Hey all, I made this thread before we got our big update with customization. I planned on updating the thread once that came out but never got around to it. Several requests here have since been satisfied, and are thus obsolete, but most things here are still relevant, so keep that in mind you read now.
Just my ideas for what I’d like orcs to get for customization in Shadowlands, and some other requests I’ve seen. I’m aware orcs aren’t the focus at the moment and that’s why we haven’t had any datamining in two months, and that stuff is on the way eventually. I’m sure I’ll be at least sort of happy whenever orcs get some more datamining.
Skins Tones:
Currently orcs have had three skins datamined (and they look pretty good in my opinion), but none of those three skins were the pre-existing skin tones used by the Dragonmaw and Blackrock clans, both of which are pretty unique looking.
Here’s what the Blackrock skin tone looks like:
It’s grey-ish green.
And here’s what the Dragonmaw skin tones look like:
They’re purple-ish grey. The two female tones on the bottom right look very similar but are tagged as different in Wowhead’s model viewer.
There’s apparently a green skin tone we don’t have I found on Wowhead’s model viewer:
It looks awfully similar to one we have already, but apparently it’s different. There could be two identical variations where one is tagged as NPC only, so maybe we do have those two already. I’m not entirely sure.
The last skin color possibility I can think of that’s pre-existing is fel orcs. It is, extremely, unlikely we’ll get them. But, we have seen some fel orcs working with the Horde. There’s a quartermaster in the Blasted Lands and some Horde Dark Portal sentries, and there were some fel orcs in the Dragonmaw Clan. Those few in the Dragonmaw were a minority and as far as I’m aware, we haven’t seen fel Dragonmaw orcs since the story in the Twilight Highlands, since the ones in the Dragonmaw were enslaving the clan, and that one quartermaster is likely a lore exception or a rare fel orc. However, it is possible there are still some fel orcs in the Dragonmaw clan who have stuck with the Horde and who somehow haven’t been killed yet. It’s also possible some of the fel orcs on Outland who were infused with Magtheridon’s blood were purified of the demonic corruption whilst retaining the looks after Magtheridon’s death, though there are some flaws with that idea as well, like that the orcs who drank Mannoroth’s blood in WC3 returned to their green selves after Mannoroth’s death, and that the fel orcs on Outland were entirely stripped of their identity whilst going through the Blood Furnace and that they’re probably still entirely lost to madness. Again, it’s extremely unlikely we’ll get fel orcs, but it is possible. Also, the fel orcs with red spikes all have outdated models, the only fel orcs that exist on the updated orc model have no spikes and only one skin variation (though that second thing isn’t really that big of a deal). I don’t see a model updates or changes to the already updated one for just a skin that’s already stretching the lore. At most, we’ll just get the red skin that’s already updated, if even. Anyways, here’s what it looks like:
If we did get fel orcs I’d play a few, but I’d also want some explanation as to why in the actual hell we were getting them, and my preferred explanation is that they’re from the Dragonmaw clan. But, even with the Dragonmaw fel orcs, we’re not sure if they just had the looks of fel orcs and were purged of the fel corruption, or if they were still corrupted, and we’re not sure if they’re even still in the clan, it’s most likely they were all killed because they were enslaving the clan. That quartermaster in Blasted Lands doesn’t have a backstory, nor do the other fel orc portal sentries, so they could get some lore to explain us getting fel orcs (it’s unknown if these Dark Portal fel orcs survived the WoD prepatch, that’s worth noting). And maybe the fel orcs in Outland were purified and became sane after Magtheridon’s death, but because of how much fel energy they were around they kept the looks unlike the orcs in WC3 that drank Mannoroth’s blood. But, even if all these fel orcs in the Horde were purified, I still doubt many would take a liking to their presence. Again, fel orcs can work, but it’s just extremely unlikely we’ll get them and there’s several lore obstacles to get over (still corrupted, or do they just have the looks? will they skin lock shamans? are there maybe purified fel orcs who have become shamans? if so, how did they do that? because, that’s really weird and subjectively really bad for the lore. also, where the hell are these fel orcs eveb coming from?), so for those who do particularly want these skins, I’d tell you to prepare to be very disapponted.
