14 - Orks! Waaagh!

Well, a couple of weeks after painting my first Ultramarine, I present to you my first Warhammer 40k Ork! All in all, he was fairly easy to paint. He would've been even easier had I stuck to the black Clan Goff paint pattern that the Assault on Black Reach painting guide demonstrated, but I'm not too confident in my ability to use black as a primary color. Black as an undercoat is fine, but attempting to bring black to life through highlighting and layering and such still confounds me. I've read on various on-line and print miniature painting guides that black and white are two of the hardest primary colors to work with, and I can believe it. So, I changed the color scheme of my first ork, making him more rugged and outdoorsy rather than Mad Max/ Hell's Angels leathery as the Goff Clan is apparently supposed to be emulating. In hindsight, it looks like I subconsciously painted my ork as a member of the Snakebite Clan.

This ork is also my first attempt at integrating highlighting into my regular painting routine. Not too impressive at all, the highlighting, but it's going to be a slow process. As I mentioned in my previous post, it's taken me almost 6 months to become comfortable with my brush control and my shading (via washes) so I'm not going to rush myself in regards to gaining proficiency over the more advanced techniques up ahead. By the way, he's not quite done. I'll probably add some more bits to his base, then touch up the paint job a bit before matte varnishing him.

Personally, the ork wasn't all that interesting to paint. I dunno. I can't imagine having to paint up the numberless hordes of them necessary to field an army in 40k, but I guess to each his or her own. For all the monotony that the Imperial Guard seems to present, I've had far more fun painting the 7 (and counting) Guardsmen I've assembled than I had painting this one ork. But since the Black Reach starter set comes with, oh, almost 30 ork figures, I better find something to like about them soon.

As usual, click here for more pics.