Hive World Terra

Converting Grots from Goblins - Painting

This painting article follows on from the Converting Grots from Goblins conversion article. The models themselves have been painted for a while now, but the painting and conversion articles have been a little longer in the making!

Note that alternate paints are available, and suppliers mentioned in the Games Workshop on a Budget article about buying discout or alternative suppliers. Paint colour names are given in Games Workshop paint names for reference, although some suppliers will have equivalents.

Undercoat the Grots

Starting with the basics, models need to be undercoated. It may be stating the obvious, but this is a full article!

I always use spray undercoat - even though it's messier, it is much more efficient and faster for larger numbers of models. It is also less prone to flooding out detail with paint when you get sick of painting yet more undercoat layers! To help with shading, and since they are Orkoid and not some fancy Eldar or other 'neat' race, a black undercoat was used.

If you miss any parts with the spray can, then they can be touched up later with some slightly watered down black paint.

Painting the Basecoat

The first stage of painting is basecoating. This lays down the base colour for the model, which in this case was predominantly brown, green and some red, plus the metal.

Normally I paint the Ork skin first, giving it a heavy drybrush, an ink wash, a drybrush and a highlight drybrush, before painting the other areas of the model. This is because the drybrushing of the skin is rather messy, and painting the clothes afterwards can cover some of the mess.

With painting the Gretchin, however, I tried to basecoat everything first and then paint the highlights. Although it gave better results for intermediate photos, it was a bit more difficult to keep it neat and involved extra retouching.

First the skin was painted Snot Green. This was done has a heavy drybrush so that a small amount of the black undercoat remained in the deepest folds of skin.

Next, paint the clothes. A selection of browns used in different combinations gives a mismatched yet cohesive look. By leaving the deeper folds showing black you can get additional shading. Snakebite Leather, Vermin Fur, Bestial Brown and even Bubonic Brown are good choices and work well following later stages. Some Scorched Brown would also be good, but Waaagh! Grimjaw uses it on the bases and so it wasn't used for Gretchin clothing.

All of the metal areas were painted with a basecoat of Tin Bitz. This gives them a suitably rusty and mistreated metal look. This was then drybrushed with Mithril Silver (the only chrome/silver I had at the time) although Boltgun Metal is a better alternative.

Finally, all of the remaining areas such as bows and arrow shafts were given a basecoat of Red Gore. Any hair was drybrushed with Space Wolf Grey to highlight the black.

After the basecoat is finished, the Grots look like the following:

Painting the highlights and shading

With the main blocks of colour painted, all that remains is highlighting and detailing.

First, the Grot's skin was highlighted. This consisted of an ink-wash of Ork Flesh Wash (now seemingly the 'Dark Green ink'), a drybrush of Snot Green and a lighter drybrush of Gobline Green.

Next, the clothes were given an even coat of Chestnut Wash. This adds some shading to the clothes and makes the Bubonic Brown look more like a leathery hide.

To give the metal a more Orkish feel, water down a mix of Armour Wash (or Black Ink from the new colours) and Chestnut Wash. A thin wash that just covers some areas gives a suitably 'slightly rusty' look. If you are using Mithril Silver then it also takes the edge off the brightness.

The red areas of the Grot weaponry were highlighted with Blood Red, and any jewlery was painted Shinning Gold with a Chestnut Wash to dull it down a little.

Any fur loin cloths were painted Scorched Brown and highlighted with a mix of Scorched Brown and Bleached Bone, while the Space Wolf Grey highlights to the hair were given a coat of Black Wash.

Finishing touches

The Grots could be used with very little extra painting and still look fairly good, however some small details improve the look vastly.

Firstly the skin was given some extra highlighting, carefully painting highlights of Goblin Green and Scorpion Green on to the nose, eyebrows, cheeks and tops of the ears.

With the skin finished, the lower jaws were painted Chaos Black, to fit with the Waaagh! Grimjaw colour scheme, highlighted with Space Wolf Grey and then given a thinned coat of Black Wash.

The teeth were then painted with Bleached Bone and any glyphs were painted with Red Gore followed by Blood Red.

Finally, the eyes were very carefully painted with a small amount of Blood Red. If any of the eye-sockets had become too green, a small amount of black was painted in first.

They may only bee foot troops (and cannon-fodder at that) but I like to lavish a reasonable amount of attention on all of the models.

The final results can be seen below: