After A Failed Attempt, I Start Another Ork Project
Know Your Limits - I Found Mine
My preparation to ready taking on my wife's Christmas present - a set of Game Workshop's Age of Sigmar Orruks - got off to a pretty bad start. Long story short, the random spare miniature I chose as the practise painting sample turned out to be wholly unsuitable.
Moral: When choosing a test painting figure make sure it resembles the final model you intend to paint in style and scale, otherwise you are wasting your time!
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| Above: The Orruk set that my wife bought me! |
I chose a figure by a completely different brand of model and it wasn't even really an Ork (I think it was a half-Ork) and so I could not apply any of the painting techniques that I intended to use on my GW Orruks on the little fellow. In particular, the model's head was a lot smaller than the GW Orks and so I couldn't practice some of the things I wanted to try from some of the YouTube tutorials that I had come across...
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| Above: My first Ork painting test attempt with a 'Reaper' brand figure. |
And aside from anything else, this first figure was *small* and so I struggled to paint it, what with my eyesight and shaky hands. In the end, I just gave up - there was little to learn from this unsuitable choice for a test piece.
Back to square one. 😣
Money Problems - Buying 'Budget' Friendly Miniatures
I decided that what I needed was a single figure that was loosely similar to the Orruks ones I had to act as a painting guinea pig BUT I did not want to use one of the actual set that I had as you do not get that many in a box. Ideally, it would have been great if I could have bought a *single* example of the 'Iron Jaw' Orrks to practise on, and so the wife and I had a look in a local store to see what I could find.
Unfortunately, the only single figure available in my small town was a 'Iron Jaw' Boss which was priced at an eye-watering £28!!! 😬 (About the same price as my wife had spent on the set of 10 Orruks she had bought me!)
Anyway, I was sat at home wondering what to do next (buy second hand from eBay maybe) when I came across a set of Ork models that were available as downloadable STL (3D printable) files. As I had just - finally - set up my new 3D resin printer this seemed an opportune time to give it it's first real whirl...
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| Above: Just one of the 13 sets of Ork types included in the Cast'n'Plat 'Iron Skulls' collection. |
The cost for this set - Cast'n'Play 'Iron Skull' Orks - was £15 for a collection of over 50 (!) figures. And while they were not an exact match for the GW 'Iron Jaws' they were a match in scale and could pass for a similarly chunky Ork style...
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| Above: The GW 'Iron Jaw' Orruk compared to the 'Iron Skull' Ork model. Size wise they are a good match, and will they differ stylistically this can be put down to the fact that they are from different 'tribes'. |
3D Printing - Amazing Results
The only thing that worried my is my lack of experience using my new Elegoo Mars 3 Pro printer - but (I thought) there is only one way to rectify that... Get some experience! So off I went. 😊
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| Above: After my initial single test print I followed this up with a multi-model print, filling my Elegoo's print bed to the max! |
I was amazed when the first test figure I chose from the 'Iron Skull' set came out perfectly. The detail was terrific and it was - indeed - a good match in size and general style for the GW 'Iron Jaw' Orruks.
In a way, I liked these 'look-a-likey' Orks better than the GW ones as they very much put me in mind of the classic 1990s 'Warcraft' Orks, a game I had for my Apple Mac!
Suitably impressed with the quality of the Cast'n'Play models I chose some more samples from the set to print out as well as soe of the bases that came with the bundle. And here is one of the best things about 'print your own miniatures' - I didn't have to restrict myself to one practice model, I could have as many as I liked for a mere 30p a pop (plus the small cost of running the printer itself)!
Down to Actual Painting
OK, so that brings you up to date with my second stab at my Ork painting project. Now the hard part- the painting itself.
Having a larger 'canvas' to paint upon was immediately helpful, as I was now able to follow along with some of the painting techniques showcased in the tutorial videos I had collected. Subtle shading effects were now doable - even with my dodgy eyesight - and the chunkier 'Iron Skull' Ork models had large patches of bare skin on which to test my 'green skin' painting skills (or lack thereof).
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| Above: My first batch of prints - with a GW Orruk at the back - shows you that there is plenty of scope for trying out various painting techniques on these models. |
Thus far, I have got as far as laying down all the basic colour layers and I have *just* started to apply some initial shading.
My main issue was that the majority of YouTube Ork tutorials I found were being done using Citadel paints (GW's own paint brand), which was natural enough BUT my paint collection is based on my former hobby of historic military modelling and the use of my favourite brand of paints by Vallejo. So, I had to work out some equivalency between the Citadel colours used in the videos and what I had.
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| Above: One down side of the Cast'n'Play models is that they do not come with a PDF painting instructions of suggestions! So, I had to trawl around the web until I found some pics of examples that ithers had painted, like the one above. |
Also, I had decided - because of another Ork painting attempt that I had done a while back - that I preferred a darker and more muted Ork green that the more usual eye' popping lime green tones that a lot of painters were using.
And so, here's the results so far - as I say, this is NOT a finished model, it is only about 20% completed...
But, I am already pleased with my darker green Ork skin tone and now hope I can replicate some of the painting effects displayed in the video tutorials for the rest of the model. We shall see!
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Oh, and PS...
Aside from the figure model itself I realised that I needed to put some thought into how I was going to paint the figure's bases. Again, I checked out soe YouTube tutorials on basing techniques and styles BUT as luck would have it I happened to have my first print failure which ed me to having a couple of malformed bases at hand to practise on!
I am quite pleased with how these tests turned out...
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