Ogre Maneaters

[Kronos]

these ogres are looking really good, very very full of chracter, and i like this running theme of a gnoblar on each base which interacts with teh other gnoblar (or just being chased by a squig).

that black orc ogre looks quite menacing too, nice black orc armour incorporated into a gut plate. also really liking the use of bits and weapons to identify each ogre.

would really like to see your last pics but seems that the links are broken.

[Durloth]

This is really an inspired piece of work! As a long time Ogre player, I tip my bonnet to you

[Lew_b81]

Kronos: Thanks for the support! I'm glad someone mentioned the Black Orc gutplate - I thought that was a pretty good idea myself! Stick around if you like the Gnoblars - they are just going to get more silly.

Durloth: I'm with you man. I played Ogres before for a while. I like how they play, but never really fully got behind them because I was only borrowing the army, and didn't have any real control over army selection or anything. I'll post up my list sometime, let me know what you think of it!

Anyway, as promised, a tutorial on verdigris. I wrote it for a friend over on another forum (40k for old men), so apologies for the cut/paste job, but I figured all of Warseer loves step by steps anyway, so what the hell.

Disclaimer: this is not the only way to paint. The way I paint things works for me, and I post this in the hope that it may work for some of you. Take what you can from it, and of course - leave feedback!

Well, this is the way I do it anyway. And to be honest, I quite often skip a lot of these steps, so take what you want from it.

First and most important is to look at verdigris. I have a dozen photos on my phone from walking around, spying some bronze statue or rusty tailgate or whatever. It's a problem I have. Looking through my snaps of my holiday to Paris there's a bunch of close ups of weathered metals!
Verdigris is really a weird thing. Most people think it's rather dark and not noticable, but the opposite is often true. Just a quick look through Google images shows these lovely examples:





As you can see, there's a huge amount of variation. There's shiny, dull, lots, little, bright, dark. Loads of varieties.
One important thing that is forgotten a lot when doing the technique is the surface it's on. Bronze also comes in many shades and colours, and it's worth taking a few minutes to decide what kind of metal it is, where it's from and what it would look like.

The example I'm using here is my Black Orc Ogre Maneater. His gutplate I decided to heavily weather. You can take these stages as far as you like, using as much or as little as you want. The basic technique is the same.
Firstly, some paints you may need:
The most important one for me is Vallejo Verdigris Glaze. It's my secret ingredient. You can basically just apply this and you'd end up with a pretty good effect.
Other paints I use are all GW colours - Skull White, Dark Angels Green, Hawk Turquoise, and Regal Blue.
The bronze was done with: Dwarf Bronze, Codex Grey, Chaos Black, and Regal Blue.

First stage is to paint the bronze:


It's pretty basic, I'm going to be covering it quite a lot. It's made with all the above paints mixed together, with Dwarf Bronze added to highlight. I wanted it to be a very dull bronze, as if it was made from a cheap metal.

[Lew_b81]

Next up, apply the first coat of verdigris:


This was made with a mix of Verdigris Glaze, Hawk Turquoise and Regal Blue in an 80/10/10 split. If you don't have the Verdigris Glaze colour, it's mixable with Skull White, Hawk Turquoise, Regal Blue, and Dark Angels Green in about a 50/30/10/10 split. Then to that mix add about half again of pva glue and half again of water. The consistency should be thin but sort of sticky. The pva glue also contracts when it dries, which adds to the effect. Whichever mix you use, apply it quite roughly to the area you want aged.

Step three:


The next step uses basically the same mix, but with a little more Skull White and a little more Regal Blue. This time apply it more carefully, but still dab it on with your brush. You're not looking for a smooth surface here.

Step four:


This is where it starts getting fun and taking shape. For this I used the plain Verdigris Glaze (or the mix you've made), quite watered down. Apply this more carefully, be sure to stick to certain areas: cracks and joins mainly, but also dab it on to heavier areas on flat surfaces (verdigris tends to group together - imagine you're painting mould). This is the stage where you start to work in any lines you want it to drip down. It's a nice little look, but verdigris doesn't do it all that much (not as much as rust), so don't go overboard. One or two little drips work well.

Step five:


The Verdigris Glaze doesn't apply well on it's own, so two coats are needed to really show up. Again only use it on select areas - not as much as you used last time. The coating should be quite thin so you can really get it into the cracks.

Step six:


This isn't a great picture, so apologies for that. At this stage, mix in a little Dark Angels Green with the original mix from the first coat. Careful with this, because even a small amount really changes the colour. This should then be watered down a lot and applied carefully in patches (remember: apply it as if it's mould growing). It's only meant to give some more depth and colour to the verdigris, not change the colour completely.

Step seven:


This is the last step. The verdigris is now done, but your bronze won't look very bronze anymore. So now go back with your highlight bronze colour and apply it to any edges of the metal (you can see around the edge on my model), and with an otherwise dry brush, dab it on to any larger flat areas. You want very minimal coverage, just enough so that the metallic pigment from the paint shows up. If you do too much bronze, go back with your first verdigris mix and put a very thin wash over the bronze just to take it back down a bit.

And ta da! You have finished verdigris just like I do it!

