# First Time Painter (Orks), C&C Please



## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Okay, so these minis are the first ones I've ever painted. The only other thing I've painted before this were some concrete jersey barriers. And before that nothing. I spent some time lurking here and elsewhere, learning, but there is only so much that can be done without feedback.

What follows are some other photos of the Orks and I'm hoping for some comments and critiques about how I can improve my painting skills. 



















Oh, and here's what I did to paint these boyz up....

I got these second-hand and they were already undercoated black and had their skin painted not too neatly with Goblin Green washed with Devlan Mud.

I painted using two to three thinned down coats of the following: Mechrite Red for clothing and boots; Scorched Brown for leather straps, holster, and boots; Boltgun Metal for weapons; and Dheneb Stone for fingernails and teeth. 

I drybrushed Codex Grey onto the trousers. I drybrushed the leather with Calthan Brown. 

I washed with Thraka Green, Badab Black, and Devlan Mud. And highlighted not all that well with Mithril Silver. Eyes were Mechrite Red, Sunburst Yellow, or Scorpion Green.

The base was painted with three to four coats of thinned down Graveyard Earth. The basing material is unpainted but was coated with thinned down PVA glue.

Please let me know if there are other colors I should consider using or techniques I should try to learn. And here are other pics.


















I should mention that for the shoulder pad, I did the following: base coat with Boltgun Metal, paint over with thinned down Mechrite Red (staying away from the edges), paint with Blood Angels Red (straight from the pot), wash with Badab Black or Devlan Mud, drybrush with Boltgun Metal, highlight with Mithril Silver.



















For the topknot, I used Dheneb Stone washed with Devlan Mud. Not sure why I tried it, but I'm not doing it again. Any suggestions for alternate color schemes are welcome.




















And that's it, thanks for looking. 

I'm hoping that the painters here can tell me what I need to work on and what pitfalls to avoid.


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## 18827 (Oct 23, 2009)

looking good, first models you've painted too, even better.

I would change 3 things, 
first would be the bases, a bit of color could help the bases look better maybe some green flock but not all over just in patches like on these two









second I would change the eyes from yellow to red unless you have made up some fluff to explain why they are yellow.

lastly, its not something you can really change now but I would pay closer attention to the mold/skin lines when cleaning up the model.

these are just small nik-piks really and your models look good as they are. very impressive for first time painting, keep in up.:victory:


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

Some realy good looking work for a first time painter. You appear to taken the first skill needed to paint, which is neatness. Keeping inside the lines is the key to a good looking mini. 

I would suggest using a darker colour to dry brush on black. It looks a little to pale, and I think you have too much paint on the bursh giving too much coverage of the black. But great effort and I look forward to seeing more of your work.


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## arlins (Sep 8, 2010)

nice , neat and on your way to good things mate .
Humakt has pointed out my only nigle , 
have some rep for a excellant 1st effort .


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

humakt said:


> Some realy good looking work for a first time painter. You appear to taken the first skill needed to paint, which is neatness. Keeping inside the lines is the key to a good looking mini.


What Humakt said. If these are your first minis you are off to a great start, and the main way you will get better is just through practice.

Some of your reds are a little bit streaky, so i'd probably use an extra coat before you start highlighting. The battle damage is really good.

I would avoid drybrushing the trousers. It looks fine, but you will get better results from highlighting properly (and use a darker colour to begin with for a smoother transition)

You can improve the bases really easily with drybrushing. Paint them black and then do a heavy drybrush with brown/grey, then a lighter drybrush with a highlight colour and they will look much better for 10 minutes work.

All your highlights could do with being slightly brighter, to add more depth. This is particularly important on the faces as it will give a focal point for the model.

Of course all of this depends on how good you want the paintjob. For tabletop they are already more than good enough. Hope the feedback helps!


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Thank you for the comments so far.

@jimmy gunn: I've been looking at those tufts from GW. Are those what's on those bases?

I'll repaint all the eyes red--is there a particular red that is used? And I think I need to get a finer brush as it's really difficult to do with a detail brush (I occasionally hit the brow).

Mold lines are frustrating, just when I think I've found them all, I find out I've missed others. Sigh.

And I love the crucified space marine. That is a boss pole.


