I've been painting Orcs the past couple of weeks. Like most of the army of Morgoth figures in my collection, these were all purchased part-painted from EBAY and I've tidied them up.
The unit of Morannon Orcs and Uruk Hai swordsmen were a mixed bag. The Morannon Orcs were reasonably neatly basecoated, had been ink washed and highlighted, again quite neatly. I just had to sharpen up the highlights and neaten things up a bit, plus repainting all the tunics which were bright red when they came to me - way too bright for bog standard Orcs so I repainted them in a variety of colours. The Uruk Hai models were a bit of a mess - mostly just badly dry brushed in metallics and some skin tones. To be honest I probably should have started again with them, but figured I could 'lose' them in amongst the rank and file so just fixed them as best I could. They look ok in amongst all the others.
The unit made up from Uruk Hai Scouts were nicely base coated with some decent single highlights. It was an easy job to sharpen the highlights up neatly. However, all the clothing had been painted black and it was just too much, so I repainted bits of clothing in either Foundry Rawhide or Deep Leather Brown triad to break up the black. Those without shields were given the freebies I received in War-games Illustrated a few months back - a sprue of Warlord Games Veteran Roman Legionaries. I think these look good on these models. I also added a standard (I'm basically doing one standard for every two units) which ended up looking pretty cool, I think.
I now have 6 such units fully painted with two units of Uruk Hai pikemen awaiting my attention. I also have a unit of 4 archers finished and two more units to paint, plus a unit of trolls to finish. I also have enough models for two units of 4 warg riders in my bits box, plus a couple of Orc heroes. A tidy little force for playing James Morris' homespun rules or Dragon Rampant.
