"An orc is an orc..." Topic

Ground rule 1: this is not an anti-GW thread

Ground rule 2: this is not a debate about the name 'orc' or 'ork' – these can easily be traced to Tolkein, and old Norse/English sources before that.

So…

Our current image of an orc is a stocky, possibly slightly ape-like creature with a thick jaw and protruding teeth, often (but not always) green and with red eyes.

But where does the current image of an orc [or ork] come from? Try not to jump in until you've thought about it. Is it:

GW?
Tolkein?
D&D/TSR?
Ancient mythology?

I am curious to know if our current 'image' of an orc is the GW version, or if the image predates GW's current creation.

The green comes from D&D, the long armed stooped posture comes from Tolkien.

The Teeth from Kev Adams time at GW.

link

Long arms and big teeth predate pretty much all fantasy figures though thats the way Tolkein describes his orcs, even Disney had images like this for goblins.
Green skin?, again I recall Disney doing this ( as well as the pig snouts) though I'm sure there may also be older victorian illustrations with greenish tones.
It seems to be a reinforcement of archetype that has become almost the standard one that most laymen will recognise, even those who dont have any connection to figure gaming, hence also its common use in computer games these days.

The distinguishing feature of GW orcs (and orks) is the enormous jaw, moreso than the green skin.

my mental image of an orc/k is the GW image, but that's simply because they were the first ones I saw.

That's why I was curious.

Although my current mental image is that of GW's creation (because I am most familiar with those) the overall image and style itself is, to my mind, much (much) older and what they have is no more than a derived creation of older sources, not much different to those older sources.

I am actually curious as to whether GW have any claim over the current image of an orc, or specific features of the same.

oohh a new range of 15mm orcs coming from LKM are they Geoff?

My first image of orcs where the ones from the animated Lord of the rings I saw at school almost black with just red glowing eyes. But GW orcs are what most people think of these days I'd say.

My mental image of an orc is a misshapen elf, dark skinned and crafty, wiry and tough but not musclebound. IIRC the green skins for the GW elves were originally introduced to distance their orcs from the question of Tolkien's depiction of non-caucasian races, an argument which was raging at the time. Before then there were frequent depictions of orcs in all kinds of skin tones, grey, caucasian, black, orange, green, red and blue. I painted some for them myself back when GW and Citadel were separate entities, they were all pale grey-blue and no-one batted an eyelid.

oohh a new range of 15mm orcs coming from LKM are they Geoff?

We are called QRF Models now… and no! (Well, not just yet)

This is… something else :-)

As I understand it, Tolkein orcs were dark or black – hence a questionable reference to race: note to self, must dig out book.

I thought D&D made them green and the image, both colour and format, pre-dated GW but, as probably with most people, the familiarity with the current GW style clouds the mind.

We are called QRF Models now… and no!

My bad I've had you saved on my favorites for years and it still says LKM didn't even notice the name change :(

Interestingly, the Wizards of the Coast D&D Orcs are very like that as well

link

The original D&D Orcs were pig-faced…

I do think that Nick Lund's original Chronicle Orcs, before he sold out to Citadel and produced the Black Orcs, were also this style – that is where I remember first seeing them in the early 80s.

Mike

But even as they retreated, and before Pippin and Merry had reached the stair outside, a huge orc-chieftain, almost man-high, clad in black mail from head to foot, leaped into the chamber; behind him his followers clustered in the doorway. His broad flat face was swart, his eyes were like coals, and his tongue was red; he wielded a great spear. With a thrust of his huge hide shield he turned Boromir's sword and bore him backwards, throwing him to the ground. Diving under Aragorn's blow with the speed of a striking snake he charged into the Company and thrust with his spear straight at Frodo. The blow caught him on the right side, and Frodo was hurled against the wall and pinned. Sam, with a cry, hacked at the spear-shaft, and it broke. But even as the orc flung down the truncheon and swept out his scimitar, Anduril came down upon his helm. There was a flash like flame and the helm burst asunder. The orc fell with cloven head. His followers fled howling, as Boromir and Aragorn sprang at them.

Some parts of the website do still say LKM – it helps people who think they have got lost – but I will try and get them all amended soon.

Nice Doc, thank you

"As I understand it, Tolkein orcs were dark or black – hence a questionable reference to race: note to self, must dig out book. "

I seem to remember that Tolkien said the orc skin was the colour of charred wood.