@humakt: Should I mix Chaos Black into the Codex Grey then? In hindsight I did go overboard, somewhat. Oh my God, I just realized their trousers look like acid-washed jeans. Aargh, my orks are fashion victims. Maybe a wash of Badab Black can save them?


@Varakir: I'll go with the extra coat of red before highlighting.

I'm going to have to practice highlighting. I'm really bad at it, worse than drybrushing (which I figured out how to do by the third mini).

For the concrete jersey barriers, I did their bases in Graveyard Earth, drybrushed with Snakebite Leather, and then another lighter drybrush of Bleached Bone, so I can do that again. 

These are for tabletop, I figured that I'd go all out for the Warboss, Nobs, and other special characters. I'll try highlighting on one, get some practice in.


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## 18827 (Oct 23, 2009)

Dicrel Seijin said:


> Thank you for the comments so far.
> 
> @jimmy gunn: I've been looking at those tufts from GW. Are those what's on those bases?
> 
> ...


Hope that helps


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## Varakir (Sep 2, 2009)

Dicrel Seijin said:


> I'm going to have to practice highlighting. I'm really bad at it, worse than drybrushing (which I figured out how to do by the third mini).


You'll get it, the main thing is working out where to put them and getting used to how much contrast you can get away with between the colours. Looking at the same mini painted well by someone else helps a lot, because you can see what they've done and learn from it. I still have a lot of problems when i'm painting something other than marines because i don't have a natural feel for highlighting.

The neatness on your models shows you definitely have the patience and brush skill to pull off good highlights, so it will come with time :victory:


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## pathwinder14 (Dec 27, 2006)

1st time? Great work for 1st time.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

@jimmy gunn: thanks for the link. I'm going to look for a similar kit here in the U.S. With the shopping and price comparisons I've done, I thought "cheap brushes" was a contradiction in terms.

@Varakir: thank you much. I'll go back through the galleries plogs and look for highlighting on ork faces to see what's been done.


I'd been seriously considering creating a WIP plog (another one) in the Project Logs subforum. And from this encouragement, it looks like I'll post one up this weekend. (I'll need to take more photos--though it's been overcast all week so far.)


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## Angelofdeath690 (Sep 21, 2011)

You need to play more games!!! >_> lol

Aside that you know generally what i think after I told you. Im not the best source as I haven't mastered the skills needed to teach others but they are looking good and ill be happy to blow them off the planet or eat them depending on who you play.

P.S. if you don't go with the suggested changes to the bases, you might try using some of your damaged/old bits of marine gear to add character maybe even a bit of washing to make them more like battle field bases.


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## Lord-Ja'coby (Feb 26, 2012)

only thing i can say is always remember to thin your paints down and have fun painting :biggrin:


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Angelofdeath690 said:


> P.S. if you don't go with the suggested changes to the bases, you might try using some of your damaged/old bits of marine gear to add character maybe even a bit of washing to make them more like battle field bases.


Actually, I've already painted up the bases: undercoated with Chaos Black, base coated with Graveyard Earth, drybrushed heavily with Snakebite Leather, and drybrushed lightly with Bleached Bone. 

Most of the bases are going to be plain for now--actually half of them will be. The other half will have material on them. Considering the number I plan on painting, doing up all the bases would slow me down quite a bit. And when I can locate some, I'll lay down some foliage on half of the plain ones. This will give me a nice selection of differing kinds of bases.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

One thing I would like to touch one on top of whatthe others have said is assembly. While you are painting quite well! I do see some mold lines which detract from the overall feel of the model. For a first time painter I will say you did an amazing job and looking forward to you painting some more and seeing you improve even more!


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

I'm with everyone else on this bandwagon, these are a great first outing.

I'd offer my own little nit-pick as well. Take time and address all the details on the model. If they have rivets, paint them! If there are leather straps make them leather (or a color). If dere arr littil gubbinz, paint da' littul gubbinz!

If you work on just painting all the parts that are there simply and cleanly, you'll get great practice and ready to move on to all the more complicated stuff. 

And besides, simple, clean, and complete looks better than advanced techniques rendered badly. =D


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## arumichic (May 14, 2011)

Agreed. Very nice job for a first time. One thing I want to point out is you might want to lighten up the skin more by using one more step of highlighting, fluff-wise. But that's all up to you obviously.  Some good stuff. Keep at it!


