephe wrote:

On another note, gretchin are usually more coherent than your ork boy, so maybe they are neat little painters.

Not that it matters, but I do think grots are neat little painters. I do feel like ork vehicles do get built and painted as if the showroom floor. Orks do like new shiny stuff, they just become ramshackled quickly due to wear and tear. So I do imagine every rusted trukk before it leaves the Mek's shop probably does have a bunch of grots painting it all new and shiny! "The red wuns do go fastah!" after all.

Da Butcha wrote:

Is it because it's hard to distinguish a deliberately orky, slapdash paint job from an unintentionally bad and careless one?

I think this is it.

The problem is, if you want to go for a less-than-perfect look you need to walk a line between painting it to look authentic and just making a mess. If, say, you just wildly slap on paint, you might then need to be prepared to explain to people how it's meant to look like Orks did it, otherwise they'd probably just assume you're a sloppy painter. However, I do think it is possible to get a "messy" look using techniques like weathering and adding paint chips.

Regarding very neat paint jobs, I think some Orks would be careful painters - I imagine Speed Freekz wanting to take care of their vehicles. Otherwise you can always say Gretchin painted it while the Mek was watching, and they thought they'd better not make any mistakes in case they got a clip round the ear 'ole.

Just because orks are bad shots, doesnt mean they're bad painters

Paint and color is everything to an Ork Vehicle owner! Red ones are fast, blue ones are lucky, checker marks are awesome, and green is mean!

I actually haven't seen any green ork vehicles.. what a pity! I might make my Deffkoptas green, but that kind of clashes with a "Crimson Fisty" colour scheme.

I have seen some sharp Blood Axe schemes which are 'green' for orks.

Da Butcha wrote:
I don't have a good example to show you of what I mean, but it seems like it would be possible to start with a metal basecoat, and then, using a stippling brush and sponges, apply a paint job that looked like it was done by a load of lazy grots. Have people seen this done? Does it look like crap?

There was actually a gallery in WD a while back where one of the 'eavy metal painters (or someone who works for GW at any rate) did this sort of thing, and it looked really good.

As other posters have said, the trick is making it look like a grot did a bad job rather than just looking like some ham-fisted painting attempt, think about applying weathering techniques in different ways, and using translucent coats of paint to represent splotches/uneven coats/etc, paint runs could be done in the same way oil/rust streaks are made, but using the base colour instead of blacks/browns.