# Skaven Colours



## Cleitus_the_Black

Well I've been tinkering with paint schemes for a new Skaven army (Keep in mind I have done very little painting in my life). 
I really don't want a typical dark army with tonnes of brown fur. 
I want to go lab-rats style and paint a white furred horde. I was wondering if there is any fluff against this? 
It's just that in the army book it says "decide which shade of brown you want the fur to be" which seems to be unusually 
restrictive on the painting choice. Anyhoo, thanks.


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## Lord Sven Kittyclaw

All I know about skaven fur, is that Stormvermin are black, ergo, there is nothing against an Albino horde, Kudos for a good idea!


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## NagashKhemmler

In the fluff for skaven, white is a colour reserved for grey seers.

Skaven fur colour is indicative of title.


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## Jester12

If they didn't want you to paint them white they wouldn't have given them to you unpainted. Sure there is fluff against a white horde which is why you don't see them too much but with all the experimenting skaven do, it shouldn't be too hard to come up with your own fluff as to why they're all white. Heck make your grey seer in that army brown just to throw everyone off.


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## Cleitus_the_Black

Jester12 said:


> Heck make your grey seer in that army brown just to throw everyone off.


Hahaha that's a good idea.

I have been working on some background for my horde, one idea I've got is that they spend so much time above ground that the sun has bleached their fur.


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## Tim/Steve

If the idea is that skaven colour denotes rank then just come up with your own colour schemes for different ranks and give them a new clan name- if Bob Smith of the Supersmurfs chapter can use Marneus Calgar's rules in 40k then I dont see why you cant just invent a new Skaven clan that has been as yet undocumented and use it as-is another clan.

If you have a really cool themed painted army that keeps WYSIWYG in some form (ie if Grey Seers are meant to be a different colour that they are a different shade/colour) then it'll be a really slack opponent to object on pure fluff reasons.


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## KarlFranz40k

Purely the fact that someone is using a skaven army is enough for me to be cool with it, yeah there should be no colours that you SHOULD paint models. There are many marine schemes, many empire, bretton, tyranid, etc. .......hang on, what about them greenskins? :shok:


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## Inquisitor Varrius

My orks are colourblind.  Lots of pink warpaint, tye-dyed banners, etc. It's worth it just to watch the other guy's face.


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## NagashKhemmler

Cleitus_the_Black said:


> Well I've been tinkering with paint schemes for a new Skaven army (Keep in mind I have done very little painting in my life).
> I really don't want a typical dark army with tonnes of brown fur.
> I want to go lab-rats style and paint a white furred horde. I was wondering if there is any fluff against this?
> It's just that in the army book it says "decide which shade of brown you want the fur to be" which seems to be unusually
> restrictive on the painting choice. Anyhoo, thanks.


He asked if there was fluff against it, not if he could do what he wants, I said there was fluff against it. But if you don't care anyways, go for it!


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## Cleitus_the_Black

I don't know that I don't care at all, but I will certainly work on an explanation for why all my lowly clanrats are white, when only Grey Seers are supposed to be. If grey seers were's, I wouldn't need to worry about it.


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## Inquisitor Varrius

Your clan originally was used as lab rats by the Inquisition. A few funky chemicals later, they're white. After escaping with the help of their Seers, they start their clan anew. Clanrats stay white, marking their failure at escape. The seers, on the other hand, dye themselves to show their superiority.

...I'd consider that detailed enough, but then, I don't often consider fluff.


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## Cleitus_the_Black

Damn that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking! Some imperial was testing large amounts of rats, Clan Moulder finds out, feeds warpstone to the rats and watches them grow and wrecking the town, later setting out to start on their own.

Great minds I guess.


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## Inquisitor Varrius

:thank_you: As long as the Seers are different than clanrats, it'll all work out. Depending on your painting skills, give the Seers some kind of cool warpaint or some such decoration. For the actual clanrats, may I suggest a pink, mottled/diseased skin to go with the fluff and fur?


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## Cleitus_the_Black

Well, don't assume anything about my painting skills haha, but I will have to make the grey seer very distinctive, warpaint is actually a good idea, the grey seer is making himself be different from the clanrats. And I'm still deciding on the skin, mottled or diseased I like though


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## Inquisitor Varrius

I don't really know skaven fluff, but I assume from the name that Grey Seers are the oldest rats, right? Assuming they were around during your clans time as labrats (or maybe the whole clan was, whatever) add some guitar wire as tubing coming out of the seers. It'd be a nice touch of 'experimental' atmosphere. 

Ooh! Second idea. Your plague monks could be less in league with Nurgle, and more like carriers of some strange diseases they picked up at the lab.


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## Cleitus_the_Black

You are reading my mind my friend. I actually want to stay away from the nurgle aspect, I get my fill with Chaos Marines, and was thinking Plague monks could be more experiments that mutated physically and mentally.

And I'm picturing Borg grey seers. I kind of like that. Some wires, a bit of face paint, golden.


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## Inquisitor Varrius

If you're motivated, go grab some necron bitz for the characters. Actually, on further examination; pretty much everything in the skaven codex works as a science fair gone wrong. Rat ogres = augmentation drugs gone bad? If you're looking for gnarly mad scientist bits, check out the Inquisition. Henchmen have some seriously weird parts.










The guy in the top-left would make a decent warp-fire gun. Add a tail and rat face, bingo. Oh, and zombies would be good for diseased/mutated skaven slaves.


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## Tau2007

Hi Cleitus,
Depending on the fluff, you'd be right on the mark with whitish Skaven. In the novel "Grey Seer," the Lords of Decay are guarded by special, elite albino Stormvermin. So, you could definitely have that type white. I too am not a big fan of the brown palette. Most of my rats are going to be grayish, because, well, that's the color of most of the rats I've ever seen. LOL I haven't decided if my Stormvermin will be black or albino.

Besides, only a complete tool would give you grief for painting them whatever the heck painting scheme YOU want to!

Cheers,
Tau2007


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## Cleitus_the_Black

IV: Very cool idea. Ogres and PMs with mechanical parts etc would be, well, a challenge for me I think, to get it right, but fun, and different. Thank you for all the good ideas you have thrown at me!

Tau2007: Thanks for that. I've wanted to read WH novels but with all of the reading school requires, well, it's not going to happen for a little while. Stormvermin are still up in the air for me also. I will make them a different colour from the clanrats, but what that colour will be remains to be seen. At least I have until I can afford metal stormvermin, or they come out in plastic


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## forestreverie

I think if you want to go with the white thing, using different basecoats would be a good way to go for distinguishing different units. For example, using shadow grey drybrushed white for the Grey Seer, codex grey drybrushed white for the Stormvermin, and graveyard earth drybrushed bleached bone or skull white for the clanrats, or something like that. that way you have an army of white rats, but there is also variety. :good:


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## Adeptus

Hang on there ive never had a skaven army so i do suspect critisism but why would a GREY Seer be white if that goes againts the name why cant you ! Go for it . :grin:


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## sundrinker

thats an awesome idea rep+ instead of a warp fire thrower you could have an electrical tesla coil just to go with the whole lab rat thing:good:


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