It has been a week since I posted my first dipped Orc, and now I’ve almost completed two ranks of five – bar edging five bases and some varnishing. These Orcs just look better and better to me as they start to rank up and I’m left wondering why I didn’t try dipping years ago. I’m certainly not going to win any painting prizes using this technique, however it results in very passable gaming figures, and it’s so fast that it actually seems plausible to paint a 1500pts Warhammer army before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

This first shot is just detail from the end of the rank. You can see I’ve finished the first rank completely, but the second rank are still noticeably shiny, particularly if you compare their raised weapons. As per my last post I’ve tried leaving several different areas on the figures primer white. Most obviously teeth – both in the mouths and worn as decoration – and horns, but also the windings around their feet and some of the pants and shoes. I’ve discovered that this technique really only works for teeth and horns, so for any future Orcs I’ll be painting an entire base coat over majority of the figure.

I’ve also discovered that dipping is fairly forgiving of poor painting, specially around deep undercuts and recesses. For example I’ve stopped bothering worrying about the hilts of weapons embedded in gnarly Orc fists. Many of the hilts are simply painted Goblin Green along with the rest of the hand because once they’re dipped the stain settles naturally in those deep recesses, hiding the sloppy paint work. The same is true around the necks of the Orcs where the deep seam makes it hard to apply paint properly once the head is glued on. Don’t bother! The dip will hide any patchy primer left behind.

Here’s the two ranks shot in autumn morning sunshine and I think they’re looking pretty good for a few evenings of work this week. You may notice the original test Orc, in centre front rank. He’s actually looking a bit dark now and I think I may have been a little generous with the amount of dip left on the figure. I’ve also based and primed another ten as well, so I’m set up to paint another two ranks this week.

Anyway it’s fair to say I’ve caught ‘dipping madness’ as I’ve also spent the weekend reviewing all the assembled, unpainted armies I possess both for Warhammer and 40k. I’ll keep dipping the Orcs to a 500 point Border Patrol force and then review them from there, but I’m also stripping a bunch of old 3rd edition 40k Tyranids and various Pulp giant insects I’ve partially painted. I want to experiment with a few Tyranids to come up with a passable speed painting scheme and dipping should be a good way just to knock the Pulp insects out.

After assembling 500pts of Warhammer Orcs and discussing dipping for speed painting with Dustan and several site visitors I thought I’d give it a try and found an Australian supplier of Army Painter ‘Quick Shade’: Battleline Scenics. However instead of resorting to $38AUD + shipping for tin of Quick Shade, I went to the local hardware store and picked up a couple of wood staining products on Dustan’s recommendation: Wattyl Colourwood ‘All in One Stain – Dark Mahagony’ and an tin of ‘Charcoal’ oil based stain from the same manufacturer. That set me back a total of $26NZD.

The ‘All in One Stain’ is a satin varnish that has been pre-mixed with an oil wood stain. ‘Dark Mahagony’ is the darkest product colour, and is a red-brown tone, very similar to Games Workshop’s Chestnut ink in the tin. I test dipped a primed Tyranid Spore Mine from my collection of unpainted miniatures and unsurprisingly found it a little red for my tastes. I typically mix GW’s Chestnut ink with a little India ink just to move it to an earthier tone, so thought I’d try the same with the stain. Mixing in a small amount of the ‘Charcoal’ oil stain into the tin darkened the tone to my tastes and I test dipped my first Orc.

Here’s the figure prior to dipping. The base was covered with a mix of kitty litter and model railway ballast, glued down with PVA. The whole figure was then white primed and a simple base coat of colours painted with Games Workshop paints in an evening.

Then holding the figure by the base with a pair of pliers it was test dipped into the well stirred tin. I let the excess dip drip back into the tin until I was satisfied with what was left on the figure. It was then given a few quick flicks into an old cardboard box to remove even more dip and then I let the figure settle for a few minutes before touching up various areas with an old modeling brush. The stain tended to collect pretty heavily into deep folds and undercuts, particularly around the figure’s legs and base. I just used the brush to remove the excess in these areas, as well as a few minor air bubbles.

The figure was left to dry overnight, the base black edged (I do this to all my figures, I forget why I started) and the lot varnished with Moana Matt varnish. The ‘All in One’ is a varnish too of course, and it really seals the figure very nicely once it’s dry. However it’s satin and not matt, so the Moana was just used to cut the shine down on the final figure.

Initially I wasn’t that impressed with the results, but now it’s been a few days the effect is starting to grow on me. The stain has really worked well on the metal surfaces like the weapon blades and plates on the Orc’s armor, as well as treating the wood and leather toned surfaces too. It was primarily the skin and base I didn’t like originally, but for the amount of painting effort involved I can live with them. I think my results are comparable to the Army Painter Quick Shade product too, at around half the cost – although their figures are better photographed.

Now I just have to factory line a handful more Orcs to finish a rank and see how they shape up. I notice the Army Painter figures have been base coated with fairly light tones. In fact it looks like they’ve mostly been left primed before dipping! This is something I’ll try on a few figures I think since it will obviously cut down the painting time a lot. Finally I have to say thanks to Dustan for his Wattyl suggestions and other dipping tips, and to Monty for directing us all to the Army Painter system.

I had a bunch of plastic Orc and Goblins on the sprue in my garage. As they’ve been there since late 2006, they’ve definitely met the mandatory 18 month post-purchase stand-down period. So in the last week I’ve been throwing them together while watching BSG Season 2. They’ve initially been assembled as a Warhammer Border Patrol force consisting of:

- An Orc Hero on foot as the General,
- 24 Orcs with double hand-weapons,
- Two units of 5 Goblin Wolf Riders with spears,
- And an Orcish Boar Chariot with two riders.

That lot comes to around 500 points depending on whether you use the 6th or 7th Edition Orc and Goblin army book. To be honest looking at the two I don’t see a lot of difference force wise either, so it’s kind of hard to tell why Games Workshop bothered with the latest Orc army book.

I doubt these figures will see any paint in the near future. I’ve just assembled them so I can play them ‘in the gray’ with friends. I am mildly tempted to try speed painting the rank and file, which isn’t an art I’ve mastered as I typically take days to paint a since 28mm figure. I also white prime rather than black, which complicates things too. I’m considering trying a couple of green ink washes for Orc and Goblin flesh and simply scorched brown basing the rest of each figure and painting a coat or two over that. Basically that would give me ‘brown lining’ which is how I paint 15mm figures where it works reasonably well.

Anybody got any tips for speed painting white primed Orcs and Goblins?