LE1 Space Orc painted - a new project begins

I had been painting a few of the Pantheon of Chaos models by Knightmare Miniatures (Fantastic old school styled models. Many of which are recreations of artwork from the old books) lately and while they are certainly extremely fun to paint, I was itching to do something Rogue Trader. Something with shooty bits I could put on a hex base and after thinking it over and perusing the lead pile I decided to paint up my LE1 Space Orc. He looked so sad and lonely sitting in a box of Rogue Trader era orks, the only one of the bunch unpainted, so I primered him up and got my brushes ready.

Primed and ready

His space suit was a little.. confusing to me. I wasn't sure what color to paint it. At first glance I thought he was wearing power armor but after looking at him more closely it seemed like perhaps it was instead something more like that of an astronaut suit. I decided to try a basecoat of ghoul grey which looked a little.. meh in my opinion. His shoulder pads, however, distinctly reminded me of Spinys from Super Mario Bros and I had to paint them as such.

Ghoul Grey basecoat

I fussed around with the space suit, adding washes of red ink, blue ink, some other ink I think until it ended up looking like a bit of a hodgepodge of colors. However, I think the rather dirtied look fits the ork just fine and serves as a fine contrast to his unusually clean shoulder pads and boots. I definitely wanted him to look fun and old school, not taking it too seriously as I feel orks should be made fun and with plenty of character and individuality. In the end, he's perhaps not perfectly how I imagined him looking, but he is definitely a model that I can be happy with.

Based and finished

I'm not sure what that tank is for but it looks dangerous

After I finished this model I remembered that I had a complete unassembled RTB02 Space Ork Raiders Boxed Set. 16 shiny new unpainted, untouched Rogue Trader era orks that were begging to be given colour. With a little encouragement from one of my friends, The Rebel Grot, I thought "Why not start painting some RT orks and build a squad?" So that is going to be my next project. 9 happy friends and a transport for this fellow to lead. Very exciting!