I’ve edited this last paragraph several times so if some parts are hard to understand my apologies, let me know if so and I’ll fix it.
Eye Colors:
Humans have had a few shades of purple eyes datamined, and trolls as well, examples:
Orcs have several naturally occuring eye colors, and seeing as those other two are getting purple, I think purple would fit in quite well with orcs.
Also, the Dragonmaw orcs have a unique eye color, a glowing yellow one:
The eye color itself is a part of the Dragonmaw skins, though. So if we were to get Dragonmaw skin tones in their existing form it’d force you to have those glowy yellow eyes. That’s fine by me, I actually prefer it that way, but some wouldn’t want to be forced to use those eyes and skins together.
Getting Thrall’s deep blue eye color I’d like too, currently orcs have only had these two teal colors datamined:
I like those but a darker option would be nice:
Lastly here, a real red option would be cool. Currently this orange-red option is all we’ve had datamined:
A real crimson color would be very very very appreciated from myself and many others. I guess some naturally occurring green colors would be nice as well, since trolls are getting some.
Hair:
My main thing with hair is that almost all of the male hairstyles have balding style hairlines, would love having that fixed.
Getting Grom’s hairstyle and Kargath’s would be pretty cool:
I’d especially like Kargath’s since male orcs currently don’t have any long hair options where the hair is just flowing. A dreadlocks style would also be nice to have, though I wouldn’t use it myself.
Something like this would be cool too:
Could get Thrall’s new style:
Hair styles for orcs should be basically the same for both genders, so I’d like to see all of those on male and female orcs.
Also, orcs right now have weird looking black hair, where’s it’s partially grey and black (this is less of a problem for female orcs but still a problem), getting Thralls new hair color or Kargath’s would be great. Or like Grom in the movie:
I especially want this since almost every famous orc has had jet black hair and we don’t have it as playable yet. Blood elves had this blue-ish black option for a long time but in Shadowlands they’re getting a jet black option, I hope orcs can get that treatment as well.
Grom also looks pretty scary in that shot, hope we can look more like him.
Female orcs have three new colors datamined, seeing those transferred to males would be an easy and nice gesture. Here’s what they’ve had datamined:
Facial tattoos:
Datamined so far, looks work in progress. Only a few options so far and they don’t really capture my interest. More styles and more colors than just black would be what I want to see. Examples of what’s been datamined:
Quite underwhelming so far. But I bet more is to come on that front, and I look forward to seeing it. Maybe something like in this picture:
Markings are pretty faint but getting that would be awesome, especially if the markings were made more visible.
The markings are pretty faint as well but something like these could serve as good inspiration:
Facial Hair:
Not too much I personally want here here, since I think the options so far are mostly fine, but I know a lot of others don’t agree with me on that, and more options is always nice. There’s this option:
Which I think looks pretty cool, I’d like maybe a few more styles like that. That style could also get some beard hair on the side of the bread. Another thing, orcs only have beards at the moment, and although that’s fine with me, I suppose getting moustaches and the like could be cool, more options and such, even though I probably wouldn’t use them. Here’s a terrifying image of what that might look like:
But that’s a dwarf 'stache so orcs could get some unique ones to look less horrifying.
There’s this beard, too:
Getting a short option like that but where it covers the jaw fully I’d like. There’s also this:
Which is stuck as black, it doesn’t change with hair color, which I’d like it to.
Thrall has a new beard that’d be really cool to get.
Faces:
Male orc faces all have wrinkly foreheads and cheeks to varying extents, all have scarred lips, and most have eye bags. Getting some faces without those I’d love so much, and many others would appreciate as well. Thrall’s new face looks pretty good overall:
It’s younger looking and has a neutral expression.
Kargath also has a good looking face:
It’s really grumpy looking but in an intimidating way.
