Emma Svensson is a Danish artist with an instantly recognisable and incredibly unique painting style. We caught wind of an amazing Ork project she’d been working on and got in touch to see if she’d write a few words about them. Get ready to be blown away by her sketchy cross-hatching and bold use of colour.
Emma: In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only Waaagh! Oh, and very bright neon colours – if you’re a member of The Bubblegum Boyz Brigade, that is.
Sometimes, people ask me how I came up with this painting style for my Orks, and I don’t have a very good answer – it just sort of happened. I’ve been in the Warhammer hobby for about three years, and so far, I’ve mainly focused on Warhammer Age of Sigmar – my primary army at the moment is an Ossiarch Bonereapers force called The Deadly Watermelons.
When the new Ghazghkull Thraka model came out, I finally decided to check out Warhammer 40,000, and I haven’t looked back since.
Straight away, I knew I wanted to paint him using Contrast paints – I love working with them. I never have a plan when I paint, I just splash some on and see where it takes me. So, I grabbed some Iyanden Yellow and some Aethermatic Blue and went to town.
The flat armour surfaces looked a bit splotchy, so I had the idea that instead of trying to hide it, I could make it even more uneven like the armour was dented and filled with scratch marks. I applied some darker panel lines and cross-hatching and thought it looked quite cool.
To add some contrast and to brighten it up, I did an edge highlight and some lighter cross-hatching as well. I liked this effect and decided to use this technique for the rest of the army.
I won’t lie – it is a pretty time-consuming style of painting, but it’s not that hard to do once you get the hang of making the fine cross-hatching lines. Most of the time, I use ordinary synthetic brushes for painting, but I do have a very small fine detail brush for the tiny lines.
One of the main things that initially drew me to Orks is that they’re so fun, silly, and random. For me, painting, building, and playing Orks has given me a huge sense of creative liberty. Anything goes. Orange highlights on pink? Sure! Mounting my Warboss on a giant squig? Absolutely.
Scratch-building and sculpting a new Morkanaut head? Fun! (I might have lost the original head… I blame the grots.)
My main goal with this army is to have fun and try to push my creative boundaries. My latest project was five Stormboyz. They’re painted in the same colour scheme as the rest of the army, but I wanted them to stand out somehow. I took a closer look at their jetpacks and thought they looked like something that would give the Orks a very bouncy ride – if they even get off the ground.
I was very happy with the idea of wobbly Stormboyz, so I cut off the pieces of rubble they’re leaping from and instead glued them to strips of clear plastic. It’s sturdy enough to keep them flying, but the slightest touch or movement makes them bounce around. They’re taller than the original models, so they stand out a bit on the battlefield, but I can’t help laughing at them, so it’s all good.
So far, my most challenging project has been painting my Morkanaut (even if I don’t include the time spent searching for the missing head, trying to persuade myself that it didn’t really need a head, and then finally making a new one). I mostly used darker and lighter variations of the base colour for the cross-hatching – but why stop there? I wanted to really push the limits and see if I could go so far with the colours that even I would think it was too much.
So I painted pink highlights on the blue, fluorescent green over the turquoise, and orange on top of the pink. The orange over the pink combination took me some time to work out. I started with blue on top of the pink, but it somehow looked dull next to the other colours. I ended up wondering what would clash the most with the pink, and I eventually landed on orange. I think it’s a very silly colour scheme, and I don’t think it should work at all, but I’m very pleased with the way it turned out.
My next project is to paint at least 50 more Boyz, and I also need a bunch of vehicles, some converted Deffkoptas and Killa Kans, and – well, you get the picture. I hope I can bring The Bubblegum Boyz Brigade to local tournaments next year. There’s still a lot of work to do before they’re ready for a proper Waaagh! – but it’ll be so much fun.
See what we mean about them being amazing? Our thanks go out to Emma for sharing her wonderfully colourful army and her process with us. If you want to see more of Emma’s work, you can find her on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter under the name Dice’n Demons.
Inspired to muster a Waaagh! of your own? Grab the Start Collecting! Orks box and dig in.