The other night I painted the rocks on my first Orks’ bases…and realized that after ~9 months painting grey rocks on grey Blood Angels bases, I’d painted these rocks grey. Time for a color guide, and in this case time to test some shading options.
Testing time
First I grabbed a larger rock and primed it.
The rocks on my Blood Angels’ bases are grey with brown undertones/shadows, and a bit lighter than the lightest part of the landscape. I could see doing my Orks’ rocks as grey, too, but my instinct says to go for a brown that’s lighter and more bleached-out than the underlying landscape. So: Zandri Dust for the base coat.
So next I tried three different shades on my rock — Agrax Earthshade, Reikland Fleshshade, and Seraphim Sepia (in that order, left to right) — with a Screaming Skull drybrush over that:
Reikland is right out (too red), but I’m torn between Agrax and Seraphim. Agrax matches the terrain better, but Seraphim contrasts with it better. “Contrast without looking dumb” is what I’m after, so I think Seraphim Sepia is the winner.
Update: After washing and drybrushing my first batch of Orks’ landscape, the rocks didn’t have nearly as much contrast as I would have liked. I drybrushed them again in Praxeti White, which is brighter than Screaming Skull, and that did the trick. The guide below uses the correct color.
Deathskulls Ork base color guide
Moonkrumpa’s Megalootas are thundering across dry, flat badlands on some anonymous, soon-to-be-devastated world (washes in italics, as always):
- Terrain: Armageddon Dust > Agrax Earthshade > Tyrant Skull drybrush
- Rocks: Pick a recipe:
- Zandri Dust > Seraphim Sepia > Praxeti White drybrush
- Grey Seer > Agrax Earthshade > 50/50 Grey Seer/Corax White drybrush
- Skulls: Corax White > Agrax Earthshade > Corax White drybrush
- Tufts: Army Painter swamp, winter, or both
- Base rims (edges): Baneblade Brown
I may also randomly vary the rocks, even using grey/brown/white like I did on my Angels, with the idea being that the Megalootas are a much larger force and therefore spread over a wider area with more natural variation in its terrain. Not sure about that yet.
I’m going to keep the ground clutter to a minimum on these guys, so that should mostly cover it.