Vallejo/GW Death Guard Color Conversion (Your Help Needed!)

[appiah4]

Right, B&C. I made a thing. And this thing is for Death Guard players, as well as anyone else who likes to paint camo green colored stuff, ie. like this:

http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2011/9/18/272364-Badab%20War%2C%20Mantis%20Warriors%2C%20Space%20Marines.jpg

Now, I am starting out a Primaris force of Mantis Warriors, and I'm trying to choose colors to replicate the look above with Vallejo GC range. I sat down yesterday and thought to myself, "You know, that looks a hell of a lot like what GW Death Guard currently do.." so I went ahead and browsed through several GW and Vallejo color carts as well as official and unofficial equivalence tables. And I can tell you that, judging with my eyes and what is on the color carts, they are full of .

They say Vallejo GC Heavy Khaki is a match for Deathworld Forest, that's . They say there is no current Vallejo GC match for Deathguard Green, that's a lie. They say Dead Flesh is a match for Nurgling Green, that's also greatly inaccurate.

All in all, here is what I've found:

Deathworld Forest: There is no real Vallejo GC equivalent for this brown/dark green mix. Heavy Green is closer to something like Castellan or Caliba Green (depending on which VGC cart you believe)

Death Guard Green: Heavy Khaki is a pretty spot on match for this new color

Elysian Green: Camouflage Green is a close match for this color, but likely has a more brown tint

Ogryn Camo Green: Dead Flesh is actually a close match for this color, albeit a bit less saturated and more brown.

Nurgling Green: There is no real Vallejo GC equivalent for this desaturated light green

Aaand here's my proof:

Now here's the kicker: I would kindly ask, implore, even beg of you B&C folk who have some of these colors to do pallette swatches and take photos so that we can tell how they compare? I'm asking because of two reasons:

1. There are several Vallejo color carts out there (as I pointed out earlier) and they have different colors for different paints; I picked the first and last to highlight the biggest variation. I need to account for this inconsistency (Boo Vallejo).

2. There is this video on YouTube that claims to compare Deathworld Forest and Deathguard Green, but to my eyes those paints on the miniatures looks reversd - it's almost as if he mixed up which figure he painted with which, so I need to confirm that GW's color carts are, while consistent, accurate as well.

Your help here is most welcome.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Major_Gilbear
No swearing please.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

You can't trust those color swatches at all. I wont, anyway, because I've been tricked by them too many times. 

[Arkhanist]

First up; the vallejo colour charts are not at all accurate for me; this is a general problem for translating a paint colour under random lighting to a RGB one on a non-calibrated monitor though, so that's not a vallejo specific problem (try and get an accurate picture of what death guard green actually looks like from GW, I've seen at least 3 versions!). They're not too bad as a reference against paints you already have in the same line though, i.e. you want a lighter blue than one you already have.

 

Vallejo game colours were matched (ish) against the old GW colours, and then they've used GW's own conversion chart for the 'new' paints. For example, game colour dead flesh is a reasonably good match for the old rotting flesh. GW replaced it with nurgling green, which is quite a different colour, but GW's conversion chart listed it as a match which vallejo have used. The Dakkadakka paint chart has the same problem; some of the equivalents are way off.

 

Vallejo model colours are a vague approximation at best, as they're intended for WWII modellers; they've also fairly recently gone through a lot of renaming; a given shade has kept the same number on all the ones I've used, but names have changed all over the place, and they have newly numbered paints with a new shade, but an old name.

 

I do have some of the colours you're wanting to match, I'll try and do side-by-side swatches for those.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Arkhanist

[OnboardG1]

Vallejo have a conversion chart which I've found to be pretty solid in the past:

 

http://cdn.acrylicosvallejo.com/0049261608364909a238add9b4a53745/CC073-rev05.pdf

 

According to this chart:

 

Deathworld Forest: Heavy Khaki

Nurgling Green: Dead Flesh or Model Color 70884

Elysian Green: Camo Green

 

The other two you mentioned aren't in the tables.

[appiah4]

Vallejo have a conversion chart which I've found to be pretty solid in the past:

 

http://cdn.acrylicosvallejo.com/0049261608364909a238add9b4a53745/CC073-rev05.pdf

 

According to this chart:

 

Deathworld Forest: Heavy Khaki

Nurgling Green: Dead Flesh or Model Color 70884

Elysian Green: Camo Green

 

The other two you mentioned aren't in the tables.

 

Yes, that chart is also featured on the Rev17 Colour cart that can be found here, and I've included the color swatches from those in the OP - and as you can see, they don't seem to be accurate.  At All.

