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Timmy is the seventh orc that I've painted. I got humans and orcs in the box, but I decided that I would practice mostly on the orcs. I'm still looking at the glossy pictures online and in the rulebook, experimenting with color schemes and various techniques described in How to Paint Citadel Miniatures, by Rick Priestley. About half of Timmy's ancestors look perfectly awful, and all of them were painted and re-painted in many places. For instance, I tried five different color schemes on Timmy's skin, in five different areas, before I decided that I liked the scheme on his left arm best, and copied it over everything else.
Much of the detail amounts just to fine brushwork, but the metals for instance, were painted with just three coats. There's a base-coat of black which I'm not counting since it was sprayed-on. Then was a layer of silver paint, which is reflective because it's made of aluminum shavings. Over that a mix of transparent inks, one part brown, one part black, one part water, and a touch of soap. The soap keeps the mix from pooling up as it dries, and when the ink-wash is finished, it adds both color and shading to the metal. Finally, I highlighted the metal with silver, which had a touch of brown, and a touch of black to match the hue underneath.
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I have avoided blending colors, because the technique is rather time-consuming, although players here in Singapore seem to favor it. It does look more professional, but I particularly like Timmy because of the dramatic contrasts between the shades of paint on his arms. The book calls this "dramatic layering," and the hardest part of that is choosing the colors, and figuring out where to put the highlights. It requires far more artistry than I had imagined, so I'm rather enjoying myself now.
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Besides base-coating these guys initially, I had to cut them out of the plastic sprues in which they were cast, then polish down the rough edges, and glue the pieces together. Timmy came in three pieces: his body, his head, and a stand. Something about this game which I really don't enjoy is arranging these guys on their bases. They have to be able to "rank up" if they're going to be in the same unit, basically standing right next to one another.
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