Tutorial: How to Paint Hunter Orcs from the Hobbit

You may have seen the Fell Warg tutorial I posted recently, well this detailed ‘how to guide’ will focus on Hunter Orcs. Combining both will give you a full tutorial for mounted Hunter Orcs. More after the jump. 

This tutorial assumes you have a basic understanding of how to paint. For the beginners, I will explain the techniques as I go along. Each picture below shows four chronological steps. Underneath each picture are the corresponding instructions. Each step shows the paint I used during that step. It’s good to have reference material close to hand to check colours. I used google images for film stills and Games Workshop’s 360º pictures on their website were a great help. Where you see a percentage, this indicates the mix ratio.

Paints you will need for this tutorial:

Black Undercoat

Dawnstone (layer)

Administratum Grey (layer)

Ulthuan Grey (layer)

Bugman’s Glow (layer)

Seraphim Sepia (shade)

Kislev Flesh (layer)

Carrouburg Crimson (shade)

Zandri Dust (base)

Rhinox Hide (base)

Mournfang Brown (base)

Gorthor Brown (layer)

Stormvermin Fur (layer)

Karak Stone (layer)

Leadbelcher (base)

Agrax Earthshade (shade)

Stirland Mud (texture)

In case you need to expand your paint collection, head over to Wayland Games or Slave to Painting, which both stock a huge selection of paints at competitive prices.

We start the tutorial with a model that has been undercoated with black primer. 

1. Paint the Orc skin and hair with Dawnstone. (no seriously, it will make sense in a moment).

2. Highlight the skin and hair with Administratum Grey.

3. Add a final highlight of Ulthuan Grey to the skin. 

4a. Create a glaze of Bugman’s Glow (25%) by mixing it with Lahmian Medium (75%). Apply this thin layer to the skin (not the hair). Paint Bugman’s Glow straight from the pot for the flesh armour. 

4b. You can create different glazes to produce different skin tones. The pic above on the left shows an Orc that was painted using a Castellan Green Glaze. 

5. Wash the skin and hair with Seraphim Sepia. The wash will “dirty” up the skin. 

6. Paint on Kislev Flesh highlights to the flesh armour. 

7. Wash the flesh armour with Carrouburg Crimson.

8. Zandri Dust is used on the teeth and any bony protrusions on the flesh armour.

9. To paint brown leather armour/bows paint it with Rhinox Hide. 

10. Highlight the brown leather with Mournfang Brown.

11. Add some fine edge highlights of Gorthor Brown to the leather.

12. Highlight the black armour and arrows with Stormvermin Fur.

13. Add some edge highlights of Karak Stone to the black armour. 

14. Paint any blades with Leadbelcher.

15. Wash the metals, brown leather and black armour with Agrax Earthshade.

Finally base the model in a way which fits in with your collection. I used Stirland Mud texture paint highlighted with Karak Stone and the base edge was painted with XV-88. Static grass and scrub were glued on in small clumps.

Tale of Painters has a whole host of Hobbit tutorials for you to check out.

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