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To be honest I'm not too fond of them, but do not fret!

Improvement can be achieved easily though.

You need to base-coat your models, painting directly on metal and plastic areas isn't very nice to the models, firstly it doesn't look good and secondly the paint easily chips off.

Easy techniques like shading with a darker colour works fine, whenever I go for a white look on clothes, bones etc I either start out with brown (for skulls, teeth, nails, bone, robes on dark angels etc) and followed with 2-3 layers of drybrushing with bleached bone and with a skull white finish, or when I go for a dry/cold look I start with grey and work myself up to the white, this is easily done with any paint.

Simple highlights can also give a model more life, I usually drybrush the cheekbones and fists on my orks and it makes them look better, but it happens that I might use a thin pencil and draw small thin lines on the edges instead (mostly do it on metal plates).

Drybrushing is simple, and it's easy to find tutorials as well.

Inks are your friends, especially when you paint orks. The metal of ork wargear and weaponry is nothing they really take care off, so a wash of black ink gives it a burnt look, fresh out from the mekshop! Or brown ink (not much, and then you use your thumb to drag it out on the metal area to give it a dirty look).

Painting chipped areas on metals with paint on (like the bosspole), you can start off with some black lines, followed with lines of tin bitz in the black area, and finished with some slight stripes of mithrill silver, mostly done around edges and the top of rounded areas, like a helmet.

Removing mold lines is almost a must for me, it makes a good mini look great! It doesn't matter how wellpainted it is, mold lines still ruin a model as much as a non-based base. Removing mold lines is simple, you either need to file it down or scrape it off with a modelling knife.

Drilling pipes... Another hot tip. Either you get a pin-vice and drill them out, or you use a modelling knife putting the sharp tip in the middle of the barrel, twisting your way for a rounded hole-looking thing.

You don't need to stress when painting either, it's supposed to be fun!

But I'm one of those who don't think its fun... It's more like a burden to me since I have TONS of models to paint... xD


My tips anyways is to either check the GW site for tips, or go to www.warseer.com and use the search function and look for help there, people isn't fond of others making threads with "How do I..." etc. I've learned alot from there and I'm sure you can too. :3

Cheers!

// Shin

You should try the foundation paints that GW released, and the P# colours from privateer press (the guys behind Warmachine).

They don't sell chaos black primer at your hobby store? o:

If your paints are getting bad you need to get new ones, they're not THAT expensive. o:

You get good colours with the P3 colour boxes. :3

I rarely ever use ordinairy GW paints nowdays, mostly P3 and foundation since the foundation paints have what I need to get a good skin colour for orks with the orkhide shade, knarloc green and gretchin green as a highlight, using mostly the metal paints from P3 for metal areas and painted metal.

n_n

Won't snot green be too dark?

Well, all I can say is that I love the orkhide shade base for shadows. knarloc green for a normal skin colour and gretchin green highlight combo is the best thing ever, it gives the orks a bit more "realistic" green hide rather than the goblin green cartoonish radioactive one.

Here's a sample of the combo I use with foundation paints only.

On a PIP Loota Mek.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/Shinobi_8745/Mek1-1.png

Might not look perfect, but as a whole it works.

And this is what a finished mob of orks look with this simple skin scheme (and simple ink washes on weapons to make them look weathered and such).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v648/Shinobi_8745/Boyz2-1.png


Best thing too, if you're up to paint many models, paint the same colour on each, say you're gonna paint 20 orks, then start with the base green for the skin on each one of them, then use the skin colour on each one of them, and finally highlight them, and after that you cover the parts (like weapons and clothes) with black again, going for the next colour.

If you're a lazy goff you don't need to paint the clothes in anything but black and add a light drybrush on the edges on his clothes, and maybe add some checkers to the shoulderpads. ;D

Mixing goblin green to the highlights when making a grot works fine since it's bright.

I like the bosspoles, great ways to combine the banner poles from other armies to the orks, but the space marine banner doesn't look as orky as it could, slight cuts on the banner to make it look ragged and worn-out would make them fit in with the orks better.

Yeah, I kinda did. Not to mention my lighter paints are a little old and starting to dry up a bit. Man, if I could find my camera again I could show you guys my Trukk's awesome red-and-blue job!

great way t do orcs, paint the skin goblin green then citadel wash them thraka green, the citadel washes are effing awesome.

Battlewagon has been underway for a good eight weeks, only seven of which I spent any real time on. The chassis was made using a cheap Amtrack toy-model-thing from Hobbytown. A Killkannon has been built and will be mounted on the front third, on top of that little protrusion. A Lobba and Kannon have also been assembled (thank Mork for Lowe's!) with little gunner stations on the sides of the turrets. Still looking for something that would make a good Zzap gun, other than just taking a lascannon.

Also, .080" plasticard is not beginner friendly. Pics when I find my mom's camera charger.