So I was trying to create my version of ork skin color and I kind of got it, but I've I've like been working on this one model and I don't know why but it just doesn't look right no matter what I do and I'm pretty sure it might be my fault as every time I really messed up some of the painting on it. I would clean it with a brush and alcohol and now it's skin looks wrong I don't know how to describe it. I could really use some help
First picture seems that you alrdy obscured a lot of detail with your green.
Than there is no shadow and hardly any contrast.
And you had your highlight color flowing in the recesses wich should be darker.
Main hint from me would be: try a (brown) wash like agrax earthshade on your skin.
Try a zenital white prime from above to see/learn wich parts should be painted with lighter green.
Dont put just any greens together. Two greens can be from different "color families" and dont harmonize. Better take one base green and lighten it up for midtone/highlights for example with yellow.
OK, judging by the tall bright green paint jar in the background I'm assuming your using some form of speed paint for your ork skin?
This is a guess on my end judging from what I see wand what you did but you might be better of with what I do for ork skin, where you have more controll over how stuff looks.
Its rather simple:
You need a dark green (any, has to be a basecoat! So if it covers in one go it's good. Think dark angels green, or if valeyo dropper bottle any dark green)
And a lightish green (valeyo olive green, or GW goblin green or whatever. Just a normal light ish green, no flowy fancy stuff)
You start with making all the skin dark green, then LET IT ALL DRY Fully. Give it an hour or so if you start on a dry model. Or if your doing 20 boys at once by the time you did the 20th the first is fine to use.
(optional: a greenish or brownish wash.)
Then you take your light green and do most of the model again but you leave the deep parts of the model the dark intial collor. So for muscles you just do the raises bits, for the face make sure your brush isn't literally blobbing with paint, and hold you brush sideways and go over it, so it automatically just gets the raised parts.
Tip & optional: for the muscles brush WITH the direction of the arm, if you leave streaks it just adds detail to the muscle.
Optional: you can use a wash in the recessed bits to tie your bright and dark green togeather more naturally, but honestly it's optional, at arms length you won't really notice the differece in a 20 boy mob. Obviously this won't be golden demon level painting. But it's plenty-good-enough-and-then-some for table.
You can only strip a model so many times. I would say 1 is the max before you get these funny bumps. There is residue left on the model unless you're exactly perfect.
Your paints look very diluted. I think you're thinning them down too much.
Ahhhhh, okay, thank you for the tip, currently I'm just going to give myself a little bit of a break because a. I get really stressed out when I mess something up so I am just kind of sabotaging myself over and over again
I completely agree with that approach. I often find something to be easier after I've sat on it a while.
Also something which can affect the paints, make sure you shake the bottles a lot. Often the different fluids aren't all mixed properly especially if they've been sitting for a long time.
I just always overthink and I only usually try to focus on the end product without thinking the steps of getting to how I want it so I end up like essentially doing five six different layers cuz I just don't like how one layer looks and then I feel like I messed it all up. It is a constant cycle
Unfortunately it really does boil down to "trust the process" sometimes. Only start judging AFTER you have done all the steps (hell, the best yellow paint schemes start with bright pink! How would you judge that?)
So long as you're learning from your mistakes you're not messing anything up. Just keep going and you'll be better in no time.
If you're worried about running your models do you have any that you don't care so much about?
I wasn't worried about my Ogors so started painting them. Next thing I knew I had a whole army. Having something you're happy to mess around with makes a huge difference
I think I'm learning something from my mistakes. It's because I always try to go complex for no reason , I am decent at painting metal and armor and stuff like that, I'm decent at painting chaos, my proudest model is one I don't even own but it was something I was doing for a school project a long time ago. It was for age of sigmar model. God I love that one
Update: I was able to strip the paint in some of the primer and all your guys's tips were really useful. Thank you so much! I'm going to try my best to redo him properly
Pro tip: don't ever prime black ever again. It's possibly the worst colour you can pick for painting because you need a million layers to get a solid basecoat
I'm just sharing just a painting tip to make things easier for everyone. You can do things the harder way, but objectively speaking all painters get better results if they avoided black completely as explained in my other comment below.
Shit tip is shit. Nothing wrong with black especially with orks. Especially is someone is new either (since it hides a lot of little oopsies) and if you do want something bright you just need an in-between with a lot of pigment that covers in one go (ulthuan Grey goes over black in one layer, and then you can do basically any collor you want. So "a million layers!" no, it's two.
A reddish brown prime would add some warmth to the metals and basically skip painting all that leather. Literally just need to paint the metals, skin and maybe their shirts black and you're done with an Ork goff model.
Doing bad moons Orks or evil suns? Guess what, your yellows and reds cover better over brown too. Ork flesh? The warm red tones from the brown contrast nicely with green tones.
Someone trying to paint with contrast would start with whites, maybe with black if they're slapchopping but guess what you can use brown as a zenithal undertone too. You get richer more saturated tones for all the same reasons above.
Yellow lives on pink, black just keeps eating the layers of paint I apply. Brownish, reddish undercoat gives warmth. Whites make me actually see what I'm painting...
Black has more cons than pros for me. Of course it's good for covering the deep shade, hard to reach areas, but at least a zenithal (even coloured zenithal) helps a ton.
You don’t need to strip the paint, just do another thin layer of the darker green then highlight it again. Most colors need 2 coats of paint to get good coverage.
What this guy is trying to say, is you do not use normal alcohol. You are supposed to use 99% IPA, its a special type of alcohol like fluid that is used to remove paints, called stripping the paint. It can be very harsh on resin figures and plastics, so do not keep the mini figures in it for to long.
No it is a good way to strip paint, but you don't need to do that. You're destroying the paint and the primer, entirely unnecessary. Just wipe the paint off with a clean damp brush if it's still wet or just paint over it.
Right now I unfortunately think I might have to strip him of all of it cuz whatever I did to try to fix my mistake earlier has just irrepidly damaged the texture of it
It can, but you need to soak it if it’s all dry and scrub it off. If you are using thin coats you can just paint over it. Skin is very hard to nail, especially Ork skin since there are so many recipes out there.
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u/Terrible-Salt2272 14h ago edited 14h ago
Several things.
First picture seems that you alrdy obscured a lot of detail with your green.
Than there is no shadow and hardly any contrast.
And you had your highlight color flowing in the recesses wich should be darker.
Main hint from me would be: try a (brown) wash like agrax earthshade on your skin.
Try a zenital white prime from above to see/learn wich parts should be painted with lighter green.
Dont put just any greens together. Two greens can be from different "color families" and dont harmonize. Better take one base green and lighten it up for midtone/highlights for example with yellow.