Identifying, Updating, and Painting a Bucket of 90's Era 40K Orks with Lawnor

There’s a whole lot of models in the project so in order to maintain momentum and never feel like its dragging I’ll be breaking it down in to a series of smaller batch projects.  I’m currently thinking:

• 12x Gretchins
• 26 Ork Boys (Maybe 2 lots of 13 so I’ll feel progress quicker?)
• 13 Characters, Solos and Drivers
• 9 Vehicle and machine sub assemblies

Sunday afternoon I started work on my Gretchins, and somehow had them all done except the bases before bed.  All the flesh parts were done in the previous stage.  Here are the paints I used for this step:

The Basecoat

The first thing I had to do was paint the stones inside the sling as that’s a drybrush job and they are recessed so can’t be drybrushed without coating everything around them.  They got a quick base of Bastion grey, a wash of Nuln oil, then a drybrush of Menoth White Base.  Then I picked out the following base coats:

Next came a highlighting stage.  I tried drybrushing Menoth White Base over all the browns.  It worked well on the wood, but turned out to be too much of a contrast on the leather when I tried it on the sling.  A second coat of Agrax Earthshade over the top fixed it and gave it nice highlights. I also lightly drybrushed the furry loin cloth of the one guy who has one.

I used Jack Bone to drubrush highlight the crate to make it look like the stain had worn in places exposing the wood core.

Deck Tan was diluted to try to make it as thin as possible while still retaining control.  I need to try for thinner next time.  This was then applied to the “blacks” as highlights.

The blacks were then washed with Nuln Oil to dampen the highlights and provide shade.  Afterwards more Deck Tan could have been applied for glints and extreme highlights, but I decided not to do that on these little guys.

Now we are on the final stages.  Time to pick out all the remaining details:

• Tentacles: Midlund Flesh washed with Druchii Violet
• Serving Tray: Cold Steel
• Arrow Flights: Evil Sunz Scarlett washed with Caroburg Crimson
• Iron: Pig Iron
• Rope: Rucksack tan, washed with Agrax Earthshade (Shade inside the crate with it while you’re at it)
• Bullets: Brass Balls washed with Agrax Earthshade
• Hair: Ironhull Grey washed with Nuln Oil
• Bronze: Molten Bronze with a wash of Agrax Earthshade

I’ve decided to paint the bases with a red earth to contrast the green of their flesh.  I’ve used Martian Ironcrust which comes in those stupid pots so you can’t get to the bottom half of the paint without taking a saw to the bottle.

The bases were then left to dry overnight before getting a wash of Agrax Earthshade, and a drybrush of Beast Hide.  The edges were then painted Black.  Everything was varnished before receiving a scatter of Serious Play’s Baked Canyon landscape texture.  I’ve also got some red tufts I plan on using, but they were too tall for the Gretchins but will hopefully see use on the Orks.  I’ll include a more detailed guide to my basing when I’m working with one of their larger bases (40mm or bike base?).  See the gallery below for some working shots and final pictures of 11 finished Gretchins and 1 Gretchin passenger awaiting his vehicle.

Next up, 13 of the Ork Boys.