How to Paint Everything: House Orlock

In our How to Paint Everything series, we normally take a look at different armies of the Warhammer universe and while these fellows are from the same universe they don't quite qualify as an army. House Orlock are our favourite roadwarrior miners of the underhive!

Covered In This Article

Painting gunmetal
Painting some rockin' denim
Khaki

While I have yet to actually play a game of necromunda (dang COVID), of the gangs my favourite would have to be Orlocks. I cannot really put a finger on why, but their visual style is right up my alley.

I did make the mistake of thinking that it's only like ten or twenty dudes what's the worst that could happen if I did them high detail? Well it's been like four months and I only have eight of them done, so uh don't necessarily go as far as me.

The first few coats are just some basic base coats, nothing fancy here.

I did at least let myself only use one colour of wash for the majority of the clothing, so that's something. While these are just normal so far, I promise we get to interesting stuff soon!

I like using nurgling green to desaturate skin colours, I would recommend that if you do so either try to remember proportions used or make a decent amount as I adjust the original colour to get the highlights. I enjoy using purple as a shade for darker skin tones as it feels far more impactful than using a red-ish which can be quite subtle. It's worth noting that I did 3-4 successive highlights for the skin where I just gradually added the kislev to get the slight variation I desired. If you want to see other recipes for skin by some excellent painters checkout the HTPE: Human Skin article!

I like painting the recess of the eye brown first before using a off white for the initial coat. Unfortunately, I don't have good advice for getting eyes to look good except try have the pupil overlap the eyelids otherwise they look scared, also don't forget you can over run the eyelids and then just replace the highlights after. it's worth noting I went quite mad trying to get these eyes to even this level, I will use that as an excuse for why I drybrushed the metals next.

I had kinda lost my marbles at this point, so I took a break to do some quick drybrushing on the metal.

The hair is fairly standard highlights, for the dirty blond on baldy most of the base coat is obscured but the little bits visible occasionally adds some nice depth. I would consider pushing the highlights on the black hair a bit further as they are a bit subtle.

For all the cloth and leather you will see that I like to do a bunch of small perpendicular lines for the last couple of highlights, from a distance it can help to imply texture and a pattern. There are better techniques then this where you do micro texturing that is much smaller and often across more of the model, but that is a bit beyond what I am willing to do.

I might not have a picture for each, but for almost every one of the remaining garment parts I do 3-4 highlights in which I gradually add more Flayed One Flesh.

After some more fabric I returned to do a bit more detail on the bases, for rust I super watered down some Skrag Brown, then after a liberal application I wipe most of it back off so it mostly remains in the recesses.

Just some more detail on the bases and the grey leather.

Another selective wash on the base helps to add more variation, following that I finished off the brown leather belts.

I quite like how different black can look just depending on the highlights! You can get away with basically any colour and have it turn out delightful.

In theory I went with yellow/orange lenses to get a nice crisp differentiation, but honestly it was mostly just because I wanted to give it a try!

Finish off the bases with a drybrush and black rim, and you are done!

Fowler's Method - click to expand

My skateboarding and vehicle-riding Orlocks have made appearances in features before! With the new Outrider Quads coming in the Ash Wastes boxed set, it seemed like a good time to jot down some notes about my quick and dirty paint scheme for both gangers and their rides.

Like the ">feral skateboarding gang my weirdos are based on, my Orlocks have a variety of shirts, pants, jackets, and skimasks. There are however some common elements that tie the gang together (aside from the sick backpatches):

All models are given a zenithal prime - white over black
For gangers: boots and crotch-towels are Black Templar / Black
For leaders: boots are Talassar Blue / Caledor Sky and crotch-towels are Blood Angels Red / Mephiston Red
Leather packs and pouches are: Wyldwood contrast, highlight of Baneblade Brown, Wash Agrax Earthshade
Metal details are:
- YOUR GUNMETAL OF CHOICE (I like Vallejo Metal Color Gunmetal)
- Wash Nuln Oil
- Rough highlight / drybrush of silver
- Wash Nuln Oil

Gutter does not enjoy failing his initiative tests.

Skateboards are:
- Paint the top with Typhus Corrosion to make grip tape
- Griptape is Abbadon Black with a gray drybrush
- To simulate paint wearing off to bare wood, I use Kislev Flesh, heavily stippled
- Either stippled black or a bit of oil / enamel wash to add some grunge
- Whatever colors / design you want on the board!
I use Tamiya enamel panel liner black to cheat some extra depth out of the Contrast paints
Some suggestions for the varied clothing:
- In a sea of denim, Blood Angels Red makes a great vest for a champ or leader
- Leviadon Blue is excellent for dark denim
- Surprisingly, Nighhaunt Gloom is another great option for a different denim color
- Gryph-Charger Grey acid-washed jeans! Experiment with some drybrushing and a second coat

Similar to the gangers, I have a limited palette for my vehicles as well:

Main color is gray
- For larger vehicles I airbrush it - Vallejo Blue Gray Pale with a pass of Golden Transparent Shading Gray to give it a bit of age and depth
- For smaller vehicles like bikes - Basilicanum Grey contrast over a zenithal
Mephiston Red as the main detail or contrasting color
Some pops of Caledor Sky

For big vehicles I do hairspray weathering.
- Basecoat dark brown and add patches of lighter brown and orange
- Varnish to seal the base
- Hairspray, base gray & shading, go to town with a toothbrush
For smaller vehicles I sponge weather some silver, brown, and lighter orange selectively
All vehicles get rough edge highlights of silver, along with some additional "gouges"
- Start with a patch of brown
- Add a scratchy bit of silver inside the brown
Panel liner really helps to add depth
Some of my wheels have residual grime on them - drybrush color to suggest whatever surface your gang is traversing then knock it down with a wash

That's... basically it. I do add a bit of highlighting here and there, but this is kept super simple as I have generally been knocking out 10-20 of these guys at a time. It's a super quick and "doable" scheme, skateboards or not!

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