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Speed Painted Orks

Sometimes you just need TONS of boyz.

If you're fielding a Green Tide in an Apocalypse game, your main concern is getting a whole load 'o boyz painted and on the table. Having a quality paintjob on each figure is far less important than having a mob that looks good as a whole from a typical "tabletop distance" of a few feet away. At times like this, it's nice to have a few 'shortcuts' to help out.

Please Note: These models are NOT what I consider display quality, but they're good enough when you need to field a hundred boyz at a time.
Painting

STEP 1: Base Colors

After primer, the first step is to block in the base colors. I chose a similar palette to the rest of my army so these boyz would fit in :

Skin - Goblin Green
Shirt, Glyphs - Blood Red
Pants - Graveyard Earth
Straps, Belts, Teeth, etc. - Snakebite Leather
Metal Areas - Boltgun Metal
Eyes - Blazing Orange

I was purposely messy in this stage to help prove a point. The next 'Shading' stage can help cover up a multitude of painting sins :-)

STEP 2: Shading

For shading, I used the GW Badab Black wash. At some point I'll try using an airbrush to speed things up, but for now I'm just brushing it on. The GW washes are pretty good stuff, they dry with a matte finish and flow into the recesses of a model nicely.

You can see how it helped to reduce the shinyness of the Boltgun Metal on the shoulder. When going for quantity over quality, individual flaws are less important (and less noticable) when viewing the mob as a whole.

STEP 3: Highlight

I used the same skin highlight color for these guys as I do for the rest of my army, a 50/50 mix of Goblin Green and Bleached Bone. I'm definitely not as tidy with the highlights here as I am with my normal orks, just hitting the high spots and not worrying about 'streaking' like I do with my normal Ork Skin.

I also gave the teeth and fingernails a quick highlight of Bleached Bone.

That's pretty much it. Quick and dirty, but it gets the job done.
Comparison Shots

The 'Speed Painted Ork' is on the left, next to one of my 'normal' Ork Boyz on the right. The difference here is noticable, but remember, the picture shows the orks a good 50% larger than actual size.

Try this: Step back from your computer screen a few feet and look at the picture again. The difference between the orks is a lot less noticable a few feet away.

Besides,the speed painted boyz are supposed to be viewed as a mob.

When you group them all together, you can barely tell the difference between these guys and my normal orks. Their weapons may be a bit darker, but that's no big deal in my opinion.

What IS a big deal?

I painted THIRTY boyz in the same time it takes me to finish half a dozen of my 'normal' orks. Being able to crank out 5 times the number of boyz is really important when you're gearing up for an Apocalypse game.