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Thank you everyone for the comments and encouragement. My second batch of five orks is coming along. Once I have those done, I'll probably start my new project log--if the weather cooperates, it's been raining all weekend.



arumichic said:


> Agreed. Very nice job for a first time. One thing I want to point out is you might want to lighten up the skin more by using one more step of highlighting, fluff-wise. But that's all up to you obviously.  Some good stuff. Keep at it!


I am easing back on the use of Devlan Mud, so the next batch shouldn't have as dark skins as the first batch. However, this second batch has some of the experiments I did with highlighting the skin with Scorpion Green. The results were... different and brighter. It's growing on me more so than the experiments with Snot Green.


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## humakt (Jan 2, 2008)

I wil be interested in seeing the results with scorpian green. My current ork skin method uses gobli green then highlighted with goblin green/sunburst yellow mix which is probably a very similar colour to scorpian green.


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## KarnalBloodfist (Jan 30, 2010)

These models are your first time painting!? :shok: That feeling I'm getting on the inside is either me dying a little because your first painted stuff is so much better than my painting after 14 years or I may actually hate you a little ... 

Seriously, though, great job on the orks! Can't wait to see more!


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## arumichic (May 14, 2011)

humakt said:


> I will be interested in seeing the results with scorpion green. My current ork skin method uses goblin green then highlighted with goblin green/sunburst yellow mix which is probably a very similar colour to scorpion green.


Ditto. That's the same method I use. Though scorpion green IMHO is more like goblin green + sunburst yellow + bleached bone, since it's not as yellow. It would be interesting to see. Pics please!~


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Okay, I hear you all; I'll post tomorrow. I'm almost done (with the minis anyway, the bases are still primer black). I need to touch up areas where I did not intend paint to go (I'm kind of torn since I don't want to photograph them until I'm satisfied, but I know all you want to see are the skin tones--aargh). 

I do have to mention that these will be on the work bench as the overcast, cloudy days have become storming, flash flooding days--so no going outside to take pics in natural light (and I have not been able to find daylight bulbs in any of the hobby shops I frequent or the Walmart nearby). I'm not sure how the CFL bulbs will affect the skin tones.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Well, okay. Today was storming off and on, so in between sudden deluges of rain, I took pictures. 

Here are the two groups, the first batch in the back:











And here's a close up comparison. At left is one from the first batch of boyz, at right is one from the new batch of boyz. You can see some of the Scorpion Green on the face, but oddly enough not on the rest of the body (it's there, believe me). The light really wasn't that conducive to taking pics today. Of the dozen I took, this was the only one that really showed the difference, for the rest, the difference was quite muted.










Well, let me know what you all think.


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## arumichic (May 14, 2011)

Personally, I do see a difference, albeit, it does seem pretty slight, but there is a definite difference. Also, for some reason, the newer batch seems to be a lot more crisp in the painting of the skin. Maybe it's because of that extra highlight. Keep up the good work!


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Did you change colors at all? the new one is much brighter.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Azkaellon said:


> Did you change colors at all? the new one is much brighter.


That would be the Scorpion Green that I drybrushed onto the Goblin Green base coat. Originally the paint scheme was Chaos Black > Goblin Green > Devlan Mud wash. It's now Chaos Black > Goblin Green > Scorpion Green > Thraka Green wash. 

I liked it enough that I've done up the rest of the AoBR orks set in this paint scheme. I do have two other sets of AoBR orks, so once this set is done, I'll probably experiment again.

EDIT: So here's a better pic of the difference. The one with the partially painted base is the newer paint scheme using Scorpion Green.


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

The scorpion really brings the detail out well man i would say do it with all your orks! Have some rep for good work!


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## robpfffff (Oct 1, 2011)

you painted yours pretty nicely, they have more of a 'real' look to them than mine. yours are darker with white teeth
mine are lighter comic style ones with yellow teeth XDD

my orks are my first miniatures as well, i've just done a good number of them by now, about 60 ish.


