Squigger's Way - Painting my Orcs For some time now I have considered GW's method of painting Orcs (and Goblins) to be wrong, and somewhat silly. Given their descriptions in the fluff, their appearance should be very little like the models painted by the 'Eavy Metal team. Let me elaborate. The impression that I get of Orcs from the fluff is a rough bunch of green hooligans. Generic barbarians, if you like, just a bit rowdier and more resilient than usual. To go with this they wear whatever bits of armour they can get their hands on. What isn't covered by armour is going to be covered by thick leather, cured or uncured. Now while Goblins go in for bright and shiny stuff, Orcs don't. The bright red tunics and jackets we are so familiar with just don't fit. For a start, they are far too bright. Secondly, these are Orcs we're talking about - not the most hygienic of races... Thirdly, several dozen Orcs all wearing red? No chance - far too silly to even consider. So, while some clothing is going to be red (because all Orcs, as we know, have a prediliction for red), a lot of it isn't - it's far more likely to be brown, or some other faded colour (when they've nicked the stuff from someone else). Having got myself two boxes of the new Orcs, I set to work. First, colour selection. This is important - keep your range simple. As I will show, it is amazing just what you can do with a limited palette. I used the following paints: Goblin Green (well of course...) Blood Red Crimson Gore Snakebite Leather Vomit Brown Vermin Fur Bestial Brown Bubonic Brown Skull White Chaos Black Dark Angels Green Chainmail More importantly, I used the following washes (now called inks): Armour Wash (Black Ink now) Flesh Wash Chestnut Wash Orc Flesh Wash (sadly departed from the Citadel range) Red Wash Why more importantly? Well, the main paints I used for the Orc clothing were Bestial Brown, Crimson Gore, Vomit Brown, and Blood Red. Using mainly Armour Wash and Chestnut Wash, with the occasional Flesh Wash, I was able to produce an amazing number of shades of each paint, all of which were perfectly appropriate as leather stuff (even the red). It went like this - Bestial Brown - when washed with Armour Wash, this gives a very dark brown, almost black, which is perfect for dark leather. Crimson Gore - also gives a nice dark result with Armour Wash, also gives a great old, faded dull red with Chestnut Wash. Vomit Brown - too light you say? Not so - just add Flesh Wash or Chestnut wash for an excellent light leather. Blood Red - Can be made to look right with either Armour or Chestnut Washes. Dark Angels Green - with Armour Wash, to get a good solid dark leather with green stain. Interestingly, this green works well with the green of the Orcs' skin (which I do very simply as follows - paint skin with Goblin Green, wash well with Orc Flesh Wash - and that's it. No highlighting is needed - it looks stupid anyway). Vermin Fur was used mostly for boots, stained with Chestnut Wash. I generally use Snakebite Leather for straps and pouches, and use Flesh Wash for details. The Bubonic Brown was used on a few for their clothes, as a very light leather when washed with Flesh Wash. My method for teeth looks good. Paint the mouth and teeth white, almost drown that part in Red Wash, then carefully go over the teeth again in white. If you want a rotten look, also use some Chestnut Wash or even a tiny bit of Armour Wash (this is particularly effective on Squigs, by the way). The weapons I painted with plain chainmail. I see no reason to use Armour Wash on it, as it looks perfect in its natural state. It is just the right shade of silver / grey, and can be made to reflect even better than Mithril Silver - although I'm not sure whether or not this is due to some slight watering down of the paint. The spear shafts I painted Bestial Brown and washed with Chestnut Wash - for this reason I did not use Chestnut Wash on any clothing painted Bestial Brown. The Chaos Black was used on only a few Orcs, for the fur on the tops of their boots. This was then drybrushed with Skull White. For those interested, I did not use any undercoat at all. Except for Blood Red and Bubonic Brown, all the paints listed above are solid enough to work without any sort of undercoat. Blood Red and Bubonic Brown were no problem here for the simple reason that they were covered by a wash - this makes them more solid and completely covers any plastic or metal showing through. I would have given them an undercoat if I had not used the washes, however. To those now screaming about the importance of undercoats - I have done this before, and have yet to notice any problems with the paint. If you are worried about your paint flaking off, spray it with a matt varnish - but before you do that, just ask yourself this: if acrylic paint requires an undercoat to adhere to a model, just what sticks that undercoat to the model? Anyway, the results of all this mucking about without undercoats and with a heap of washes? Simply brilliant. The Orcs aren't ridiculously bright, or needlessly messy. The clothing looks like weathered and faded leather, just as it should. Now THESE are Orcs as described in the fluff. Just as a quick note on construction - I found the heads and arms supplied for champions to be ridiculous, and highly likely to make the model so unstable that it could not stand up. So I didn't use them. I used heads which were roaring commands. For the arms, I used a converted spear arm (there is an arm which is throwing a spear, I chopped the shaft and put the head on the other end) for the champion of the spears, and for the boys with two weapons, I put a cleaver in each hand. I was forced to use the metal musician arms, but am not pleased - one model keeps falling over. For the standards - I am not at all pleased with the trend of moving toward trophy poles, simply because I much prefer banners. So, for the spears I used one of the raised spears (the only one of its kind which I used), stuck a spare spear-head on the bottom of it, and glued two spears from the old plastic Goblins to the base of the top spear-head. On this I hung my banner. For the unit with two weapons, the trophy pole seemed appropriate (and I have now run out of ideas for Orc banners :), but the angular, 40k-ish icon is completely inappropriate for a fantasy setting. So I filed it flat, gouged out some wood-grain lines, and stuck on a skull shield boss. Both standards look quite nice now.