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Hey all, I've recently been painting up my 'Nids in preparation for the new Codex, but I'm not happy with how the talons/claws/teeth are turning out. I'd like them to look like bone, and I've tried washing Bleached Bone with Gryphonne Sepia, along with a couple of other methods. While it looks fine on smaller 'Nids, the wash tends to streak and pool a lot more on larger 'Nids (Carnifex is giving me hell so far).

Does anyone have any methods for painting bone claws/talons? I only have GW paints currently, so any walkthrough method using those would be ideal. It doesn't help that I need loads of coats of Bleached Bone to stop it streaking either

Thanks for any advice, I'm just trying to maintain a coherent look across the army.

Ack I had this same question a bit ago. Claws are hard. The way I did it was a layer of a darker color like a brown or something, then a dark wash over it to pick out the darker spots and pool in that little slit at the base. Then I continually worked lighter layers in as I moved towards the tip. Looks decent, but I too would like to see if anyone has any advice on this.

Have you tried starting with a pure white basecoat and washing gryphonne sepia over them? I did that for a carnifex and it turned out pretty well in my opinion.

I've always just colored the claws and hoofs the same as the carapace, then added highlights. Simple, yet it can look quite effective.

I have the same problem. My next method is to paint a coat of bleached bone followed by a thin wash of whatever the brown is (can't recall the name and I'm waiting for my FLGS to get some in stock). Highlight with bleached bone again to the obviously raised areas, followed by a very thin line of skull white along the blade tips.

If that doesn't work I don't know what I will do.

Use a flesh color as the base.

I'd say Tallarn Flesh, washed with Baal Red or Leviathan Purple could look pretty sweet.

You know for the longest time I've been looking for a tutorial on how to paint horns/talons/claws the way GW paints them, but I can never find one. Then again I haven't really tried it myself either...

Well see, anti, that poses a problem.

There's quite a few different ways to paint horns/talons/claws.


There's the "weathered bone" or the "polished pearl", etc. It all depends on what effect you're trying for.

Weathered bone, generally, tends like painting leathers and leaving a small stripe towards the bottom of the bone item.

Polished pearl tends towards the same, just with vertical streaks following the actual object and going through the color spectrum you've used.

Yeah, I'm after a more weathered bone look, rather than gleaming. It's so irritating to get a uniform look across all my 'Nids though (Hormagaunts, Genestealers, even Warriors look great, but anything bigger and it looks a horrible streaky mess, using exactly the same method). I'd take pictures but I don't have a working digital camera at the moment.

I can always adjust the colour of the claws if need be, but learning to paint realistic bone would help vastly for other models.

Thanks for the advice so far everyone.

I do my nid claws as per the suggestion in the current codex: basecoat black, then scab red, then blood red and a final highlight of blazing orange - essentially you should get a pseudo-blended effect of black through to red at the tip of the claw.

EDIT: for a bone typ look, I would suugest picking out 2 or 3 colours that range from dark to light but close in tone - so something like graveyard earth - bleached bone - skull white for example and copy the technique above but substitue the colours running from dark to light.