Grizzlybeer
New member
Hi everyone, I was looking for insight/advice when it comes to painting orks. I have been having issues with having a right approach/goals to painting my army. I'd like to give some background to my dilemma, but there is a TL;DR bit for those who prefer to avoid a wall of text from someone who is extremely indecisive!
To begin, I started an ork army wanting to paint for fun and do Evil Sunz - red is what people usually do and what-not. Then, having read more about them, I wanted to do Blood Axes. I really liked the idea of orks that have a strategy and wear camo. I really wanted to make an army with a city-fighting basing and theme (hence a lot of greys/blacks). This did not work out for me because I couldn't come up with a good color for vehicles and grey was too boring for me to do orks - I wanted the army to be more 'fun' (I feel like super drab and etc is best done with IG). So I came upon the idea of mixing the Blood Axe clan with the Deathskull clan - this was because I still wanted to do camo, but also wanted some color and character - I love the background behind both of these clans more than the others. Specifically, I am taking the ideas that Blood Axes use strategy and camo and also trade/deal with the imperium, combined with Deathskulls' more creative meks (in my opinion), and looting everything will go well together with the trading with the imperium.
So now we come to my current problems. I read extensively about color theory to try and understand how to come up with cohesive color schemes and to improve my painting in general. I have since come to the conclusion that the yellows and reds that Orks are usually seen with is because the warm colors jump out at you and go well with greens (skin) and darker colors. It seems overly difficult to achieve the same eye-catching effects of Evil Sunz or Bad Moon clan armies when painting Deathskulls. It's difficult to find nearly as many ork armies painted as Deathskulls than most others, it seems - and I think the blue being too cold is why.
I'm really not satisfied with them, and I'm not sure why; I think it's because -again- the blue doesn't pop nearly as much as red or yellow would.
Here are some things that I feel like can help
- the best way, as I see it - would be to use more browns on the clothing and use more white checkers on the blue
- using brighter rust around the metal/blue areas so that the orange helps the blue pop.
++issue with using too much rust is in my opinion - since deathskulls paint everything blue - I feel the paint would rub off long before the rust starts showing through
- paint the red areas a more orange color, for similar effects as above
- dust the bases with various earth tone pigments also to help blue pop
- painting the ork skin brighter (one of the 3 nobz has a yellow glaze over his to test this) - but doing this risks adding too much color and making the orks look too chaotic (haha right, I know)
I would love to hear your input on what I can do to improve the look of the army
TL;DR: Going for a mixed realism/stylism paint style - What can I do to make my Deathskull orcs more pleasing to the eyes (or 'pop' more)?
Here are my painted orks so far
To begin, I started an ork army wanting to paint for fun and do Evil Sunz - red is what people usually do and what-not. Then, having read more about them, I wanted to do Blood Axes. I really liked the idea of orks that have a strategy and wear camo. I really wanted to make an army with a city-fighting basing and theme (hence a lot of greys/blacks). This did not work out for me because I couldn't come up with a good color for vehicles and grey was too boring for me to do orks - I wanted the army to be more 'fun' (I feel like super drab and etc is best done with IG). So I came upon the idea of mixing the Blood Axe clan with the Deathskull clan - this was because I still wanted to do camo, but also wanted some color and character - I love the background behind both of these clans more than the others. Specifically, I am taking the ideas that Blood Axes use strategy and camo and also trade/deal with the imperium, combined with Deathskulls' more creative meks (in my opinion), and looting everything will go well together with the trading with the imperium.
So now we come to my current problems. I read extensively about color theory to try and understand how to come up with cohesive color schemes and to improve my painting in general. I have since come to the conclusion that the yellows and reds that Orks are usually seen with is because the warm colors jump out at you and go well with greens (skin) and darker colors. It seems overly difficult to achieve the same eye-catching effects of Evil Sunz or Bad Moon clan armies when painting Deathskulls. It's difficult to find nearly as many ork armies painted as Deathskulls than most others, it seems - and I think the blue being too cold is why.
I'm really not satisfied with them, and I'm not sure why; I think it's because -again- the blue doesn't pop nearly as much as red or yellow would.
Here are some things that I feel like can help
- the best way, as I see it - would be to use more browns on the clothing and use more white checkers on the blue
- using brighter rust around the metal/blue areas so that the orange helps the blue pop.
++issue with using too much rust is in my opinion - since deathskulls paint everything blue - I feel the paint would rub off long before the rust starts showing through
- paint the red areas a more orange color, for similar effects as above
- dust the bases with various earth tone pigments also to help blue pop
- painting the ork skin brighter (one of the 3 nobz has a yellow glaze over his to test this) - but doing this risks adding too much color and making the orks look too chaotic (haha right, I know)
I would love to hear your input on what I can do to improve the look of the army
TL;DR: Going for a mixed realism/stylism paint style - What can I do to make my Deathskull orcs more pleasing to the eyes (or 'pop' more)?
Here are my painted orks so far
