I need your help with orcs

I need your help with orcs.

I don't know where greenskins come from. Yes: I do know that you can trace the relationship between goblins and orcs all the way back to the 1960s, in theory.

But that's not what actually happened. Orcs and goblins simply were NOT related, from 1981 until World of Warcraft.

And neither one was EVER green.

Orcs are purple, and goblins are red.

What happened, how, and when?

Someone decided that green would be more distinctive than just Tolkein orcs, and then they became green
There are instances of tolkein orcs and goblins working together, and I imagine that in order to lump the humanoid evil races together they just rolled with it

From what I understand, it's the same reason why WH40K Dark Angels are green.
This was way back when they were just starting to use computers. A bunch of .jpgs meant for a painting guide were stored on a floppy disc. Disc got corrupted. Colors shifted turning blacks into greens. They didn't catch the mistake on time. Painting guide got printed with green Dark Angels and green Orks.

Surely they'd have caught something like that
Was this before GW had citadel paints in house to reference specific colours?

I mean, GW was around for a while before Warhammer.

I'm lookin' for a source.

Do either of you have one? I'll take art from1 993 games in VGA.

The names of their colors have changed, so it is possible. I am not certain if that is true.

Orcs and goblins are just varieties of the same thing/alternate names in Tolkien, where did you get the impression it was otherwise?

And both ranged from ashen grey and brown to pale or sickly green.

Orc and goblins are just two different names for the same thing.

GW isn't relevant until a lot later than you think it was. They tossed out a buncha glam-rock shit that looked vaguely metal, twenty years later. It wasn't the influence that you think it was.

>where did you get the impression it was otherwise?
D&D. I'm not disagreeing with you on the orignal source. I'm asking when they converged, in "generic fantasy." Because it happened either in the late 90s, or early 2000s.

But they have not converged in 'generic' fantasy as a universal thing.

Goblinoids and Orcs are different things in DnD, different things in popular games like Oblivion too.

And in Warhammer Fantasy they have been related since the early 90's at the absolute latest.

I wasn't looking for a metaphysical debate about "what is orcishness," guy. Both are "greenskins," now, and I don't get why, or know where that comes from. And I was hoping Veeky Forums could explain it. Wasn't a rumination on the nature of goblinoid culture.

You are starting from a false premise. Orcs and goblins range from exactly the same to size categories to related species to not even the same type of life form in a variety of popular 'generic' settings.

They aren't even outright green in DnD most of the time either.

Huh I have that exact model. Its a D&D Orc Marauder, isn't it?

>disc got corrupted
>didn't incinerate the heretical disk
This is what you get for letting Chaos in, boys.

What color are these orcs from 1983?

Warhammer orcs were always green

I think some of the earlier pig orcs were green, you might try looking there.

i was taught that Orc was the elven word, and Goblin was the human word for the same creature.

Goblin is from old myth, likely another variation on brownies/kobolds/imps/a million other small annoying creatures/spirits

Orc was a name tolkien made up for his goblins, which were bigger and wielded by big bads as savage armies

Warhammer made them green, because warhammer orcs are fungus. Goblins are a subspecies or something.

Goblins and orcs diverge pretty much after that, but they both kept the traits they accumulated up to then.

> Orcs and goblins simply were NOT related, from 1981 until World of Warcraft.

Except they fucking were, goblin was just a word used for a type of orc in Lord of the Rings.

>And neither one was EVER green.
They used to just be dark or black skinned or some other unpleasant shade, the reason they are green is because Games Workshop decided it looked way better in photographs, they started painting all the orcs and goblins green and it proliferated from there.

>Glam rock?
Like waht?

This is from a 1975 Tolkien calendar

Grey

Mostly due to the influence of Warhammer and Warcraft. It's unclear if Warcraft was meant to be a Warhammer video game, but it does take considerable influence from it.

Warhammer released in 1983 and featured Green Orcs prominently, and slowly became "the" fantasy wargame. If you also ran role-playing tabletop games, it's not unimaginable you would use your Warhammer orcs for it - all in green.

Orcs and Humans wasn't the first fantasy video game or the first RTS, but when it released in 1994 it was incredibly revolutionary - the campaign featured a much more in-depth set of missions with varied objectives based on a storyline, and the game also featured modem-based or network multiplayer. It kicked off the 90s RTS craze.

Between those two (and later Warcraft sequels) you have pretty comprehensive coverage of all the generations that make up the RPG demographic.

Not gonna lie, that's pretty fucking cool.

>It's unclear if Warcraft was meant to be a Warhammer video game

No it's not. It's pretty common knowledge that Blizzard was originally going to work with GamesWorkshop to make a Warhammer video game, but the plug got pulled at the last minute and they were left with the base of the game, but without a license for the names and characters.

>common knowledge
Despite how "common" this theory is I've never seen a source or anything from an interview that definitively supports this. Same goes for Starcraft being a 40k game.

According to the producer, Patrick Wyatt, Warcraft was heavily influenced by Warhamer, but after their shitty experience working with DC comics and with their desire to control the creative aspects of their universe, they decided not to make it a licensed product.

>No it's not. It's pretty common knowledge
That's not how you spell common misconception.