Sounds like black to me.
My image of orcs comes form the LoTR films now. That's what springs in to my head when I think orc. It used to be the GW monkey with protruding jaw, before that the black figures with red eyes from the Bakshi film.

its changed…
Si

Tolkien based paintings from the late 70's especially Tim Kirk.

These influenced CustomCast and the rest is history

GW, or rather Citadel, made them green, not D&D. (Unless you want to count 'brown or brownish green with a bluish sheen' as green.)

It was when Citadel started using greenstuff that orcs became green – someone up high thought it looked nifty and didn't realize it was the new sculpting material and not the painting.

The colour is, of course, mildly irrelevant with regards to figures, because you can paint them any colour you like :-)

Henrix, is that a fact or anecdotal?

My first exposure to Orcs was D&D and Tolkien. I didn't see GW orcs until my late 20's, and I've always felt that they were too silly and cartoonish.

Keep in mind that there's always been some racial controversies associated with Tolkien's races and what meanings they are or aren't supposed to have in the modern world. I don't really buy into any of that, but I can imagine adaptations and especially companies like TSR wanting to minimize that. Making orcs green instead of dark-skinned neatly avoids the racial connotations.

In D&D, goblins are and always have been green (and I think the mythology supports it, too). When tolkien wrote Lotr, he seems to have lumped goblins in with orcs as different words for one race (or different subraces?). Goblins and Orcs in mythology were different IIRC.

My personal favorites are the Peter Jackson movie depictions. They also seem closest to Tolkien's vision. Of course, orcs and goblins are far older than that.

There are these: picture

Is the skin grey, or is there a greenish cast? Hard to say. They do have the big teeth, though they look a little too much like a Disney cat villain…

When I asked a fairly High-up (Head of UK Retail) I was told as fact that the decision to make Orcs Green was to avoid potential Racism issues. He had been with the Business for a long time, and I would expect him to know. The first Orcs I saw in a Games Workshop were brown. Leather Brown, in the days before it was called Snakebite.

For the same reason, we were instructed to answer the question 'Are your Humans meant to look like the people from any particular country' the correct answer was 'Finland' as it was the least contentious (not UNcontentious) place in Western Europe they could think of.

Orc and Goblin is used interchangeably in Tolkien's work. Goblins are green and therefore so are Orcs.

Tolkien does describe Goblins/Orcs as an inferior race to man and are weak and cowardly. The fierce Orcs of GW are a departure from this. Perhaps they are more modeled on the stronger Uruk Hai

"As I understand it, Tolkein orcs were dark or black"

Tolkein orcs spanned the spectrum. I think in The Hobbit they were describe as "sallow".

Dang, it's even in Wikipedia
link

…somehow you just have to go with what Balin says :-)

Wikipedia… why didn't I think of looking there first?

I'm with Parzival on this one. That's the exact image I think of when someone says "orc".

Tim

Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar wrote:

When I asked a fairly High-up (Head of UK Retail) I was told as fact that the decision to make Orcs Green was to avoid potential Racism issues. He had been with the Business for a long time, and I would expect him to know. The first Orcs I saw in a Games Workshop were brown. Leather Brown, in the days before it was called Snakebite.

When the Citadel Colour paint range came out Orcs were still not green, in the original advert there is an orc painted as a true Scot, pale pink with ginger hair! By the time that WH 2nd ed came out there seeemed to be a move to standardise orcs as green and hobgoblins as orange for some bizarre reason. When I started painting up display samples to advertise Bloodbath at Orcs Drift the use of green skin was pretty much mandatory unless you had a very good reason, although I remember John Blanche having a very broad definition of the colour. The avoidance of racism explanation was given to me before that time (possibly by Bryan Ansell but my memory is fuzzy, probably all the lead) although I remember thinking at the time that it was a plot to get everyone to buy the new Citadel Colour paints in order to get the correct shade.

The old Ral Partha figs set the tone for me, as well as their goblins. Still, I like the GW orks of old.

Oops, meant to add:

Greenstuff came in much, much later we used to use miliput in those days.

Pre slotta GW for me, wiry and mean looking. A&M Perry did them proud, even though there were a few with over large jaws or teeth.

Orange-skinned, blue-nosed hobgoblins comes from early D&D.

My first exposure to orcs and goblins was the Rankin-Bass animated version of the Hobbit. Those were grey.

