How can i make this better?

In Chigh P.I.

In Chigh P.I.

New member
My first submission here, and im sorry to say its our old friend Mr ork runtherd again (grot herder, kaporal orko, orktreiba...whatever its called)

Its obviously nowhere near as good as the 3 ive seen on here so far (necroghast, Joek, & mourner, my hat is well and truly \'off to you guys) but considering its the first fantasy/sci-fi model i have finished since the late \'80\'s, im kinda proud of it.

The photography isnt the best i admit, the pics were taken with a 7megapixel cam outdoors with a white background, then i used windows vista picture viewer (forgive me) to tweak the light levels slightly & crop the pics. I then put the 3 best images into GIMP (which ive only had for about 3 weeks) and merged them. I also added a slightly different angled closer image of the face into the top right corner.

Paints? Mostly Vallejo. The orks skin is basecoated in US olive drab, highlighted with VMC khaki, pin washed with GW purple, then highlighted again with a slightly lighter mix of khaki. Im sure i should have paid more attention to the skin, but i really liked the colour so i guess that \'blinded\' me into leaving it as it was (im not a fan of \'green\' orks, i wanted something more natural looking, looks crap in the pics though :() Colours used for the clothes were mixtures of VMC paints, US field drab, Middlestone, Desert yellow, Braunviolet, and some others too...sorry ive actually forgotten what i used for some parts lol

I did use GW paints for the squig though, and i used GWs fine range of metallics for (you guessed it) the metal bits.

So there you go, thats how this piece of nonsense was created. It took me bloody ages to do it (7 parts to this model you know!)

Feel free to tell me its crap & go learn to paint ok guys?

Seriously though, am i going in the right direction with fantasy style? Or am i (which i suspect) being too \'drab\' about things?

Advice, suggestions most welcome

OrkRuntherd.jpg
 
T

Trevor

Brushlicker and Freak!
I like the drab style, the painting is good. maybe try to be a bit smoother, especially on the skin, and push the contrast in the highlights (so it goes darker and lighter).
 
freakinacage

freakinacage

Well-known member
a damn good start. he\'s neat, although the skin looks a little drybrushed. thin your paints a little more and get smoother build up of highlights and shading.

i\'m also not a fan of bright green orks. i like the idea of them getting darker the meaner and bigger they are (as per some fluff i read once). therefore big warbosses should be very dark and gretchin lighter. i still think you could up some of the highlights though.

i wouls say that you could bring up the highlights on evrything tbh. the eye is great but could do with being a little brighter

the base is a little dull..

photography is better than mine!
 
Necroghast

Necroghast

New member
Heh thanks for the compliment man. For yours, yeah basically what everyone else has said. Also, I noticed that there\'s still a gap between his left arm and his shoulder. You might want to fill that in. (at least I think its a gap? Not so sure after looking twice.)
 
In Chigh P.I.

In Chigh P.I.

New member
Thanks for the responses folx, much appreciated :)

Im still finishing off the grots that came with this model, will try to get some pics of them before they get shipped off to be sold (if i can make 2x thier original cost i will be happy)

And no, its not a gap, its just that i painted all the bits separately, you can see a little of the primer showing at the left arm joint (i did notice it, and thought about trying to soften it with computer/techno magic for the pictures, but that would be cheating i think)

I

am a little disappointed at getting only 5.4 but thats only served to make me pay more attention to a lot of things now

Thanks again :)
 
C

crazyboyae1

New member
painting lvl is inconsistent on the model. ie the pants are good, the ork skin is drybrushed (or looks that way) i would recoment trying to do what you did on the paints on the whole model :)
 
H

hubbabubba

New member
I think you\'re contrast may be a bit off in the photo, if it\'s not, then you should definitely up the high lights in the skin tones and on the squig, they look too flat next to the trousers, when in theory, skin, especially dark skin should reflect more light than fabric, giving greater tonal contrast
 
M

Mourner

New member
First off, thanks for the compliment. ( i cant not reply when somebody give me a compliment like that....)

your version ain\'t half bad either.

Now, on to the tips:
like crazyboyae1 said, the pants are great, I bet you spend some time on that. treat the rest of the mini the same way.

The pants are layered really well.
the rest of the mini not so :(

I\'d try some more contrast on the squig, the highlights don\'t really POP, while the squig is something that can take a lot of brightness and contrasting colors, it\'s weird enough to still look good and realistic (you know what I mean).
And darken the lips and tongue :cussing: they look like they had just one bright base layer, nothing else (am i right)

The ork skin, i like your \"non-green\" approach, i hate those \"Neon-orks\" too. but try and get some more contrast on there, if you don\'t want to end lighter, start darker.
try some washes, they help to \"blend\" the drybrushed parts.

lighten the metal, and once again, if you drybrushed it, wash it.

and decorate the base, it\'s too drab right now.

well, that ended up as quite the post, hope you can use these tips, and keep painting.
 
P

pez5767

New member
A really good start. I think I would just like to see some of the highlights come up a bit more... not bright and shiney, I like a good rough and dirty orc. But even dirt brightens up in the light.

keep working on those blends and smoothing things out.

Good job, keep at it.
:)
 
jarhead

jarhead

New member
Yep, a really good start over here... I really like the softness of the paint on the squig and also it\'s bright colours... i miss that a bit in the skin of the orc himself...

The orcish skin looks pretty cool but very dry, maybe try to work it the same way like you did with the squig - looks totally different to me and i guess when you are trying the same with the orc skin it would get a lot better very fast. I guess you could thin your colours a bit more with water (dillution) and then dry the brush on a tissue before painting... so you can work more accurate with your layers and your colour intensity...

From the overall look, the orc is very dark which fits him well, but it ain\'t easy for the eye to get every detail of him. Some changes in making some parts bright and others dark could help you out with that...

Keep on going that way... that is for sure the right direction.
 
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