Step-By-Step Tankbustas

On the workbench today is a unit of Tankbustas (complete with two Squigbombs). For me, Orks are always a joy to paint. I love their vicious-yet-silly nature, and I always discover details I didn't notice before during the painting process that make me laugh.

Step 1: Black Spray Basecoat
I'm going to do the flesh effects first, starting with the Squigbombs...

Step 2: Dheneb Stone
I've been playing with the idea of a 3-step skin process since Skulltaker (he was a 4-step, though ... but usually for Orks I had a 2-step). We're mixing it up here, continually testing ways to improve my methods while still keeping it relatively simple.

Step 3: Skull White drybrush
My old method was simply basecoat + wash. The added step is a drybrush highlight which goes before the wash... Playing off of the Dheneb Stone, Skull White is our highlight.

Step 4: Baal Red Wash
I did want reddish Squigs, but after finishing the test, I couldn't help but feel that it was too ... pink. I needed to darken this some...

Step 5: Devlan Mud wash
Ok, that looks awesome. So the squigs ended up being a 4-step process, but it came out pretty cool.

Next up, let's go for the Orks' skin.

Step 6: Gretchin Green Basecoat
I love foundation paints :)

Now, back when I was testing out Ork Skin effects a while ago, I had settled on Gretchin Green as a basecoat because it was yellowish. The yellow basecoat made a really cool effect with the Thraka Green Wash. Since it was the yellow aspect of the basecoat that convinced me, I decided that the highlight should be...

Step 7: Iyanden Darksun drybrush
In all of these, before adding a wash, it should look wrong. Trust me, you want it to look "too bright." If it looks right before the wash, you're going to end up with an effect that's too dark.

Step 8: Thraka Green Wash
Also pictured, a bottle of Hefeweizen. It had been a long day, don't ask ;)

Step 9: Calthan Brown
Following our 3-step, I'm basing all cloth I want to be brown. I had read a joke a long time ago about a sea captain who always wore a red shirt to a battle so his crew wouldn't see if he'd been wounded or not and keep up their morale. Punchline was when 40 pirate ships approached and he asked his mate to bring him his brown pants. This made me laugh a lot, and the mentality behind it makes me think of the Orks alot ... so I always paint their pants brown ;)

Step 10: Bubonic Brown drybrush
The Nob has an Imperial Officer's trenchoat bolted to his shoulder as a kind of cape. I'm painting it brown not to be lazy, but because it actually is the color I chose for my Imperial Guard. My officers with coats have red cuffs, so you'll see that I do incorporate that later.

Step 11: Devlan Mud wash
Man I love washes :)

Next up, any black leather.

Step 12: Charadon Granite basecoat
Charadon Granite is my go-to basecoat for anything black ... though depending on the tone of black you want, there are a few other basecoats you could use. This is for a greyscale black. You can use Orkhide Shade or Necron Abyss if you want a greenish black or a bluish black, respectively.

Step 13: Codex Grey drybrush
I paid special attention to the wrinkles in the leather.

Step 14: Badab Black wash
Sweet. Next up, a lighter brown cloth. I want it to look like it used to be a white shirt before a few years of no washing (I think I got a few of those in my closet).

Step15: Dheneb Stone
Notice that while I'm basecoating the cloth shirts, I also took this opportunity to hit the teeth.

Step 16: Gryphonne Sepia Wash
For the shirts, I laid it on heavy. For the teeth, mostly around the roots of the teeth.

Ok, at this point I became a bit impatient with the constant washes (I kept having to wait for them to dry). Probably the beer making me impatient, but it all worked out anyways. Basically I applied the base and highlights for anything that will use a Devlan Mud wash and saved the actual wash for last so I could hit them all at once.

Step 17: Tin Bitz
I like my orky metal to be dirty as hell. For this, I base it in Tin Bitz.

Step 18: Boltgun Metal drybrush (heavy)
...for everything you just hit with Tin Bitz.

Step 19: Shining Gold
There's one boy here who scored himself an Imperial Eagle shoulderpad, so I'm hitting it with gold to make it stand out from the rest of his metal.

Step 20: Mechrite Red
Some of the things we coated with metal are getting hit with Red, as my Orks are Evil Sunz.

Step 21: Blood Red drybrush
Since they're going to be washed, I need the red to be brighter than I would typically want. Notice on the Nob that the trenchcoat sleeves (and the little Officer's Hat on his belt) have been hit with red. The Cadian 221st will not suffer such insults! Expect to see some Ork skull trophies make their way into the Imperial Guard models, mark my words!

Step 22: Iyanden Darksun
Yellow is the other Evil Sunz color, so some other bits are getting hit with Yellow. Not all their stuff will be red and yellow, we're going to get a little touch of Goff palette in here.

Step 23: Skull White
While I had the white out, I got their eyes too.

Step 24: Chaos Black
Some checks, some spirals, rings, triangles, and not all on the white rockets. There are a few yellow rockets that I hit (not too much though, less they become the Bumblebee Boyz).

Step 25: Vermin Fur
I've found that Vermin Fur followed by a Devlan mud or even a Badab Black makes a great leather belt. That said, all the belts (they're everywhere!) above have been hit with Vermin Fur.

Step 26: Boltgun Metal
We had already done this color, but this time I'm doing two things. First, the beltbuckles for all those belts we just did. Secondly, a drybrush on any metal plates (or missiles) that we painted over with red, yellow or white. Seriously, scrape the hell out of them.

Step 27: Putrid (Scorpion) Green
For all the wires. These will also be hit with Devlan Mud, so don't worry about how bright they are at the moment.

Ok, we're finally ready for that wash, and if you've been following along, the anticipation of finally putting this wash on is killing me like a serious itch I've been trying to ignore. I'm looking at all these bright colors with no depth (and the beer's wearing off).

Step 28: Devlan Mud wash (heavy)
Oh man, that felt good. Aaaaaah. All metal, yellow, red, white and belts were hit with the wash. Man I feel relieved.

Step 29: Baal Red Wash
... for the eyes.

Awesome, the models are done. Time for the bases.

Step 30: Calthan Brown basecoat

Step 31: Sand
Glued down with PVA (Elmer's white) glue.

Step 32: Gryphonne Sepia Wash
Getting some depth in there, tying the sand in with the darker basecoat while also getting a bit of a red hue in there.

Step 33: Macharius Solar Orange
For my Orks, I prefer a rust colored landscape (like Mars) . Also, it plays well with my army's colors (red and yellow)

Step 34: Chaos Black
I got a little carried away while painting them (I blame the beer) and got some paint along the base rims. This last step is just to clean that up and make them look professional and clean again (at least as professional and clean as an Ork can look).

All in all, I'm very happy with the outcome. Most of all, I'm really happy with the way the ork skin came out. I'm definitely keeping that.

What did you guys think?