Disney's Sleeping Beauty has some orky/goblinish mooks as well. They are green I think.

D&D orcs have never been "canonically" green. I think they are supposed to have a wide variety of skin colors. Grey is the color most often depicted currently.

Edit: As far as body style goes, I like heavily muscled, slightly stooped posture, and tusks. But not as cartoony as GW.

This Sandra Garrity sculpt for Reaper is a perfect orc to me:

link

My only claim to fame is inventing green orcs. Though that is neither here nor there as far as this thread goes.
I would think that the Tim Kirk painting "The Road to Minas Tirith" would be the source of green orcs to the public at large. Hell, a whole line of figures was scuplted usuing his works as inspiration.

So, it sounds like although most people's image of an orc is in some way linked to the GW image, the origins of that image are in fact much older and from multiple sources.

There may have been green orcs before Warhammer, but GW took them from green to GREEN!

The defining feature of GW goblins/gretchin seems to be a huge hooked nose rather than a huge underbite, BTW.

Blizzard used the same look for the Orcs in Warcraft:

link

That could be because Warcraft alledgedly began as a Warhammer RTS before licensing issues caused them to release it without any GW imagery. They don't have such a huge jaw, though.

Everybody's orcs seem to have mostly followed GW's lead; FASA's Crucible orcs were green, as were Rackham's (although later colour schemes toned down the bright green to greyish or blueish green). The D&D prepaints seem to be mostly green (as are the orcs in the Order of the Stick webcomic), as are Reaper's prepaints. And we mustn't forget Jabba The Hutt's Gamorrean guards from Return of the Jedi.

My image of Orcs was always the art from the Hobbit cartoon/movie which was my first exposure. Even after I started playing D&D in the early 80's the Hobbit version stuck with me until I saw this some the Angus McBride artwork in the old LOTR rpg among other places. That pretty much settled it for me:
link

Though the "new orcs" in the movies – and especially the depiction of the Uruk-Hai rings pretty true as well.
JMW

I've usually pictured a bit more human orcs, not quite as outlandish as the Peter Jackson movie orcs.

If people either can be half-orc, or can look half-orc (as people from the south were described in Bree), I wouldn't think they were too over the top. But that might have just been the point of view of hobbits who had never seen a goblin.

I think orcs/goblins should be a bit less monstrous, though no less "bad".

andy

In 1958 a film version of LotR was being worked on with the American producer Morton Grady Zimmerman. In Letter 210, Tolkien said: "Why does Z put beaks and feathers on Orcs!? (Orcs are not a form of Auks.) The Orcs are definitely stated to be corruptions of the 'human' form seen in Elves and Men. They are (or were) squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types."

Since Tolkien's Middle-earth was patterned after "dark ages" literature and mythos, it seems obvious to have Mordor, "the east", seen as a duplication of the Huns out of the Steppes of Asia: the Huns, as the later Mongols, were seen by Europeans as demons/devils on horseback. That Tolkien puts Orcish hordes on foot instead seems the only radical difference as to detail. Except keep in mind that Orcs look far more "degraded" than any of the real world "Mongol-types".

Nick Lund's Orcs have been my favorites. But I like GW's LotR Uruk Hai and Orcs (including the size) patterned, of course, from the P. Jackson films. I can't think of a line of miniatures which tried to follow Tolkien's description that I quoted above. But somebody ought to!…

Hexxenhammer – that's my favorite orc as well. He leads some of the mostly naked "green goblin" looking orcs from the same line, but his look is the best, and closest to my Ideal Orc.

Tolkien orcs should span the spectrum of colors and shapes since they are created by torturing other races into misshapen shapes, primarily elves and humans. I think that for most non-gaming people the view of orcs they now have are the Peter Jackson ones, which I think are the best adaption of Tolkien's vision of orcs as debased versions of the other races.

Gamers will of course be more heavily influenced by exposure to GW.

With the post-doc fluff things make a lot more sense now. Since GW orcs are essentially a evolved type of carnivorous fungi, plant colors, among them green, seems logical. On the otehr hand Tolkien type orcs should bear sickly versions of the creatures original race color, since it is a tortured, debased version. Chronopia orcs were not green, but brown and dark borwn and tall and "noble".

If you make orcs, IMHO do anything you want, as long as you have a good story to explain it :)

before that the black figures with red eyes from the Bakshi film.

