Starting To Look A Bit More Orky Now...

It's been a bitty couple of days really, this weekend.  I've not had the opportunity to do any solid blocks of painting, more just the odd bit here and there.

That said, I'm still really happy with the way things are coming along.

I managed to get the second layer of paint onto the Ork Nobz's skin (which you may remember was a 3:1 mix of Dark Angels Green and Goblin Green).  From this coat onwards, they really start to take the shape and character of the Orks.  As promised, here are some more pictures:

And things are starting to look up for old Njal as well.  I have added the first highlight layer (a 2:1:1 mix of Space Wolves Grey, Shadow Grey and Kommando Khaki) which will be followed tonight (if there's time) with a much simpler mix of... well, just Space Wolves Grey... onto the very edges.

Rather annoyingly (although I'm sure there's a very good reason), this will then be followed by another shading wash of Devlan Mud into the recesses.  I'm not entirely sure why this has to be done half way through the highlighting stage (any pro painters out there, I would love it if you could tell me), but I'll have to be very careful around the runes in the armour, which will be edge-highlighted already.

After that, it'll just be a case of a very hard edge highlight of 1:1 Space Wolves Grey and Skull White before the real hard work, the wolf-skin cloak, begins.

I'm mixing all of these layers very thinly, probably using more water than paint, because I want the armour to look smoothly blended when it's done.  This is relatively easy to do (although it definitely wouldn't pass the first round of Golden Demon, I'm sure!) by just mixing the paints very thinly, because the edges then tend to dry relatively clear, giving the illusion - from a great distance - that you have spent ages on your blending.  The only essential thing for the trick to work though is a coat of matte varnish at the end - which you'd be mad not to do anyway - because this does a superb job of blurring the edges of the 'blends', making them look all-the-more smooth.

But anyway, here he is so far:

The closer I get to finishing the armour, the scarier the prospect of that magnificent cloak becomes...