How to Paint House Goliath

Goliaths are mostly skin. On a typical ganger, bare flesh covers more surface than anything else on the model - chest, arms, shoulders, half the legs - so the flesh recipe is not a detail step you do at the end, it is the paint job. Get that right and the rest is trim.

That is good news for a new painter, because those muscle slabs are large, smooth and heavily sculpted. Every bicep and pectoral has a clear high point and a clear crease, which means a wash and one layer does most of the work that would take blending on a flat surface.

The signature look

Pale, cold, slightly grey-pink flesh - vat-grown rather than sunburnt - on enormous exaggerated musculature. Against that sits burnt orange: trousers, aprons, straps and leathers in a rusty, low-saturation orange rather than a traffic-cone one. Metal is dark, heavy and abused. The whole gang should look industrial, like something forged in the same foundry as their weapons.

The flesh

Undercoat grey or white. A black undercoat fights you on pale skin.

1. Basecoat Rakarth Flesh, two thin coats. Thin them properly - flesh is the largest area on the model and brush marks will show.
2. Shade with Reikland Fleshshade. If you want the colder, more corpse-like studio look, use Agrax Earthshade instead; it kills the pink and reads as grime.
3. Layer Pallid Wych Flesh across the raised muscle, leaving the shade in every crease and under every overhang.
4. Highlight Screaming Skull on the very top of the shoulders, the brow, the collarbones and the knuckles. Keep it to the top third of each muscle.
5. Optional but worth it: a thin glaze of Bugman's Glow into the elbows, knees, nose and ears. A little blood flush at the joints stops the whole figure looking like grey plastic.

Vallejo Game Color runs the same ramp as Pale Flesh into Elfic Flesh, and Army Painter Fanatic as Barbarian Flesh shaded and layered up with Necrotic Flesh for the sicklier fighters.

The fast route: undercoat Wraithbone, one coat of Darkoath Flesh contrast, then re-highlight the top of each muscle with Pallid Wych Flesh. Two steps, and on musculature this pronounced the contrast paint pools exactly where you would have shaded anyway.

Tattoos and chem scars

Goliath skin is a canvas. Thin Kantor Blue or Incubi Darkness heavily with medium and paint simple block shapes - bars, skulls, house sigils - onto the shoulders and forearms, then glaze once more over the top with your flesh highlight so the tattoo sits in the skin rather than on it. Keep the designs crude; these are prison tattoos, not fine art.

Chem-tanks and injector rigs take Waystone Green or Tesseract Glow over a light base for a lurid, obviously-not-medical fluid.

Orange trousers and leathers

Orange pigments are transparent, so the base underneath matters more than usual.

1. Basecoat Averland Sunset over the primer. This does the covering so the orange does not have to.
2. Basecoat Jokaero Orange over that, one or two thin coats.
3. Shade Agrax Earthshade for a dirty, worn orange, or Fuegan Orange if you want it hotter and cleaner.
4. Layer Troll Slayer Orange on the raised folds and the tops of the thighs.
5. Highlight Fire Dragon Bright on the top edges of the folds and the leading edge of any apron or plate.

Contrast route: Gryph-hound Orange over Wraithbone gives a duller, more leathery orange; Magmadroth Flame gives a brighter one. Vallejo painters can use Orange Fire into Hot Orange; Army Painter Lava Orange, or Fire Giant Orange speedpaint for the one-coat version.

Where the leather is meant to read as brown rather than orange, Rhinox Hide into Mournfang Brown with a Skrag Brown edge keeps it in the same warm family.

Metal and weathering

Everything a Goliath carries has been hit against something.

1. Leadbelcher basecoat on blades, plating, chains and gun bodies.
2. Nuln Oil over all of it, generously.
3. Edge with Ironbreaker, then Runefang Steel on the blade edges and hammer faces only.
4. Stipple Typhus Corrosion around rivets, seams and the bottom edges of plates.
5. Drybrush Ryza Rust lightly over the corrosion, then scrub most of it off with a clean brush. Rust wants to look like it grew there, not like it was painted on.

Brass and bronze details - buckles, forge marks, chem-tank fittings - go Warplock Bronze, shade Agrax Earthshade, edge Sycorax Bronze. That warm metal against the orange keeps the palette coherent.

Tips and common mistakes

• Thin the flesh basecoat. It is the single biggest area on the model and the one place thick paint is unmissable.
• Do not highlight the whole muscle. Highlight the top surface only. Muscles read as volume because the underside stays dark.
• Keep the orange muted. A pure, saturated orange next to pale flesh looks like sportswear. Shade it hard and let the brown come through.
• Weather from the ground up. Boots and lower legs dirtiest, chest and shoulders cleanest. Uniform grime everywhere reads as a mistake rather than a choice.
• Bare metal, not gold. Goliaths make their own gear in a forge. Bright gold trim belongs to another house entirely.