'Elp chosin' an orkie palette

[Blank Dave]

I probably should have looked harder, but it's late. Being the stunned dolt that I am, I've decided after a near 30 year hiatus to try getting back into throwing some paint. Just dont ask how much i blew today...

 

Colour theory was never my strong suit, so I'm hoping for some pointing in the right direction.

 

I picked up a grey primer, and ork skin and ultramarine contrasts. I'm hoping to get a darker ork skin than you usual see with GW. And I'm hoping to get a sort of denim colour with the blue.

 

 

I'm leaning towards doing Deff Skulls, though if the wind blows just so I might change my mind to Sunz. So of course green and blue are going to see a lot of use. What should I look towards as a contrast to those?

 

 

P.S. I forget to grab contrast medium while I was out. Would I be able to use anything in it's place?

Thank,

Dave

Edited September 27, 2020 by Blank Dave

[jaxom]

Green and red are complimentary colours. A dark green would go well with a dark red. Perhaps warpaint or spattered blood? A lighter, denim blue would go well with brown. So denim clothing with leather straps and pouches could work.

[Fajita Fan]

Contrasts don’t look good on gray primer, you need to spray it with white or off white for contrasts to pop. If you’re sure you’ve got a good gray undercoat then hitting the tops and fronts with a thin of white primer might be okay for you.

 

I’ve always been a fan of bright green Ork skin, it makes me laugh. If you’re going for darker skin the Ork flesh contrast works and you can brighten the highlights with some brighter layer paints. If you keep the gray undercoat then the caliban regular base paint is a good starter for Ork skin.

[Karhedron]

A few thoughts. Firstly it should be a colour scheme you like and secondly it should be one that is not too hard to paint. Orks are often large armies so a colour scheme that you can get down fairly quickly and have a decent army is important, even if you come back later for extra details and highlights.

 

As others have said, red is a good contrasting colour for green so Evil Sunz are a good clan to go for. I went for a red colour scheme on my Fantasy Orcs for this reason and I looked pretty good, even when the rank and file units were painted to a fairly basic standard.

[Xenith]

Great to see you want to get them painted!

As above:

1) make sure it's grey seer primer - which is basically an off-white. Over dark primers, like say a normal grey like halfords, it wont work as well.

2) What colour with the clothes? Will they be denim? Blue fabrics wont work with deffskulls blue war paint, I think, but UM blue over armour panels will work a treat.

3) "Ork Flesh" contrast is a very vibrant green (example below). I think I prefer a more yellow-green, so will be going creed camo for ork skin and militarum green for grot skin - or the other way round, I forget.

4) Contrasts work great on ork vehicles, too. The below scrapjet was painted entirely in contrasts, apart from the metallics, which were shaded with contrasts.

5) Complementary colours to the green and blue for me is orange or purple. Purple will be the ork gums, etc, but targeters, screens etc would look great in orange. Basically use whatever colour GW paints marine eye lenses as a guide.

6) Get a painting log up in the Ork section of the forum so we can see your Waaaghband grow!

Edited September 28, 2020 by Xenith

[Razblood]

Good trick with contrasts is zenithal priming, you can easily achieve the same effect with drybrushing.

 

Prime with your grey, give it a heavy all over black wash, drybrush all the upper facing areas with grey and then follow that with a lighter drybrush with white.

 

Slap some contrast on and jobs a goodun.

 

If your using the lighter colours like iyanden yellow the change out the grey for brown and drybrush up through bone to white.