 

EDIT: It also predates Deathguard Green and Ogryn Camo Green so it was as accurate as it could be 'at the time'; as of today, some of the colors are better matches for newer GW colors.

Edited October 5, 2017 by appiah5

[Razblood]

I actually have all of these colours bar camouflage green, heavy khaki (though from what I've seen it's pretty much the same as gc khaki)and elfic flesh, I'll knock you up a swatch tonight and get some pics up before I go to bed.

[appiah4]

To everypne who promised swatches: much appreciated!!

[Razblood]

Model Colour Khaki seems to be pretty close to Heavy Khaki, if not spot on.

Light Flesh seems to be pretty close to Elfic Flesh.

Highlight Flesh is Panzer Aces Range

Hope this helps

Edited October 5, 2017 by Razblood

[appiah4]

Thanks for the swatch, I took the liberty of color correcting it for white balance as I best could:

Well, most colors look more like Carta 17 than Carta 1. Heavy Green for example looks like Carta 17 and seems to be a good match for Caliban Green (or maybe Castellan Green, I don't know the difference too well) as predicted. Heavy Grey also turns out to look more like Carta 17 and have a lot less green tint to it than I hoped. Dead Flesh looks like neither Carta interestingly, if anything it is closer to Carta 1 but has more green than either - it is a great match for Ogryn Camo as I thought it would be.

If Heavy Khaki is indeed close to MC Khaki as you say, that means it's more a brown than a green, and resembles Carta 17. In that case, how can anyone say it's a Deathworld Forest match? I am hoping it resembles Carta 1 instead and is a brownish green rather than a greenish brown; that way it would look like Death Guard Green..

Anyway, if anyone can provide swatches for Heavy Khaki and Camouflage Green I'd be most grateful.

Edited October 6, 2017 by appiah5

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Here's the swatches run through my usual process for correcting photos. 

 

 

Any of these 3 versions could be quite a way off from the actual paint color and you'll probably have to test them yourself. 

[appiah4]

Thanks! Your version is much better than mine and likely more accurate :) still hoping for more swatches for missing colors.

[Arkhanist]

 

Took me a while to do last night, and a while to try and get a half-decent photo this morning - hard to get it bright enough without blowing out the highlights! This has been adjusted for white balance using the grey card, and I've boosted the exposure to get it close to how it looks IRL. Hue/saturation etc is untouched in post-processing.

 

I lack a RAW capable camera, which doesn't make it any easier. I've an album of my unaltered photos here if anyone else fancies a go themselves at improving them. To colour match my photo with Razblood, we both have vallejo model colour khaki, 70.988 - I'm not enough of a photoshop guru to pull that off!

 

It looks like it's going to be a bright day today, so I might try a shot in direct daylight later.

 

Moving onto the colours, I was surprised how different these greens came out. I do have a pot of ogryn camo coming hopefully on monday with my death guard pre-order, so I'll add that to the palette when I get it. I don't have deathworld forest or loren green I'm afraid, or heavy grey or heavy green.

 

The lighter GW colours are pretty unique. I've seen VMA concrete and AP army green touted as death guard green rough equivalents; they're not close. The closest I have is VMC russian uniform WWII, though it is darker - going by online photos, I think VMC green grey 70.886, which is a bit lighter than russian uniform might be not too far off.

 

Nurgling green is a bugger of a colour to match, as show by how far away the purported equivalents are. My old rotting flesh pot is over 20 years old, so I wouldn't count on it being a canonical shade (many of my old GW pots have long since died, along with all the screw-top era ones)

 

Caliban green is very close to VGC heavy black green, and VMC olive grey is a decent match for castellan green. VGC air dead flesh, which should be the same colour as the non-air is surprisingly close to krieg khaki. It'll be interesting to compare to ogryn camo when it arrives.

 

I'd love to see real deathworld forest - dakkadakka has VMC russian uniform and VGC heavy khaki being matches, which are both very different!

 

All paints are 2 or 3 layers, bar the air paints which are 4 or 5, all straight from pot. VMC easily gives the smoothest finish with solid colour with minimal effort; VGC heavies are pretty similar to citadel bases in coverage, but both need thinning to avoid brush strokes.

Edited October 6, 2017 by Arkhanist

[appiah4]

You, sir, are a true hero.

 

EDIT: Wow, what a truly terrible mess..  These conversion charts are terrible and absolutely useless.  VGC has nothing even close to the DG colours GW offers, they are desaturated, pastel greens and VGC only has pastel green-browns, none of which would really cut it as a desaturated color.