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## robpfffff (Oct 1, 2011)

Dicrel Seijin said:


> That would be the Scorpion Green that I drybrushed onto the Goblin Green base coat. Originally the paint scheme was Chaos Black > Goblin Green > Devlan Mud wash. It's now Chaos Black > Goblin Green > Scorpion Green > Thraka Green wash.
> 
> I liked it enough that I've done up the rest of the AoBR orks set in this paint scheme. I do have two other sets of AoBR orks, so once this set is done, I'll probably experiment again.
> 
> EDIT: So here's a better pic of the difference. The one with the partially painted base is the newer paint scheme using Scorpion Green.


also, i kind of like both of those. remember not every ork is the same, so you can have multiple shades of them in your army to make them more personal  i like painting my bigger ones, such as the warbosses and nobs a bit darker to be fluffy


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Thank you, and yours have a certain charm as well. :biggrin: Blood Axes? Or Death Skullz? I'm planning on painting up the two other AoBR sets in different clan colors (Bad Moons and Death Skullz for now).

I actually do have one whose teeth are not white, I used Devlan Mud, quite a bit of it, the result looked like he was a tobacco addict. He's actually in the close up pics.

And what did you use to paint the gums with? (I hadn't realized the minis had gums, I just thought those were lips.)

Your greenskin is a whole lot brighter though, what paints did you use if you don't mind me asking?

One day I hope to have as many as you have painted up. I've just finished up the bases on another 5 so I'm up to 10 at this point. :laugh:

EDIT: One of the reasons I went with the Scorpion Green was because arumichic had mentioned the fluff and I realized that I really couldn't make the nobs and warboss darker than what my boyz were.


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## robpfffff (Oct 1, 2011)

Dicrel Seijin said:


> Thank you, and yours have a certain charm as well. :biggrin: Blood Axes? Or Death Skullz? I'm planning on painting up the two other AoBR sets in different clan colors (Bad Moons and Death Skullz for now).
> 
> I actually do have one whose teeth are not white, I used Devlan Mud, quite a bit of it, the result looked like he was a tobacco addict. He's actually in the close up pics.
> 
> ...



you're welcome, and thank you ^^ and i play blood axes, i had 2 aobr's worth so i made half snow camo and half jungle camo, and they're going to meet up to fight a common enemy  (allowing my use of 2 warbosses)

hah, i didn't even think about white to be honest, i think my immediate thought of comical orks was yellow teeth xD

i just used a thin paintbrush and painted the entire inside of their mouths and gums area with red  and painted the teeth yellow afterwards ^^

i actually use cheap grocery store paints, but my green skin is the 1 citadel paint i did decide to buy, goblin green. i usually prime black and do 2 coats of goblin green, then a wash of thraka green  i didn't like using the badab black wash, too dark. the devlan mud seemed nice, but still i think the green is better. for guns i use badab black and then devlan mud and for vehicles i use devlan mud only.

hah that makes sense, and i think the scorpion works well actually  
and ugh, painting the camo for all this stuff took forever. definitely a lot of "just concentrate on the music...concentrate on the music" as i painted x.x

got like 35 boyz, 5 kommandos made from boyz with big shoota backpacks and a loota backpack with grot, boss snikrot, 1 warboss, a trukk, looted wagon (de raider), 2 deffkoptas, and 5 nobz i'm slowly converting into meganobz.
here's a picture of my newest stuff. some of the looted wagon isn't finished, but getting there.


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## turel2 (Mar 2, 2009)

Nice work on the Orks.

Excellent work for you first time.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Thank you all for your encouragement.

I've finally set up my long-threatened project log (check my sig). I hope to continue posting there.


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## PedroChidders (Mar 1, 2012)

These would be good for an experienced painter, they're excellent for a first timer


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## Scythes (Dec 30, 2011)

These models are looking great, you can see the difference between the first ones and the second batch. Experience comes in time, the more you paint the better you'll get.

One suggestions, I didn't notice if anyone said anything about getting paint no the brows when you do eyes, do the eyes first then paint over the spots on the brows when you paint them. I generally do the overall model, then paint the eyes, then just touch up the spots I miss on to cover it up.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

Scythes said:


> One suggestions, I didn't notice if anyone said anything about getting paint no the brows when you do eyes, do the eyes first then paint over the spots on the brows when you paint them. I generally do the overall model, then paint the eyes, then just touch up the spots I miss on to cover it up.


Yeah, I do find I have to do this, usually when I'm taking pics--nothing like magnification to show what I've missed. My painting continues, I do occasionally have to stop to work and such. :biggrin: I was hoping to post up my third batch of boyz this weekend, but I'm swamped with essays and assignments to correct (along with visiting relatives).


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