Stuff like that is what I want for male orc faces.
Even though I think female faces are fine, they should get at least a few new things. Something like this is what I have in mind:
Ears:
Small thing, but having a few options for slight variances in ear shape and size would be cool, I think two or three variances would be enough.
Noses:
Very small thing I doubt will happen, and it’s not something that bothers me, but the options for a few different nose shapes would be nice. Males all have wide noses and females all have thin noses, so being able to have some wider noses on females and thinner noses on males would be appreciated. Might have this baked into some new face options.
Tusks:
For males:
Getting some small variances in tusk length/shape would be cool. Thrall’s tusks are very slightly different than the playable orc tusks, the inner set is longer. The option to have broken tusk(s) would be cool, like having one tusk completely broken off and the other partially broken off, or one tusk fully intact but the other partially broken. I’m speaking in terms of the outer tusks, I guess that could be expanded to the inner tusks if we get longer ones. Here’s Thrall’s longer tusks inner tusks:
Which might just be teeth now that I’m thinking about it, but playable orcs all have tiny “inner tusks”.
For females:
Bigger tusks. Female tusks are tiny. The double tusk thing Thrall has going on is male only too, females only have one set, so seeing females get the option to have one or two sets of tusks would be cool. Besides that, same thing with males, some size/shape variations and broken options.
Movie Grom is a good example of what I’m looking for in terms of broken tusks:
Gul’dan has a stubbed tusk, not quite broken as I was thinking, but broken nonetheless:
Paint:
Currently orcs only have a few body/face paint options datamined, and males only have two colors and females four. Getting a wider range of colors and not locking color to paint style as they appear to be right now is what I want. Also, tauren and troll paint has seperate options for face/body paint. When picking your paint options for orcs, you don’t get to pick body and face separately, they’re merged into the same option. I’d like to see those separated as they are for tauren/trolls. However, body/face paint options being merged is likely because face tattoos are seperate from body/face paint, so you choose your facial tattoos and then your face/body paint. Something like this would be cool for face paint:
Kargath also has some black paint around his eyes that looks amazing as well. I’d love to have that, especially with grey eyes, or with the sickly pale Shattered Hand skin if the Mag’har ever get that. Here:
There’s two variations of the Blackrock skin tone, they’re identical, minus that one has some face paint:
I’ve only seen that used by Shadow Council NPCs, so it’s highly doubtful we’ll get that. Possible, though. Could also be used for inspiration.
Clan Tattoos:
Pretty self explanatory, being able to get a tattoo of one of the fifteen Draenor clans and the Horde symbol would be awesome. I personally think the clan tattoos should be colored as the actual symbol of the clan is, but I wouldn’t be mad if we just got the shape of the clan symbol and got to have to be all one color, like red or black, I guess both could be options actually, they aren’t mutually exclusive. The Horde symbol should be available in a few colors I think though, like red/black/grey, instead of being locked to one of those colors.
I think the tattoos should be placed over the heart or on the side of the shoulder, with you being able to pick where, but other places, like the forearm/wrist and back could work as well, as the only clan tattoos we’ve seen in game were on the pre-model update Dragonmaw.
Maybe if we wanted to go all the way you could have something like your clan symbol on your shoulder and the Horde symbol over your heart, so instead of only having one or the other you could have both, and you could color separately.
Here’s some examples of clan flags we could get:
Those are just a few, there’s fifteen clans from Draenor that all have flags. Of course, getting the full flag tattoo’ed might be a bit much, just the main symbol, though I suppose getting the full thing could be cool.