Even after the Jackson films, I still think of the Ralph Bakshii orcs with the hellishly glowing red eyes.
--
Tim

The D&D cartoon had yellowish-green orcs with pink pig snouts didn't it?

They may predate GW by a bit, the Chronicle Orcs had the main features of GW orcs described above – stocky, possibly slightly ape-like creature with a thick jaw and protruding teeth – but to less of a cartooney extreme

This was my first exposure to orcs, not sure I like the riders of Rohan much though and Argorn needs some trousers.

YouTube link

Tolkien's goblins in The Hobbit were based on George MacDonald's classic The Princess and the Goblins. Later when he made its events part of his Middle-earth world, they became orcs.

As well cited above, Tolkien used the word "sallow" to describe orcs, which means "of a sickly, yellowish color". When not diagnosing illness in a Caucasian, this would mean an Asian skin tone. link

Like many others my concept of Orcs came from Tim Kirk's paintings in the 70s: flat-faced, fanged warriors with a brownish-green skin tone. My orc figures I painted for D&D in that era had slate green skin; it just seemed right. The D&D rulebooks used a different description and I just laughed; it was obviously wrong. Same with the pig-faced versions of orcs.

Later when the game Warcraft and GW / Citadel and many other gave orcs skin with a less-muted green color, it never felt wrong to me, just a garish illustrative style.

Well, your question begets more questions – especially when discussing the likes of Orc or Ork – as they are referred to by many as "goblins" and were so referred to by Tolkien, but which were borrowed from earlier times. Tolkien as you are all well aware was a keen student of languages and one of the things he studied was ancient manuscripts. One of those influentian in his writings was the tale of Beowulf, where there is reference to things Tolkien evolved into Orcs, which were in Beowulf, the ofspring of Cain of biblical times. The term Orc was interchangeably mixed with Goblins, but also differentiated. My first experience with these creatures and what they looked like is very different from the GW personification as I grew up with some old Hinchliffe/Ral Partha/Jack Scruby/Minifig personifications. I do not know who made them specifically – I do know that my dad purchased them in the early 70's and they look nothing like the ones of today. They do not have the large jaw, stoop shouldered gorilla look to them – like Planet of the Apes on steroids. So my vision of an Ork is very different – it is more in line with the LotR stuff from the movies – and now the figure lines from GW. So, not the GW fantasy orks with the mega-ultra-huge shoulder/jaw/teeth/weapons, but humanoid looking things which are distinctly ugly, unrefined brutes.

Argorn needs some trousers.

Ditto King Théoden; and thighs are the most exposed part on a horseman. I don't like Bakshi's Rohirrim either: not nearly enough armor, and no helmets?…

I like the McBride Orcs
thecimmerian.com/?p=7253

I've never liked any incarnations of GW's bulldog jawed orcs/orks. I've never painted orcs green. I always went with Tolkien's description of skin blackened by corruption which I felt Peter Jackson did an admirable job of depicting. I have some of Otherworld's retro, pig-faced orcs that I may paint in a scheme of something more nostalgic, but NOT green! 8^)

Don't forget the fighting fantasy take on them – suppose its a bit of a mix between D&D and GW?

picture

picture

link

link

link

(last two are a hobgoblin and goblins respectively – cool pics and still same family!)

I seem to remeber there was a nice bit in Titan about the God who created the orcs – might scan the piccie if I can find me book…

I always think of Angus McBride's orcs. My favorite orcs, but nobody makes miniatures of that style.

Don't forget the fighting fantasy take on them

Blimey that takes me back many a happy time reading/playing fighting fantasy books.

Tolkien does describe Goblins/Orcs as an inferior race to man and are weak and cowardly. The fierce Orcs of GW are a departure from this. Perhaps they are more modeled on the stronger Uruk Hai
----------------------

I think they confused the concept of an ogre or Grendel type of monster with the more furtive and cowardly orcs of Tolkien.

IMO, Tome Meier got the orcs right back in the '70s. Scrawny, vicious, sly and cringing. I like the GW Orcs, but they are a heroic upgrade from the vile, crawling orcs that were the original concept.

Our present Orcs are more like ogres, and interestingly similar to the 'demons' in Thai religious art. They are green and tusked brutal monsters, but stand upright. Here are some traditional and more modern representations of Totsakan, the demon king in the epic Ramakein:

link

link

Interesting either way, as influence or a parallel development.