How I paint - Ironjawz - Orruk Armour

Over the past few months I have been trying to improve my painting by developing 'recipes' for different surfaces and colours. Most recently, I have been trying to paint old metal. With the release of the Kruleboyz, I decided I want to paint an Orruk covered in armour. I had Morgok's Krushas from Warhammer Underworlds, to hand. These would be a great place to try out my ideas. The Krushas are a small warband of three Orruk Ironjaws that stumbled into the Beastgrave. The armour on these miniatures is mainly large 'flat' metal plates with some chainmail. The lore has the idea that the Orruks pound the metal plates into shape with their fists. I cannot see the Orruks looking after it, so I wanted a weather beaten finish but not too much rust.

Paints required:

• Chaos Black spray
• Rhinox Hide
• Leadbelcher
• Nuln Oil
• Black Templar
• Agrax Earthshade
• Ironbreaker
• Stormhost Silver
• Seraphim Sepia
• Athonian Camoshade
• Doombull Brown
• Skrag Brown
• Trollslayer Orange
• Fire Dragon Bright
• Lahmian Medium
• Deathworld Forest

Undercoat with Chaos Black spray.

I then gave the skin on the Orruk a basecoat with Deathworld Forest. It is easier to paint the skin basecoat before you do the metal rather than afterwards. Inevitably, some of the paints from the metal stage will mistakenly end up on the skin, but it will be easier to tidy up than painting a full base layer. Once the skin base layer is complete go back to the metal. 

Leadbelcher is going to be used as the main paint for the metal. To Leadbelcher add a small quantity of Rhinox Hide. Use this mix to basecoat all of the metal. The addition of Rhinox Hide helps the washes in the next few steps to adhere to the the base layer.

The metal was then shaded with Nuln Oil. To the Nuln Oil add a small quantity of Black Templar. The Black Templar adds more pigment to the wash, darken it.  This mix was applied across all of the metal. Monitor the wash as it dries. Do not allow to pool. If it does start to pool, remove the excess with a damp brush.  

After the Nuln Oil wash had dried, a second wash of Agrax Earthshade was applied to the metal. A small quantity of Nuln Oil was mixed with the Agrax Earthshade before it was applied. Again, this was to darken the shade paint. Use this mix to wash all of the metal. Do not allow to pool. Monitor the wash as it dries. Do not allow to pool. If it does start to pool, remove the excess with a damp brush.  

The metal on the weapons is given a second coat of Nuln Oil rather than Agrax Earthshade. This gives some subtle variation in colours across the miniature, making it more interesting.

Mix a tiny quantity of Agrax Earthshade into Leadbelcher. Then lightly drybrush this mix onto the armour plates. With the drybrush you are only aiming to hit the edges of the plates. The idea is that the paint builds up on the edges but because you are drybrushing there will be some transition to the rest of the plate. The next stage of the drybrush is to lightly drybrush any raised area of the plate, on the upper surfaces, where the wash settled less.

Then using a medium detail brush (size 0), you can enhance some of these highlights by painting small quantities of the Leadbelcher onto these raised sections of the metal. Don't over do these highlights.  Along the edges highlight the plates, with a broken line, using Leadbelcher.

The next step is to emphasise the shading between the plates. Stipple Nuln Oil into the recesses between the plates. Apply a small quantity of Nuln Oil and then allow to dry before you repeat. Once you have the required darkness, you can move onto the next step.

The edges of the plates were then given a very light drybrush with Ironbreaker followed by a very light drybrush of Stormhost Silver. This re-established the shine of the metal if it had been absorbed by the recess shading.

Now to add some grime to the plates. Stipple patches of Agrax Earthshade, Seraphim Sepia and Athonian Camoshade onto the armour plates where grime would build up or shadows would lie. If you apply too much 'grime' lightly drybrush the area with Leadbelcher to return the shine. 

Heavily water down Doombull Brown. With a medium layer brush to apply dots of this paint this into areas of the armour where you would expect dirt and rust to accumulate. I prefer to add rust mainly to the chainmail.

Repeat this step with watered down Skrag Brown but do not cover all of the Doombull Brown. Then repeat with watered down Trollslayer Orange and then finally watered down Fire Dragon Bright.

Then using a medium detail brush (size 0), you can enhance some of these highlights by painting small quantities of a 1:1 mix of Leadbelcher and Stormhost Silver onto these raised sections of the metal. Along the edges highlight the plates, with a broken line, using Stormhost Silver.

Once you have finished painting all of the metal give it a coat of Lahmian Medium. This brings all of the different layers together.

Then all you have to do is paint the rest of the miniature and avoid getting paint onto the armour!

This was actually a very quick and easy paint scheme. I normally prefer a clean look to my painting but I wanted a weather beaten look for my Orruks. I hope you like the scheme. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below.  Happy hobbying.