40K Hobby: Da Death Skulls
by Eye0fHoruS
The great thing about Orks is the amount of creativeness you can have with conversions. You can use just about any vehicle and “make it Orky”.
Death Skulls, those Orks most known for looting the things of other races or even their own, are a converters dream, when you are hand crafting vehicles. I chose Death Skulls for the army at hand as I was inspired by their background. Additionally I think blue face paint on Orks bring them out nicely because it is analogous to their green skins. That means in the same way orange can bring out a red, the blue face paint brings out their skin colour well.
The paint scheme was a process of experimentation and growth. That is to say I did not go in with a fixed idea when painting it. It was a case of “ok that doesnt look so good, I’ll try this instead”. For example after I had painted the blue and had to pick a colour for the eyes I picked orange. This is because it is opposite to blue on the colour wheel and a complementary colour. Eventually I was inspired by the use of tetrads – two sets of complementary colours *yellow green for the ork skin & red violet for hair + blue for the face paint & orange for the eyes”. Mix with this with some weathering and you’ve got a balance of light and dark.
The army took about two weeks to paint if you count up the hours – working about 8 hours a day. Otherwise spread it over a month at 4 hours a day. Building the vehicles took about three days, again, working about 8-10 hours a day. The most fun I had was building the killa kans. This is because of the life one can put into them once you move the limbs around to where you want them. They were positioned to look as if they had momentum behind them, arms sprawling and legs climbing over rocks. Other deep work and conversions went into the warboss, both the looted battle wagons, the looted wagon, and the two trukks. All the time I had the background of the Death Skulls in mind which inspired the post apocalyptic “max max” feel to the whole collection.
My alias is Eye0fHoruS & I am from the UK. I’ve been playing 40k for about 15 years & I work as an artist from home. In the future I plan to write painting articles so stay tuned. Got a question? Mail [email protected]
