How to Paint Corpse Grinder Cults

Corpse Grinder Cults are one of the easiest gangs in Necromunda to make memorable, because the scheme does most of the work for you. Bare-chested killers in butchers' aprons and pale bone bull-masks, carrying cleavers, painted in one loud red against a lot of greasy brown. There is barely any armour to fuss over and no heraldry to line up, so a full gang is an evening or two of work. The flip side is that skin and cloth carry the model rather than crisp edge highlights, so the effort goes into shading rather than lining.

The signature look

One dominant red - the red of a slaughterhouse apron, leaning orange rather than crimson - over dark greased leather, with a bone mask sitting above it and blood on everything below the elbow. Keep the red saturated and everything else muted and low-contrast. If the aprons and the leathers end up at the same value, the whole gang reads as a brown smear from three feet away, which is the only real way to get this scheme wrong.

The butcher's red

Undercoat black, or grey if you want the red brighter.

1. Basecoat Mephiston Red, two thin coats. The first will look chalky over black; the second fixes it.
2. Shade the folds with Carroburg Crimson to keep the cloth rich, or Agrax Earthshade to make it dirtier and browner. On hanging aprons and chain aprons the brown shade is usually the better call.
3. Layer Evil Sunz Scarlet across the raised folds, leaving the shade sitting in the creases.
4. Highlight Wild Rider Red along the top of each fold, then put a final touch of Fire Dragon Bright on the hanging bottom edge of the apron only.

The fast route: undercoat Wraithbone, one coat of Blood Angels Red contrast, then a single Wild Rider Red highlight on the apron hem. That is a tabletop gang in two sittings, and because contrast pools naturally in cloth folds it flatters these sculpts.

Equivalents that genuinely match: Vallejo Game Color Gory Red into Bloody Red, or Army Painter Dragon Red into Wyrmling Red.

The bull-masks

The masks are the faction. They want to be pale and slightly grubby, never bright white.

1. Basecoat Zandri Dust.
2. Wash the whole mask with Agrax Earthshade and let it collect in the horn grooves and around the rivets.
3. Layer Ushabti Bone over the flat planes of the face, leaving the shade in the recesses.
4. Pick the brow ridge, snout and horn tips out in Screaming Skull.
5. Run thinned Rhinox Hide into the eye slits so they read as holes rather than paint.

Vallejo Bone White or Army Painter Pallid Bone stand in for the mid-tone perfectly well. Once it is done, drag a little thinned brown up from the chin - these get worn in an abattoir, not a museum.

Skin, leather and steel

Skin should stay ruddy. Pale skin fights the red and makes the model look washed out: Bugman's Glow, wash Reikland Fleshshade, layer Cadian Fleshtone, then Kislev Flesh on knuckles, shoulders and the tops of muscles.

Leather aprons, straps and cleaver grips: Rhinox Hide basecoat, Agrax Earthshade wash, a light drybrush of Mournfang Brown, and Skrag Brown rubbed onto the wear points. A gloss coat over the straps sells the grease.

Cleavers, hooks and chains: Leadbelcher, Nuln Oil, then Runefang Steel on the cutting edge only. Stipple Typhus Corrosion near the haft and dust it with Ryza Rust so the blade looks sharpened but the rest of the tool does not.

Gore, used sparingly

Two states of blood, not one, is what makes this convincing:

• Dried: thinned Khorne Red stippled onto the apron hem, the boots and the lower half of the mask. This is the stain that has soaked in and gone dark.
• Fresh: Blood for the Blood God on the cutting edge, the hands and a few flicked spatters. Keep it to small pools that catch the light.

The dried layer goes on first and covers more area; the gloss layer goes on last and covers very little.

Tips and common mistakes

• Vary the red between models. Drop a little Rhinox Hide into the base for one fighter and a little Wild Rider Red into another. Identical aprons across ten models look printed.
• Do not gloss everything. One or two wet points of red against a matt model is far more butcher's yard than a shiny gang.
• Leave the leather alone. It wants to be flat and dark so the apron and the mask are the only things pulling the eye.
• Batch the masks separately. They are the fiddliest part and the most visible - do all of them in one sitting while your hand is in.

When the palette is where you want it, open this scheme in the generator to swap brands or shift the red warmer or colder.