[Kronos]

ah yes very nice, really like the way that black orc ogre has turned out, i'm not 100 % sure if i like his whole gutplate in verdigris, maybe bringing in some of that red armour through in small stipples or brush stroked, just to break it up a bit, perhaps ?


but his skin, bruise and bloodied lip look the part, well done.

as for teh next ogre, holding the long shaft, could it be an empire halbardier?

[Cassarus]

Your ogres are really coming along nicely!

[Lew_b81]

ah yes very nice, really like the way that black orc ogre has turned out, i'm not 100 % sure if i like his whole gutplate in verdigris, maybe bringing in some of that red armour through in small stipples or brush stroked, just to break it up a bit, perhaps ?

Thanks Kronos. I'm keeping the verdigris on the gutplate because there's already a lot of red coverage on the rest of the armour, and I feel it breaks it up nicely. Plus it goes with the bronze gutplates of the other two Ogres, which I may just expand across the whole army.

as for teh next ogre, holding the long shaft, could it be an empire halbardier?

It's not. And also "holding the long shaft"? Heh heh heh!

Update time! Yesterday I finished (again, apart from the base) the Black Orc!




I wanted this guy to be quite fresh from recruitment. The idea behind him is that he was working for an Orc warband for quite a while, and when he was given more money to come fight in the Ogre army, he decided it was finally time to take that axe he'd had his eye on for a while. The only problem was that it belonged to the Big Boss of the warband. So in a traditional Ogre way, he challenged the Big Boss to an 'eadbutting contest. The only problem was that the Big Boss didn't know he'd been challenged until the match had already started. Within a few short seconds (and headbutts), the Big Boss was down, and the axe was his!
As always C&C welcome and encouraged!

In other news: progress is very slow on Ogre number three. However a friend is coming round today with some parts from the army he's from - I literally have nothing from them in my bits box. So that should help! Updates this week.

Also, I've changed my photos over to photobucket, and changed the links accordingly. The photos are now bigger and directly linked in the posts. Oh, and they all work. Is this better? Let me know!

[mdiscala]

Totally sweet, I'd like to see what you have finished so far based and ranked up.

[Dino]

Now this is one very cool log. I really like both the dwarf and chaos dwarf ogres. Will their be a Lizardman ogre in the near future?

[odmiller]

Absolutely beautiful. What a great characterful army, and how well executed. I'd like to reiterate the request for a photo of the three together.

[Kronos]

yes the verdigris does look better with the aother bits of armour also rusted and worn.... didn't know you were gonna do them aswell... feel silly now


and still really wondering what that ogre could be the one holding the - polearm like weapon in an action pose - ... yh, no shafts. hmm..

[Odd_Motorbike_Guy]

These are fantastic! Bookmarked

[Lew_b81]

Thanks everyone!

Mdiscala and odmiller: just you wait. I have the one more Irongut to do and then the unit is finished. I'll post up a group shot then!

Kronos: I get why it'd look weird now if you didn't know about the rest of the weathering!

As for the polearm Ogre, Dino got it spot on! Turns out it's not a polearm, it's a big hitty stick!



He's nearly ready to paint, just gotta tidy up some of the greenstuff. Thoughts?

[Kronos]

that ogre looks sweet man, but that gnoblar is epic. i really love those little guys adding extra flavour to the ogres.


he looks good though maybe something could be done to his head, unless you have that reserved for some sneky paint plan perhaps adding something to it, just seen=ms a tad bare comapred to his flashy armour and weapon.... maybe some sort of bone trophy nailed straight into his head ? (to the bone in the head but like some form of bone like crest nailed rather than resting easily.


and again nice log very entertaining.

[Jormi_Boced]

I look forward to seeing that guy finished.

[mdiscala]

I second the head decoration idea. face mask, crest, dinosaur skull hat. Any way I love it.

[Lew_b81]

You see that little light patch on his head?
He did have a headdress made from some bits off the Stegadon, a nice little semi circular thingamajig. But I realised that it looked a little silly, and actually detracted from the model because the rest of him was covered in bling.
The original idea was to make a skull helmet like the Temple Guard, but I haven't been able to find a decent kit that's in the right scale, and now I've added the big back banner I'm not sure it would work. The only piece I've found that could work is the skull from Chakax, but £8 is a lot to spend for a single skull - especially if it ends up not working and me taking it off again!
I'd love thoughts and comments about it though, this is one of those issues I can't really decide on!

[Dino]

HOLY CRAP! I just took a total shot in dark. Looks very cool. I really like gnoblar. Can't wait to see it painted up.

[hobodog]

Wow great conversion work and painting.
It looks like alot of time and effort and planning have gone into these models and it has definetely paid off they have great character and look superb.

[Gork or Possibly Mork]

Truly awesome work. I like the bigger squig and the little face turn of the gnoblar really makes you believe the chase is on. Excellent colors choices painting as well. The variation of magenta hues in the face is a nice touch. Looks like there is real blood under his skin and is makes the skin come alive so to speak. Loving the new LM maneater/gnoblar skink.

About the verdigris technique it's intersting to note on some of those pics what I call crevice darks or Ambient Occlusion shading the highlights are almost reversed. For example on the pot and the accorn you see white highlights were normally it would be a recessed dark. Then you see darker shades right next to those lights and it makes the lights constrast even more. It almost looks like negatives in photography.

Anyway brilliant work. If I wasn't floored before ( and I was ) I am now.