Death Guard alternative colour scheme

[KurganFr]

Hello everyone,

 

After much deep thinking and helpful advice on this forum, I have finally decided to turn my Calth and Prospero sets into a Death Guard army. I love the fluff of both the Dusk Raiders and Death Guard, and am hopeful that the toughness of these troopers will improve the chances of my usual one-size-fits-all suicidal all-out-advance tactics actually working.

 

Although I have seen some stunning Death Guard models online and a huge variety of tutorials on how to paint them, I am not a) sold on the colour scheme (given my skill level), and b) convinced that it will look so good with my standard painting approach of base coat, wash in recesses, two edge highlights. The Rakarth Flesh, Agrax wash and Pallid Wych Flesh colour highlights scheme from the Warhammer TV video looks bland, whilst the Pallid Wych Flesh, Sepia wash and White Scar highlights scheme seems to require better control of paint thickness than I am capable of.

 

So question time:

1. Is there any fluff supporting an alternative colour scheme for Death Guard?

2. I noticed a picture of Typhon in black armour on the Warhammer40K wikia (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Typhus?file=Cpt._Calas_Typhon.jpg); why is he not wearing white and green?

3. Do you have any ideas for alternative colour schemes for Death Guard that might look cool?

 

Thanks in advance.

[Cryptix]

1. Go bananas. Best thing about legions - do whatever the hell you want with tactics or color scheme and as long as it has one of the chapter's symbols no one will blink an eye.

2. I believe that's Typhon with the Destoyer cadres. Not sure.

3. Check this guy out - http://spikeybits.com/2015/02/fresh-paint-dusk-raiders-showcase.html.

[bozo69pd]

I love them because they are the easiest thing to pain in the game except maybe necrons.

 

spray primer white

wash with agrax earthshade and athonian camoshade, I use different patterns and quantites to try to make each guy look slightly unique

apply deathworld forest to shoulders/body as you see fit

I add a little lustrian undergrowth as tumors/fungal growth in patches on the body and lightly dry brush this and some areas nurgling green

wash with nurgles rot and waywatcher green to apply different layers of pus and slime

 

You can't mess it up as long as you don't clog too much detail. It always looks nurgle

 

nvm sorry just saw this was 30k section lol

[KurganFr]

Cryptix - All the pretty Dusk Raiders I've seen use a lot of blending/airbrushing (like the ones in the link you included). I'm looking for a colour scheme that looks good without blending (because I'm terrible at it). They do look terrific though!

bozo60pd - All suggestions are good suggestions.

[Marshal Loss]

1. Death Guard are actually a Legion you can afford to be quite interpretative with when it comes to their colour scheme. They are described in the books in a number of different ways (pale, grey, bare ceramite, corpse-white), are always extremely dirty/weathered and even FW depict them in different shades, from grey to bone, in their books. If you want to change the scheme significantly, just say it's a fleet that was separate from the Legion for a long while. The Legions are huge, after all, and are never precisely uniform.

2. That art is from the Collected Visions book(s), drawn from the card game, and is simple artistic license. To my knowledge he has never worn black armour in the books.

3. If you're low on confidence and can't airbrush, perhaps spray them a bone colour, then lightly spray white from above, and then weather them with lots of washes? Sepia and brown/black washes will help get a mottled, 'off' look.

[bluntblade]

If you really want, you have the whole Blackshields thing to play with. Loyal or Traitor, I'm sure you could come up with a reason for them to adopt a significantly different colour scheme.

[DuskRaider]

I actually painted my Typhon and Grave Wardens in grey to match that Collected visions artwork. I liked the idea of the First Captain kind of wearing his own scheme, showing a hint of his betrayal toward his own Legion in the end. I did them:

 

Skavenblight Dinge

Nuln Oil wash

drybrush Skavenblight Dinge

light drybrush Administratum Grey

 

They had Auric Armour Gold trim. Typhon's pauldrons were black (he lacked any green at all), while the Grave Wardens had green pauldrons and left knee guards (indicating they hail from Barbarus, as per my Company's fluff). It was kind of a heriarchy thing. All First Company had Auric Gold trim. The Grave Wardens mimicked Typhon's grey armour, while lower ranks adopted it to a smaller degree. Any Sergeants loyal to Typhon (not all even in the First Company swore allegiance to him over Mortarion) sported their right arm in grey (sort of like the Dusk Raiders red right arm) while wearing otherwise normal Death Guard coloration. Any lower rank sported their left knee guard grey where it would normally be gold to match their trim.

 

Yeah, I went a little overboard with the imagery and background of a paint scheme, lol. Especially when they were supposed to simply be a ZM force to compliment my main XIVth Third Grand Company force.

[bozo69pd]

I like the idea that they start off with pretty clean unpainted armor, then get dirtier and dingier not bothering to remove the stains. You could have some neophytes in their maybe with clean looking armor too!

[KurganFr]

DuskRaider - I just checked out your Death Guard forum thread. They look AMAZING!!!!! How do you paint the traditional Death Guard colour scheme?

[DuskRaider]

Very carefully.

 

 

Just kidding... it's a long and painful process, which is probably why I haven't painted them in months now, lol.

 

1)Prime black

2)Paint model with Mig Rust pigment (I used some thinner to make it into a paint of sorts)

3)Seal the model

4)Base in Ishabti Bone

5)Agrax Earthshade wash

6)Drybrush Ishabti Bone

7)Light Drybrush Pallid Wych Flesh

8)Add thinner (Lahmian Medium will work) to areas of the armour that you want to chip

9)Use modelling tools, picks, wire brush, etc. to gently scrape away at the paint. This will show the rust underneath

 

The green is Castellan Green, washed with Agrax Earthshade, then drybrushed with Elysian Green. Trim is just Warplock Bronze with an Agrax wash.

[Kizzdougs]

The Death Guard warrior (Typhon?) in that image isn't wearing black armour. It's grey. Which fits with the old idea that the Death Guard wore unpainted ceramite armour.

 

You could use grey or a metallic-grey as your colour scheme and call it unpainted ceramite. It fits with the fluff and looks cool :)

[Calas Typhon]

The Death Guard warrior (Typhon?) in that image isn't wearing black armour. It's grey. Which fits with the old idea that the Death Guard wore unpainted ceramite armour.

You could use grey or a metallic-grey as your colour scheme and call it unpainted ceramite. It fits with the fluff and looks cool

in the fluff (FotE era) the Death Shroud and Typhon wore grey armour opposed to the more bare white-ish ceremite of the Death Guard more common in the Legion I would presume as reflected in the heresy Artwork prior to the Forgeworld stuff down the line.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

I've seen several different colors referred to as unpainted ceramite, from grey to white to silver. As others have said, go with what you like because you can make up anything at all to say why your DG are X color.