Jewelry:
Getting some bone jewelry or painted rocks like Saurfang’s necklace is one of my most wanted things. So like this:
Wowhead made an in-game version for their April Fools joke this year:
The other idea I had was bone necklaces, so small bones strung together in various ways, like possibly having a bone choker or having bones strung together and at the front of the necklace having a skull(s):
That’s what I thought of, I’m sure there’s some other cool ideas that could be created on the topic on jewelry. Thrall has a cool necklace, not quite what I was thinking of but it’s still cool:
Female Mag’har as well:
Again, not quite what I was thinking, I was thinking more bones strung together, but both of those necklaces I’d appreciate having as options and would probably use. There’s this fan-art:
A necklace like that could be cool too, or a necklace like this:
Lastly for necklaces, is of course, orcish beads like the ones Thrall used to use, or like many blademasters use, getting those would be amazing:
As someone who has two orc blademasters, one green and one Mag’har, those beads are a must have. I’d also like banners but that’s another thread I plan on making soon.
Piercings like noserings/earrings are also highly worth considering, since orcs (males specifically, but females as well to a lesser extent) are very frequently portrayed with them, especially nose rings.
There’s also bone piercings which could be really cool, and whatever the Shattered Hand and a few other clans use to pierce themselves. Think these two images:
Something beneath the lip like in the second image would be cool.
Another idea I (and many others) have is tusk rings/piercings, pretty self explanatory, Grom has piercings on his right tusk and a ring on his left tusk:
https://i.imgur.com/gJSv3RR.png
There’s the famous male orc nose ring in action as well.
Last idea I have is earrings, could look something like this image:
https://i.imgur.com/H6utT0x.png
I love the look of that nose ring too.
All jewelry for orcs should be gender equal.
(Facial) Scarring:
Currently facial scarring is only datamined for males. I’m almost completely certain it’ll come for females once orcs start getting some more love. But I figured it was worth mentioning.
Scarring could be extended to other parts of the body like it is with Mag’har, except instead of being part of the skin, it’d be a few sets of options that can go on any skin (this is something I’d like to see expanded to Mag’har one day).
Eyebrows:
Pretty self explanatory. Males have no eyebrows. I’m pretty sure new Thrall is the only orc in game we’ve ever seen with eyebrows, could be wrong about that part though. I believe even in most CGI cinematics/the movie most orcs didn’t have eyebrows.
Nails:
Very small and niche thing but the option to have things like sharpened/longer nails would be cool (and maybe a few natural color variations, like grey/black/white). Kargath has some pretty dangerous looking nails:
https://i.imgur.com/YYEPS2R.png
That’s the kind of stuff I want, two, three, maybe four options for that would be enough for me.
On the topic of the Mag’har:
I know they’re an allied race from BfA, so probably nothing coming. Which is fine for now. But I’d at least like to get the sickly pale Shattered Hand skin someday:
https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/420311-shattered-hand-sightless-shattered-hand-sightless-front-view.jpg
It’s extremely pale, it’s not the scarred grey one we have. Problem is, is that there’s no female version and the 3D piercings could get in the way. I see that as pretty easy to work around, though (went into 3D piercing more below).
Besides that, I want the same things for Mag’har as with green orcs, just minus the skin colors (maybe they could have an Iron Horde tattoo as well). When Shadowlands drops, all I want for Mag’har immediately (and for all allied races) is to have eye color separated from face style, I’m absolutely fine waiting for the rest.
Also I guess those vials seen above could serve as piercings but I wouldn’t particularly want them. Good for extra options, I guess.
Closing Thoughts:
I think that, when compared to most races, orcs have a lot more potential for customization (no bias in that statement I promise), and this post is my incarnation of that thought. Clan tattoos and jewelry are the place where I think orcs have the most potential to be unique, but that’s not to minimize the other things I want, especially skin colors. Orcs without the Dragonmaw and Blackrock skin tones and Dragonmaw glowy eyes a bit feel incomplete to me. Overall, those two skin tones and the Dragonmaw glowing eyes are the things I want the most because they already exist and they’d be extremely easy to give us, plus the Blackrock clan is one of the most well known and loved orc clans, and the Dragonmaw are as well, but to a much lesser extent. Clan tattoos are the things I want the second most, and the jewelry ideas I had make a close third place for what I want most. I want everything in this post of course, just to varying extents.
All suggestions and new ideas welcome, I’ll edit them into this post.
