Trial Techniques - Dirt

Recently, I've started building an Ork Dread Mob list for the release of the new Imperial Armor 8: Raid on Kastorel-Novem by Forgeworld. Now normally, Bad Moons are my Ork clan of choice, but yellow (as I'm sure you all know) can be an absolute pain to paint. So, I've decided to try my hand at a Goff color scheme.

Right off, I found that the problem with Goffs is that they can get a little boring with all that black armor on them. So, I had a look around the interwebs and found that many painters had used a nice dirt technique to break them up. So, I've embarked on a bit of a learning journey to try and replicate this effect and I figured I'd share the results.

I started by painting the Kan as I usually would, except that I tried to keep the colors more subdued. For all the "white" areas, I've used Citadel's Dehneb Stone foundation paint as it's pretty close to white. This keeps the lighter areas from completely dominating the models, while still providing a nice contrast.

Once the model was based and nicked around the edges with Boltgun Metal, I started the dirtying process. I started by very lightly stippling, and in some cases dry brushing, Vermin Brown over the areas I wanted to accentuate. I made sure to hit the lower areas of the armor to try and give the impression that the dirt is getting kicked up and sticking to the model.

I then moved on to stippling Macharius Solar Orange over the Vermin Brown, taking care to let the Vermin Brown show through. Finally, I mixed in a little Bleached Bone into the orange and stippled the edges very lightly. As you can see, my preliminary findings are a little rough...

I will continue to post updates here as I progress through the army and refine the technique. Sometimes, the best way to explain something is to freshly learn it yourself.

If you have any question on the rest of the model or just want to comment, feel free to post below.

Thanks for bearing with me.

-Aaron