The Flesh-eater Courts believe they are a noble order of knights. Everyone else sees starving ghouls in rags. The whole army is built on that gap, and your painting should sell both readings at once: gaunt, unhealthy flesh, and just enough tarnished heraldry to suggest a court that fell apart centuries ago.
The signature look
Pale, sickly flesh with a violet cast in the hollows. Rusted iron scraps worn as though they were plate. Faded crimson and dulled gold heraldry on banners and the Abhorrants. And blood - around mouths, on hands, dried into fur. Nothing should look new, and nothing should look clean.
Painting ghoul flesh
Skin is nearly the whole model, so it is worth getting right and worth getting fast.
- Basecoat Rakarth Flesh over a grey or white undercoat.
- Shade with thinned Druchii Violet in the deepest recesses and Agrax Earthshade around fingers, joints and the belly, so the shadows are not all one colour.
- Layer Pallid Wych Flesh across ribs, shoulders and the stretched skin of the face.
- Highlight the sharpest points - cheekbones, knuckles, spine - with Screaming Skull.
The one-pass version is Apothecary White contrast over Wraithbone, which shades that bony anatomy beautifully and leaves you free to spend the time on faces. Push a warmer, more diseased tone with Guilliman Flesh instead if you want ghouls that look feverish rather than drowned.
Hair and fur go Rhinox Hide, drybrushed Skrag Brown. Nails, teeth and horns take Zandri Dust with a Seraphim Sepia wash and Ushabti Bone tips.
Rust, rags and heraldry
The kit is scavenged, so treat metal badly. Leadbelcher basecoat, a stipple of Typhus Corrosion, then Ryza Rust dabbed on with a torn sponge and a Nuln Oil wash to knock it back. Rags take Zandri Dust and Agrax Earthshade, or Snakebite Leather contrast for speed.
Heraldry is the one place to use colour. Keep it to banners, shields and the courtiers: Mephiston Red shaded with Agrax Earthshade rather than a clean red, and Balthasar Gold left dull under a heavy wash. Finish with Blood For The Blood God at the mouths, on the last third of the blades, and nowhere else.
Court palettes
The great courts each pull the scheme in a different direction, and all of them work on the same models:
- Blisterskin - sunburnt and blistered. Cadian Fleshtone over Bugman's Glow, with Carroburg Crimson flushing the shoulders and face.
- Morgaunt - crimson-liveried. Push Khorne Red into Mephiston Red on every rag and banner.
- Hollowmourne - bone and gold. Ushabti Bone kit over Zandri Dust, with Retributor Armour on the courtiers.
- Gristlegore - feral and green-tinged. Add a thinned glaze of Athonian Camoshade over finished skin.
Speed and scale
Crypt Ghouls arrive in blocks and Cryptguard are not far behind, so this is a batch army. The good news is that the flesh recipe covers most of every model, there is very little edge highlighting to do, and rust is forgiving by design. A twenty-strong unit gets to a solid tabletop standard in a couple of sittings, which is not true of most horde armies.
Tips and common mistakes
- Vary the shade colours. Violet in the deep hollows and brown at the joints stops the skin looking like grey plastic.
- Do not clean up the rust. Uneven, patchy corrosion is more convincing than a tidy pattern.
- Faces first. They carry the model; everything else is fur and scrap.
- Blood at the mouth only. It reads as feeding rather than combat, which is the point of the army.
Test a court palette against your ghoul tone in the scheme generator before you commit the whole horde.