Realm of Chaos – Hooves and Fur Part II

Having the miniature is the first step, we can put a check on that - Hooves and Fur Part 1! Next on is to go for a paint theme. Usually I'd go on Instagram for that or maybe the according social media groups to look for inspirations, but as we're talking about a retro / oldhammer project, a good ressource are old White Dwarfs or army books.

For that reason I took the army books from multiple editions, 4th Warhammer Armies: Chaos, 5th Realm of Chaos, 6th Beasts of Chaos and 7th Beastmen book out from the archive and went browsing.

The 6th and 7th edition focus obviously on the newer range, which isn't a problem by itself, but the paint theme is a rather reddish brown and not what I was looking for. And as I wanted to stay "true to the lore" or at least feel of the time, 4th and 5th edition looked best to me. In the 4th edition the beastmen were rather fleshy, a bit to much for my taste. I tried that with my Chaos Allstars Blood Bowl team and found it not that appealing to paint. But the darker, more brownish paint job of the 5th edition really spoke to me.

I tried to find a tutorial on that, but wasn't lucky. The middlehammer group was helpful to provide me with suggestions. The most prominent beastmen from that era were probably Paul Sawyer's horde, that he introduced and build around the Tale of Four Games in the 1998 White Dwarf series (UK White Dwarf 218-223). But other than that it was heavy on the black paints, Paul doesn't go into detail on his paint job.

There are multiple variants of the fur the beastmens have, even some white colours. I am really in love with the shaman, and I am a bit undecided, if I should paint him like the other gors or go with an albino or at least much lighter fur, to make him stick out more.

I stocked up on brown colours and added to the existing ones, and now have a very solid range to choose from. In general I think that the more seniority or bigger the beast, the darker it should be. So the lightest fur would have the ungors, with a medium tone for the regular gors and the darker tones for the bestigors and heroes, an almost black for the minotaur. And as a contrast a yellow-ish brown for the cloth / leather parts.

I looked up some conversion charts online and came across this one on DakkaDakka, I mostly have Warpaints by Army Painter.

• Armypainter Warpaint Filthy Cape
• Armypainter Warpaint Dark Stone
• Armypainter Warpaint Werewolf Fur
• Armypainter Warpaint Cultist Robe
• Armypainter Warpaint Combat Fatigues
• Armypainter Warpaint Banshee Brown
• Armypainter Warpaint Fur Brown
• Armypainter Warpaint Scar Tissue
• Armypainter Warpaint Monster Brown
• Armypainter Warpaint Basilisk Brown
• Armypainter Warpaint Oak Brown

Some in there, that resemble old Citadel ranges, unfortunately no good match for Scorched Brown.

• Armypainter Warpaint Skeleton Bone (Old Citadel Bleached Bone)
• Armypainter Warpaint Necrotic Flesh (Old Citadel Rotting Flesh)
• Armypainter Warpaint Kobold Skin (Old Citadel Pallid Flesh)
• Armypainter Warpaint Desert Yellow (Old Citadel Desert Yellow)
• Armypainter Warpaint Tanned Flesh (Old Citadel Tanned Flesh)
• Armypainter Warpaint Leather Brown (Old Citadel Graveyard Earth)

And some Vallejo Game Colors, that resemble old Citadel as well, along with a Flames of War paint that I have here, which is a re-brand from the Vallejo range.

• Vallejo Model Color / Flames of War 70.818 Red Leather
• Vallejo GameColor 72.043 Beasty Brown (Old Citadel Bestial Brown)
• Vallejo GameColor 72.042 Parasite Brown (Old Citadel Vermin Brown)
• Vallejo GameColor 72.039 Plague Brown (Old Citadel Bubonic Brown)

The next step is going to paint up a test-model to see, if what I have in mind, will work out. Beastial / Beasty brown as a base tone and go from there, with Plague / Bubonic Brown for the cloth / leather.