Ork Nob Tutorial

Today I will show you how I finished the White Dwarf Nob in about 2 hours. The biggest help whenever painting any type of figure is to plan out your colors before hand. I pulled out all the colors and set them aside from beginning layer to highlight layer, followed by any washes I plan to do. This helps when you are trying to finish off squads and go for the conveyor belt painting. Or machine painting as I sometimes call it. But enough of that, onto the how to and the what the...

Step 1. Basecoat that sucka mc!!! I normally base my figures black. Why? I just like how they look with a darker shade. You can base them white, but I find it makes the metal too shiny. That works great for Fantasy or nice and happy figures, but for the armies I play (Chaos, Orks, Nids, Daemons) black is where it is at. Oh and onto the basing. I used a piece of wood you can find around any trees or plants at office buildings. It is just a cut piece that they use to help keep the soil around the plant. It works out great as a rock. Oh and yeah, I cut off the hair because I don't like hair on my orks for some reason. It just doesn't seem to fit well with me, and thus I wanted a different looking White Dwarf Nob.

Step 2. I've decided to start with the skin tones of the ork. My base color is a Catachan Green. I prefer to use this, because I am not a fan of the super green you normally see orks as. I think that green is just a bit too much, and much prefer the olive tones in Catachan Green as a base coat.

Step 3. From here, I use Knarkloc Green as the beginning of my highlight. I start to build it up in the shapes present on the figure. Luckily, the figure is pretty gnarly and for the most part you can do a sorta dry brush, but with a lot of paint on the brush style. You just take it and basically paint the higher points of the figure with the color. I try to leave the Catachan Green in the recesses, because, after we wash it, those will become much darker and create the shadow needed.

Step 4. Here I add the super highlight for the skin. I use a Camo Green, because again I like the olive tones these colors bring out, and I feel the color is more representative of what an Ork would look like. They are stinky and smelly, and thus not too bright and green. But hey, do whatever you want, this is just how I paint orks heh.

Step 5. I wash the skin in a Thraka Green from the new wash set. The wash darkens all the greens, and creates a harmony in the overall tone. It also creates more colors, due to the fact that the wash as a weight to it and it pulls down into the crevices.

Step 6. I add another highlight of Camo Green to the skin in order to pull up to a brighter highlight. And bamf, we are done with this orks skin.

Step 7. Lets start with the pants of this model. I decided to go with the tried and true brown pants for this ork. I went with brown because, a) it is orky, and b) it isn't too terrible difficult to create a nice leather effect. First layer of brown is Scorched Brown.

Step 8. After that, I start to highlight the pants using Calathan Brown.

Step 9. This is followed by Snakebite Leather.

Step 10. I use Bubonic Brown to finish off the final pants highlights. Just like the skin, I start to paint closer and closer to the highest point on the figure. This way it can create a much more starker highlight and shadow, and thus give you model more omph.

Step 11. Here I add the wash Devlan Mud, to help create a shadows in the pants and around the figure.

Step 12. Now I start with the metal bitz. I have my own method for creating rusted metal and I used the basics for this figure. I always start with a base of Tin Bitz. I use inks later on, and I find the brown and red tints in Tin Bitz to be great for bringing out a nice rusty color.

Step 13. Here I take Boltgun Metal to start to highlight bits of the metal. It is pretty bright, but once you put a wash over it, it brings it down just right.

Step 14. After that, I just use a Flesh Wash Ink to cover the metal bits. There is a lot of brown in this ink, and thus it really creates a nice rusted effect for the metal on the model.

Step 15. After all of that, I take a cheap Antique White, and dry brush over the metal. This helps break up some of the shine from the ink, and creates a nice look for the model I've found. It also gives it some weathering to the model.

Step 16. Now I add details to the figure. I decided to go with a nice counter color for the model. One of the best ways to make a model stick out, is to add a counter color. Something different that breaks up the overall form of the model. Here I decided to go with a nice yellow to help break up the monotony of the figure. I started with a base of Macharius Solar Orange on the shoulder pads of the model.

Step 17. Here is the finish model, after some more dry brushing of Antique white, and finishing touches of Iyanden Darksun on the orange bits to bring it up into the Yellows I wanted. I think the figure came out pretty good, and with the upcoming Nobz in the new starter set coming out, he might fit into a nice Nob squad that rides around in a Battle Wagon.