First fukushima kami-crazy Madboy finished

Painting a miniature that has suffered a few decades of neglect always feels special. This classic Space Ork Madboy is the first of three I've entered into a competition and I'm quite satisfied with him.

I just had to add a modern oversized Space Ork shoota to this model. In case of Orks bigger is better. 

Now the other two should've been long finished by now, but I got distracted playing Rimworld on my PC. An addiction to computer gaming tends to sneak up on me and suck a lot of time that could've been spend painting. On the other hand, what a game :). Back to the main subject. I tried something new for Ork/Orc/Orruk skin. I followed this tutorial on The Lost and the Very Damned blog. I swapped Graveyard Earth with Baneblade Brown, used Nurgling Green instead of Rotting Flesh and took my Army Painter Green Tone to replace Green Ink. All swaps aside, its an amazing skin color, more so because it starts out as a dull brown and ends up looking seriously green.

Nihilakh Green is one of the great GW innovations of the past decade, but you have to remember thinning it down before use to get a reasonably subtle effect like on this orks shoulders and weapon.

A very important detail on (almost) every Space Ork that was made when Waaargh: Orks was printed is the backplate. Orks carry these to signify their clan and family association. They get captured and displayed and fought over. They also make for excellent conversion and freehand fodder. I used the Ork Glyph for Madboy (a stylized mushroom) on this backplate to signify his status in Ork society.

Paiting basic checks is not quite as hard as it looks like, just start on non-folded clothing like a sleeve.

I really wanted the Ork's face to stand out and. I also had the yellowish pants and metal armor to add color to him. To stop getting too much color (and losing contrast) I decided to paint the rest of his clothing black (and dark brown on the pouches). As this got a bit monotonous I checkered his sleeves with a bit of white. Not too neat, it is a rather small area to work on (and I'm not an 'Eavy Metal painter). Also this Madboy is an Ork, probably a fallen Goff, he won't care too much about neatness. Leave that to the 'umies.

For those of you wondering (and actually reading these captions) I scratch built the wall this Ork is standing on as part of an Ork fortification. I wrote a (rather lousy) forum post on this terrain and archived it here on my blog.

I also tried painting leopard spots on his yellowish pants. I should've picked a better contrasting color  because they don't really stand out (and I worked so hard to make them look just right). On the other hand, it does look a bit camouflage-like so I can live with it. I gave the entire model a coat of Polyurethane Matt Varnish and glued him to the base I'd prepared earlier. To my joyous amazement no work was needed to cover gaps after fixing this guy in place. I actually eyeballed something properly! All in all quite a satisfying first model, on to the next one (if I manage to put Rimworld down long enough).