Slowly painted greenskins

dazza36

Member
So I've been inspired by some amazing work on here, to not only try to get back into painting but to also collect and paint a small band of orcs and goblins. So over the last few weeks I've been slowly collecting a little band and thought I'd post what I've managed to so far. Excuse the poor photos I had to take with phone but your get the idea!

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As for the painting I plan on going for a dark earthy scheme contrasted by the bright green of the skin, which seems to work really well from what I've seen. In the past when it came to my goblins I did go for a much darker skin tone but feel now that although good it somehow takes away from the character of the sculpts.

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The plan will be to strip the goblins I've painted previously and again go for a much brighter skintone, I also have a nice selection of goblins that I hope to add once I find the box I packed them away in but here's what I have.

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The last thing is a question regarding a boar rider I recently got I originally thought I'd ended up with two the same but when they turned up I noticed the helmet was slightly different! My first thought was it had been converted but on closer inspection it just doesn't look like it has ? So is it just a case that it is very well converted or was there an alternative helmet design ?

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Obviously the pointed helmet shows it age more so maybe that's why I can't spot the work done to create it from the other version but I'd like your opinion
 

Ketil Trout

Member
Wow, so many classic orcs and goblins. I'll be watching this with great interest. For what its worth, I think the helmet is a variation and not a conversion, there seem to have been quite a lot of figures with only minor variations released by Citadel in the 80's.
 

Gallivantes

Member
I am looking forward to this one! The model selection has me drooling. I support the notion to go with dark earthy/bright green, always a good one in my book.

The helmet version is an interesting one. I was going to go against Ketil's guess and say it's probably a conversion. I have never seen one like that in any catalogues, official or not. It's also something that would be easily achieved with a bit of careful filing of the original model so it's not an unlikely proposal. But then again as Ketil says there are plenty cases of minor variation models and the thing they often share is that they're not well documented in any sources, official or not. So who can truly say? My inner gambler would still bet on conversion but all I can say with certainty is that I never saw it catalogued anywhere.

It's really neat by the way. Gives him quite a unique silhouette and really works with the outlandish orc armour you get in those ranges.
 

Tex

Member
About the helmet, I'm thinking along the Gallivantes' way: a well done conversion of the available helmet.
I can think about another reason for this: a similarly styled spiked helmet showed up on some other 3rd ed. orcs (I remember 2, one with a cleaver and the the other-unreleased-with a polearm), but it had different proportions (the spike was smaller): looking at the way Kev Adams produced endless variants of greenskins alternating the same range of components (heads, arms, weapons), I think it's highly unlikely that he made a one off sculpt for this helmet, when he could have used the existing one.

In any case, I'm looking forward to see how your horde developes.
 

dazza36

Member
Right started doing some test painting mainly working out skin and generally just getting back into painting. Not the best photos but you get the idea LOL

Firstly I went for a dark base skin colour (VGC dark green) gave it a wash of Biel-tan green then built up highlights with VGC goblin green with final highlight of VGC livery green. Although looks ok I feel there may be to much of a contrast between dark and light. So for the next test I used VGC goblin green as my base and then carried on as before which I feel works better for what I want and I will probably go for this but may throw in a couple of the darker ones just to mix up the tide of green! As well as the skin the other thing I wanted to do was work out how I wanted the rest to look. As I said in first post I'm going for dark earthy colours contrasting against the green skin. So to that end I've been testing out different ideas. The first two got plenty of rust whereas the second two it was just plenty of brown/black washes and also tried bronze with verdigris.

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Ketil Trout

Member
These look great so far, think you’ve nailed the contrast between the brighter skin and darker armour and weapons. Weathering looks great too. More please...
 

Karakvarn1

Member
Hi mate

I think your second skin test works better but I think the rusty weapons also look better. Looking great though! :)
 

Subedai

Member
Looking great, they will make an outstanding regiment. I think I like the higher contrast skin better, and the used/grimy but not rusty weapons. A bit of verdigris on bronze is always good. I think a mix of every style and technique across the whole regiment would work well in the end, would be orky and also break up the appearance of duplicate models.
 

dazza36

Member
Cheers guys

I've managed to get another 4 painted up with just some touching up to do. Plus I've began to base them, this has involved de-tabbing as I couldn't find a way to rank them up with shields ! I've ended up going for a simple little brown sandy base with a few rocks and plenty of variety of tufts etc to break them up. Hope you like!

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The first photo is off the original 4 I painted and shows the difference in skin colour much clearer. One thing I have added to my skin is to really give it the brightness I was aiming for I finished with a glaze of yellow over the whole skin. Next will be shields which is something I'm not looking forward to but first I need to make some copies from the few originals I have.
 

Ketil Trout

Member
These look great and will make a mighty unit. Look forward to seeing it finished. Good luck with the shields, it may be daunting at first but I’m sure once you’ve done a few you’ll really start to enjoy it. Basing looks very good too.
 

dazza36

Member
So managed to get my head around the whole shield and got a couple painted up that I'm happy with, which means I've finally finished 2 so only 26 to go LOL ! The issue I was having was, I was using too bright a colour for the highlights and it always ended up looking too cartoony and I also wasn't keen on the black line around the teeth from the original. So I went back and highlighted the base colour with VGC dead flesh which gave me a much more muted highlight and didn't line the teeth. So hope you like and apologies for the blurry photo but it was a rush job.

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Ketil Trout

Member
Agreed, shields look great, and definitely not too cartoony. Now you’ve cracked it you’ll get much quicker at them too I’m sure. Good luck with the rest of the unit, and the rest of your orcs. This will be a cracking unit and a beautiful army.
 

Tex

Member
The shields are fantastic: you put Mike McVey's efforts to shame (see an 'eavy metal tutorial on an old WD for reference)!
 

dazza36

Member
Cheers guys glad you like!

@Tex : Yes I'm well aware of the classic tutorial and was an inspiration for my version just minus the black outline around the teeth which I felt added to that cartoony feel I didn't want

@Ketil : I'm definitely getting quicker as is shown by the fact I've done another 5 ! what isn't is the time I get to actually paint so sadly still a long way off from a completed unit :cry:

Anyway first rank finally completed. I've tried to mix up the colours and designs for my shields some have come out better than others but as a whole I'm happy and I can always hide the ones I don't like once the unit is complete!

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Shields
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jon_1066

Member
Awesome!

I love the grumpy one.

"'Become a shield' they said, 'you could be on a great chaos warrior's arm' they said, 'fight heroic battles' they said. Now look at me ... on a filthy orc!"
 
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