Green Iz BEST! – A semi-comprehensive analyse of The Orks Green History
Everyone knows Green Iz BEST! It’s what makes uz ork players different from those pink and soft Oomans! However, what if I was to tell you that Orks are no longer green? What if everything you have known for the last 4-5 years was a lie? What if Games Workshop has been slowly phasing out Green Orks? It’s an interesting question that this short essay of mine hopes to answer by examining the evidence found on Games Workshops very own webstore and proving that modern day orks are more like a banana than a mushroom! However, before this analyse on a subject nobody cares about begins, I would like to make it clear that I have not analysed every single Ork model ever released by
GW for
40k. Moreover, I selected a handful of the newer models and compared them against a handful of the older models. Furthermore, I would also like to note that lighting in every picture probably changed and the quality of cameras and paints have also likely changed over the years so this may affect some of the analyse. Nevertheless, I believe I have taken a large enough sample from the range to make a semi-amateur-comprehensive analyse of the colour Orks have been painted over the last 20 years. In addition, all my samples were taken from the face of the Orks in about the same area to make the analyse as fair and even as possible.
The Ork vs The Orc: how the sculpts of the Green-skin range varies from Fantasy to 40K
Before I begin to prove that Orks have now become nothing more than angry lemons, I feel the need to explain how this subject came about and discuss to you the difference and similarities between the Fantasy Orcs and the
40k Orks. Over on the Orks rumour thread we have been doing everything but discussing rumours, frankly because
GW have been avoiding Orks like they’re a failed parent who doesn’t want to be reminded of that every day when they look at their child – basically we have nothing to talk about rumour wise. However, recently, a subject has come up that grabbed my interest. Why do people believe the IronJawz Orcs to be less Orky than the
40k Orks? Moreover, they seem to believe there is a fundamental difference between the Age of Sigmar Fantasy Orcs and the
40k Orks that lays in the sculpts themselves that has slowly seeped its way into
40k through Flash Gitz, Big Mek, and the plastic Warboss. Firstly, while the idea that the sculpts are different is true - a quick analysis of the Orc vs Ork shows how the Orcs seem to have a more rounded sculpt with more emphasis on the mouth while the
40k Ork is more ridged and pointy with more emphasis on the Muscle cheeks (see Fig 1) - there is, in my mind, not enough difference when they’re both grey for me to notice anything huge from a distance (this is why you might see the Orcs being used in
40k with little to no complaints). Secondly, the latest
40k sculpts (Flash Gitz, Mek, War boss) all maintain the same box-like sculpt the older range of
40k Orks had (see Fig 2), illustrating how the Orc range is actually moving away from the
40k more angular look (rather than the reverse). Finally, the new range of
40k Orks are older than the Age of Sigmar/Fantasy Ironjawz Orcs with the newer
40k Ork sculpts coming out in June-July 2014 and the Orcs coming out in 2016, demonstrating how, if anything, the Orcs would likely to have been inspired by
40k Orks, not the other way around. Therefore, we can conclude that
40k Orks are not slowly transforming into Fantasy Orcs when it come to the physical sculpts.
Ironjawz? More like Cabbagejawz!
Nevertheless, something does seem a little off when it comes to the more modern
40k Ork range that makes them seem just a little bit different in comparison to the older Ork Range. Moving briefly back to the Ork Rumour thread, one of the users (he knows who he is) said that they call the Ironjawz Warboss a cabbage. Moreover, this conclusion, that the Orcs in fantasy look like a cabbage, got me thinking and I began to analyse the colours of each of the Orcs in the Ironjaws range using the images found from
GW’s store. To my surprise, furthermore, the Orcs themselves are not green! They’re yellow with the illusion of green skin (see Fig 3 for the colour wheel and the range of colours I found). Consequently, I started to analyse the Ork range from the oldest models that are still on sale (again using the images on the webstore) and found them to be the opposite of the colour spectrum. The Wartrakk, for example, is a model that comes from the 1990s itself and, when you analyse the colour of the rider’s face, it’s as you might expect, a beautiful Apple Orky Green (see Fig 4). Next, I moved quickly onto two more figures I believed came from the old range – The Metal DeffKopta and the Old £6 plastic Boyz kit – and again found them to be the same range of Apple Green. Therefore, the reason why I and other people might see the Fantasy Orcs as different might be based primarily on the green vibrant Orks compared to the newer yellow Fantasy Orcs. However, I thought to myself, “the old Fantasy Orcs must have been green!” and sure enough, after just looking through the older range, the old Fantasy Orcs were a deeper green if not only a little more yellow.
They tricked us, and we didn’t even know it!
Next, I moved my analysis onto the later pre-2014 releases from the Ork range. Moreover, I examined the old Finecast Warboss, the Finecast Kommandos and the newer Plastic Orks Boyz. Likewise, I got a similar conclusion with the Warboss and Kommandos staying in the same range of green (see Fig 5). However, what came to me as a shock is the newer Boyz kit. When I analysed it, furthermore, I noticed that, on average, it just slightly nudged itself more towards the yellow spectrum (see Fig 6). The Boyz analysis is when it clicked! I quickly dragged up the images for the new post 2014 Orks and suddenly found something horrific! At some point between 2002 and 2014 the painters at Games Workshop had made all our official promotional image of Orks yellow! (see Fig 7 for examples of the models and the primary colour used). Even without a colour wheel, moreover, it’s clear out Orks are becoming less green in the eyes of
GW! Therefore, our Orks are becoming less Orky! We have become more Imperial Fist than Fire Happy Salamanders!
Finally, I analysed my own Warboss in comparison to the official
GW image. I always considered my Warboss to be as Orky as they come and to my surprise he 100% is confirmed to be greener and, thus, more Orky than anything
GW has pushed out as of late (see Fig 8).
Conclusion – What does this mean?
The conclusion to this analysis is a tricky one as I now must explore what this means to us, as the Ork players, that officially our Orks are now yellow. Well, to be honest, it doesn’t mean anything. Well, at least doesn’t mean anything to me who just used this topic as an excuse to write something funny as well as keep my creative juices flowing because I haven’t done a project like this in months. However, if you were one of those people who wanted to look for some hidden meaning and conclusion from this you could argue that:
” Games Workshop have so little understanding of Orks that they can’t even get their colour correct. The change has symbolically turned them from a vibrant interesting unique characterful race with tons of backstory and interesting stories into bland cabbage grim dark bad guys who new players find hard to distinguish from the likes of any other Xenos threat in the galaxy. The Washing out of their colourful greens has caused them to become just as bland as most Modern fantasy Orcs and resulted in them blending into the background of the Table top genre.”
Nevertheless, my analysis is done by an amateur who just used the pen tool in a free program to find the colours of the Orks so it’s probably super off! Anyway, discuss and argue below as you please, will be funny to see what you guys think.
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