 

Maybe I should check out the VMC range, as the military colors there could be more useful..  But at the end of the day, I don't want to mess with VMC, for reasons of availability.

 

I think I will take one for the team, drop by a store on my way from work tonight and grab the following:

 

VGC Heavy Grey

VGC Heavy Khaki

VGC Heavy Green

^One or two of these three, depending on which I judge to be close enough to Deathworld and Death Guard greens

 

VGC Dead Flesh

VGC Livery Green

^One or both of the above, depending on how close I judge to be close enough to Ogryn Camo and Nurgling

 

VGC Camouflage Green

^Should be a fair match to Elysian so yeah, in the bag.

 

I will then do swatches of my own and share.

Edited October 6, 2017 by appiah5

[Arkhanist]

Here's an updated photo taken in direct bright sunlight as opposed to my daylight bulb hobby lamp. It hasn't changed much, but those extra lumens meant I didn't have to force up the exposure, so you get more of the real hue of caliban green etc. This looks as close to the real card as I think I can get. Hope it helps some!

 

Edited October 6, 2017 by Arkhanist

[appiah4]

Ahh, so much better.  Camouflage green is indeed a great match for Elysian green.  VGC Dead Flesh is a match for Krieg Khaki it seems, so I would have to make my own midtone highlight by mixing Elysian and Krieg.  I can do that, probably a 1:1 mix would be close enough.

 

This doesn't solve the issue of not being able to find a base color similar to either DW or DG greens.

 

My last hopes are 72.064 Cayman Green in the VGC line and 70.881 Yellow Green in the VMC line (Maybe even 70.978 or 70.882)

[Razblood]

If you've got access to P3 paints I'd suggest having a look at them while you're at it, especially the cryx colours. Also the Zombicide/Black Plague sets come with a variety of desaturated pastel greens. I'd happily knock up an extended swatch to illustrate as I have all of them, unfortunately I don't have anything that will let me mess with balances at all

 

Cayman Green is a bit odd for me as when I did a swatch of it it came out a lot darker than looking at the bottle would imply, might have been a mixing issue though as my bottle is very dense.

[appiah4]

I went through quite a few bottles at the shop and judging by how they looked in the bottle walked away with Dead Flesh, Camouflage Green aaaaand... *drumroll* Heavy Grey which was the closest to the new DG Green in the bottle. How green or grey it really is we will see. Livery green is nothing like Nurgling and Heavy Khaki is simply a reddish mustard color so the choice was between Cayman green which looked prettt close to Deathworld Firest and Heavy Grey which looked close to Deathguard Green. It will be a basecoat so I went with the extra opaque color, knowing its probably a bit too grey. Plan is to do Heavy grey followed by a green wash, then layer Camo Green and highlight up to Dead Flesh in two steps..

 

If it looks like crap I will buy Cayman Green and try that as well..

[Razblood]

Well it may be a bit moot now, but since I've knocked it up heres a swatch of some alternate colours :tu:

[appiah4]

Well, here is how it turned out.

I made a blunder, though. I tried shading Heavy Grey with Thraka Green. Heavy Grey is a earth very dark green, you can imagine my horror when I let the wash settle and I had glowing fluorescent green in all the recesses. I then corrected it as best I could but the armor turned out as if it had some radioactive glow seeping through the cracks anyway. Shading will certainly be done with a dark brown shade instead. It was obviously a rush job so the highlights are a bit sloppy too. Anyway, I did get the color I wanted. I need a midtone highlight between camouflage green and dead skin however. Need to look at the color carta for that..

I have since added the base colors for the unpainted parts and the figure really looks pretty neat. I got this for nothing in an eBay bargain at one point, no idea what line the figure is from. If anyone knows, let me know

Edited October 10, 2017 by appiah5

[appiah4]

Updated the test model photo with something more representative.

[Major_Gilbear]

Looks like a good result, well done! :)

 

If you thin the highlight colour, and feather the first highlight layer, but then edge-line the second highlight, you probably wouldn't need an intermediate colour.

 

Alternatively, you could try painting "backwards". Start with a colour close the highlight, then make a wash of the olive green and give the model a couple of coats, then do the same (but thinner) with the dark green. Finally, go back and do your edge highlights sparingly to the brightest areas.

 

You'll need some matte medium and some glaze medium for this, but it works well for batch-painting as you apply the colour to a dozen figures, and then you're done for the evening while it dries. When the end of the week comes, you can do all the detailing and base them up.

 

 

I got this for nothing in an eBay bargain at one point, no idea what line the figure is from.  If anyone knows, let me know

 

It's a Kev White sculpt for the old Void Game; a Viridian Assault Marine Sergeant. ;)