Armies of Fantasy Warriors

This tutorial shows the colors and procedure I’ve used for painting my Orcs. When batch painting 8 orcs were mounted on 2 wooden sticks. Each step was applied to all 16 orcs before moving on to the next step. Being mono-pose miniatures the procedure was pretty fast, even for a slow-painter like me. When reaching the second stick, eye to hand coordination felt comfortable. My speed of painting was increased incrementally from the first to sixteenth miniature. The Orc spearmen, swordsmen and bowmen were all done following the same procedure.

The colors used in this tutorial are from Army Painter (AP), Vallejo Model Color (VMC) and Vallejo Game Color (VGC)

Clean up flash and apply basing

The plastic orcs in Fantasy Warriors have a line of plastic flash running around the model where the two halves of the mold have met. It’s not any major issue, but you need to remove it. However, all Fantasy Warriors plastic miniatures have an injection point at the back of them that has to be removed. This is preferably done with a sharp scalpel or knife.

The next step is to apply basing. I use super glue and the type of sand used in small critters cages.

Undercoat and Orc skin base color

The Orc was undercoated with AP Leather Brown spray.

Then a base coat of VMC Refractive Green was applied with an AP Regiment brush.

Other base color

The other areas of details are:

• Arm cloth and pouch on the side in VMC Leather Brown using an AP Character brush
• Loincloth in Army Painter Chaotic Red with an AP Regiment brush
• Metal armband and belt buckle in VMC Copper with an AP Character brush
• Belt, sword grip and right side shoulder armour  in VMCr Flat Brown with an AP Character brush
• Sword blade and left side shoulder armour in VGC Gunmetal with and AP Character brush
• Teeth in VGC Bonewhite with an AP Detail brush
• Eyes in VMC Carmine Red with an AP Detail brush
• Base in AP Fur Brown with an AP Monster Brush

Wash and second layer Orc skin

The entire model was washed in Army Painter Strong Tone with an AP Monster brush, and then given a second Orc skin layer of Vallejo Model Color Refractive Green with an AP Character brush

Highlights

The highlights were made with:

• Skin in VMC Green Grey with an AP Detail brush
• Arm cloth and pouch on the side in VMC Leather Brown with an AP Detail brush
• Loincloth in VMC Carmine Red with an AP Character brush
• Sword blade in AP Plate Mail Metal with an AP Character brush
• Teeth in VGC Bonewhite with an AP Detail brush
• Eyes in AP Lava Orange with an AP Detail brush

Orc skin wash

Finally the Orc skin highlights were toned down with a layer of AP Green Wash with an AP Regiment brush.