I had a way of painting greenskins in mind for some time now, planning to use it for the [Warfork Fantasy Battles] New Year's resolutions 2025 - The Battle for Arduthrond Glade project. The method is heavily inspired by Marco Frisoni. When I happened to win the Umbra Turris Giveaway, I thought this couple model of orcs is the ideal test group to see of this method will work, and will be a quick one suitable for army painting.
Checking my color wheel for the color opposite Golden High Flow - #528 Green Gold (which I intend to use as the main 'Goblin Green' skin color), I mixed a purple of 1:1 Molotow #233 purple violet and Molotow #043 violet dark.
With this purple tone I airbrushed the miniatures both as an undercoat as well as an undertone, the reason why I did not choose my normal black.
Over the purple, I airbrushed a zenithal with Daler Rowney Ink #011 White.
As said before, the main skin color is Golden High Flow - #528 Green Gold, which I thinned 1:1 with Golden Airbrush Transparent Extender. When sprayed on, the zenithal still shows through, providing the first level of color modulation. Here is also the reason for the purple rather than black basecoat.
From below, in a nadiral layer (is that the correct opposite word of zenithal…?), I airbrushed a darker green, Golden High Flow #577 Phtalo Green (Yellow Shade), thinned 1:4 with the extender medium.
For the highlight color to really pop, I added another white zenithal from directly above the minis, and some choosen spots (like when directly from above did not hit the face enough, or the belly).
The final layer then was a 1:4 mix of Golden High Flow #587 Light Green (Yellow Shade) and extender medium.
Although I will follow with a green or green/violet oil wash, I already like the result, which could almost be enough for rank and file goblins; especially considering the little time it took. For character models I will certainly brush on highlights after the wash, but I think this will be my general approach to paint the Arduthrond Goblin force.
For this Umbra Turris warband, I will certainly add a lot of brushwork hightlights, after all these are all character models, given the low amount of minis in the game, and them being all different personalities.