I've been wanting to do another fantasy piece for some time now, so I decided to put my historical projects on hold for a bit and start on this piece from Big Child Creative's Black Sailors range of figures. I think these kits are absolutely fantastic. They are a combination of orcs, goblins, and trolls at 1/35 scale (though the orcs measure closer to 70mm) and are all themed around being the crew of a pirate ship. Each piece represents a different member of the crew and thus is totally unique. The sculpts themselves are wonderful and have incredible details. I picked up a bunch of these during their kickstarter, but the one I decided to paint first was Redghar... sort of the brute/muscle of the crew.

I've seen a couple very well done versions of this kit, but I wanted to do something a little bit different. I opted to go for a very dark shade of green for the skin (inspired by recent work I did using dark green for a dragoon's coat). The shade of green was created by mixing 2 parts Badger Minitaire's Dark Green with 1 part Reaper's Burgundy Wine. For the shadows I added more Burgundy Wine. To make the highlights, I added a 50/50 mix of Reaper's Dark Elf Highlight and Vampiric Shadow (basically that just made a light grey) to the base color. The top highlights were pure Vampiric Shadow (an off white). To create some color variation, I also used a mix of Burgundy Wine, Imperial Purple, and Vampiric Shadow for areas like the nose, lips, and around the eyes. Later on I'll be using some glazes to add a bit more color variation to the skin, but I'm not quite ready for that.

I'm trying a few new things with this piece. The first is the approaching non-human skin using the same techniques like color variation and glazes that I use to paint human skin/faces. The second is pushing myself to go for a much more extreme contrast range than I normally use. Sometimes that's easier to try on a fantasy piece than on a historical.

Here's what I've got so far. Obviously I've just focused on the face, though I'm about ready to start on the torso. I was working on the teeth when I got pulled away from the painting, so they are still in progress.

This is going to be just freakin awesome..........

Looks absolutely incredible so far. I really like your take on the skin tones.
Phil

With Warcraft movie on the run we will see a lot of Orcs figures.
As long as these figures a breathtaking like this one I be a happy man.

You at your best David, bring it on mate!!

So wanted to do a few of these myself however all the ANZAC Orcs were already done in LOTR & the Hobbit

Keep us posted.

Mike

That's some ugly face.....but your painting of it is great!

Adrian

Awesome. Love the chosen dark skincolor

Awesome stuff so far.

Thank you, everyone. I've made a decent amount of progress on his torso and arms. I'm taking it in small sections, with all that exposed skin to deal with, I find it much easier to do it that way rather than to try to take it all on at once.

great work

The shading looks fantastic

So this is where it all started eh. Still an excellent colour.

Superb.

Cheers

Huw

Very nice brush work so far. I'll follow this one.

Thanks, all! I've continued with the skin. I finished up the back and worked on the arms, adding a purple shift on the elbows. Still need to do the hands, but I'm almost done with all the green (phew!).

I've been working on his hands and cloth wrapped around his forearms. I also base coated the rest (well, mostly) of the figure so I could get an idea of how the colors will look together.




Here's a close up of the arms and hands. While on a human I'd color shift the elbows and knuckles to more of a red, on the orc I decided to go with a purple. This was done with opaque layers instead of glazing. I didn't think the purple glazes of the green would produce the same result. But that meant I had to go in with various mixes to blend the purple back into the surrounding green.

Continuing to make progress... I did the shading and highlighting on the pants. Dealing with the stripes was certainly a pain. After that I started on the cloth around his waist. I focused on the back, where most of the cloth is visible. There's a little bit on his front which I'll finish off next.


To show more clearly what was done on the cloth, here's a before and after shot under the same lighting conditions.

Fantastic, it's been a pleasure seeing your progress on this one
Phil

This is such an great paintjob. Love it.

Orcs and goblins and whatnot are so not my thing, but your painting of this is terrific.

Adrian