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I saw a particularly gorey and ork-abusive model here on Dakka Dakka while browsing some pictures. After my initial rage of a valiant *coughcough* warboss being cut down passed, I realized the color of the ork's blood bothered me. Spatters of bright crimson red all over the place! I know blood is traditionally cliched into somewhere in the red pallet, but it comes in a wide variety of colors. Being fungus based, I always though that orks had a greenish blood. In fact, I thought I remembered reading it somewhere in some older fluff. (Though my memory is incredibly fallible.) Of course the Space Marine game from a few years back and orks disappearing in clouds of red mist, a point that myself and a Spess Mahreen friend both took issue with.

Is there any place that the color of ork blood has been explicitly stated?

What color(s) do YOU guys think ork blood and gore is?

An interesting idea I fabricated when ruminating on this subject was the place of origin could effect the color of the sanguine substance. For instance, when the ork is gestating in its spore pod in an area with, say for instance, a high copper concentration, then the orkoid fungi would absorb some in the ground and produce an ork with copper-based blood, an as such have it be a green-ish blue or blue color. Iron would produce red blood, etc. Lead might be red, yellow, black depending on the exact chemical make-up of the blood.

I seem to remember some older fluff stating that ork blood varied tremendously in colour based on what they've eaten, because their blood forms part of their digestive tract.

In the 2ed Codex Orks blood was indeed green.

They changed it to red to provide more of a contrast to model injuries due to having green skin. I remember reading in a WD where they addressed it as they wanted the injuries to look dynamic and not like the Ork spilled his squig jelly doughnut on himself.

 Fos Kenos wrote:
I seem to remember some older fluff stating that ork blood varied tremendously in colour based on what they've eaten, because their blood forms part of their digestive tract.

Yup! It's never been contradicted, but it might not be 'canon' any longer, but orks share a circulatory and digestive system in some of the older fluff.

Of course, the 'jelly donut' rationale, which I also remember reading, is also pretty apt. While you might want your extra-galactic gribblies to be dripping weird colors of goo, you probably want ork blood to be pretty recognizable.

While orks have a fungal strain in their genetic makeup, they aren't fungus, and fungi don't have to be green (and why would they, not being plants). There's no compelling reason to make it green, and they breathe oxygen, so presumably they need a hemoglobin-like function in their blood, which would also make it red (in oxygenated atmospheres).

Also worth thinking about: If Ork Blood is, say, green, then Orks can't paint their skin with blood to show their warlike nature. Blood Axes would have green axes.

Go with red blood for orks, for all the right reasons!


Admittedly, if their blood was green, they would think the Salamanders and the Dark Angels were the Blood Angels!

Its also been statedas grading from bright red, through dark red to black, depending on "things".

I'm think a dark red, since it's a contrast colour to green, so it stands out more on green skin.

Color of blood and color of skin don't necessarily correlate. While animals without much in the way of skin pigment (including some humans) have pinkish skin due to the color of the blood under the surface, pigmentation can easily override this. The reason Ork skin is green is that they're photosynthetic (not that it helps them that much).There's no reason they can't have red blood, and it's visually cool enough that most people are going to want to go that way.

I'll just quote from an earlier post of mine on this very subject.

Ork blood is part of their digestive system. It flows around the body beneath the skin, which is too thick to reflect the colour beneath. Most Orks have two hearts, though one of them doubles as a digestive organ. Food is digested and broken down by a series of outer stomachs (which is why Orks can eat so many apparently inedible things). Nutrients pass into the blood in the heart-stomach. The thickness and colour of the blood constantly varies according to what and when the Ork last ate, changing from black, to purple, and dark red.

Waaargh The Orks! page five

Internal organs characteristic of 'simple/robust' paradigm: large multiple chambered stomach analogue feeds crude renal system. Bodily cavities filled with fungal 'soup'. (Spec: functions of biochemical organs (liver, kidney, spleen, pancreas, etc) fulfilled by internal enzyme).

Xenology page forty

Red blood (containing haemoglobin which is iron based) is a more efficient carrier of Oxygen compared to alternatives such as haemocyanins (blue blood which is copper based). I would expect a creature designed to be physically strong and large would require a more efficient O2 carrier for cellular respiration - which leads us to iron-based red blood. Given their large stature, the most effective way to get blood around is using a dual circulatory system rather than a passive/active tidal mechanism seen in some smaller invertebrates. Passive diffusion into a series of cavities would be too inefficient in a larger organism without some form of circulatory system

From a modelling standpoint, red is more obvious as blood and recognisable.

I always assumed it was a purplish color

Official fluff placed as red for the first time during the GORKAMORKA side game "barbrawl" released in WD..
Back in the days when WD was kool.. (lament their gone-ness.. lament I say)
I can't remember who said it (Adam rings a bell) but he actually went on a half page spurge titled "Who the Gork would paint an effect that looks like their model spilt gooseberry juice on themselves by accident".. not the exact quote but you get the point..
Red looks cooler cause then there's no embarrassing moments of someone checking out your sweet model to the words of "what's that stuff??"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tundrafrog1124 wrote:
I always assumed it was a purplish color

... And yet Purple is a shade of Red... I can see it looking cool .. in a xenos sorta way


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wulfmar wrote:
Red blood (containing haemoglobin which is iron based) is a more efficient carrier of Oxygen compared to alternatives such as haemocyanins (blue blood which is copper based). I would expect a creature designed to be physically strong and large would require a more efficient O2 carrier for cellular respiration - which leads us to iron-based red blood. Given their large stature, the most effective way to get blood around is using a dual circulatory system rather than a passive/active tidal mechanism seen in some smaller invertebrates. Passive diffusion into a series of cavities would be too inefficient in a larger organism without some form of circulatory system

From a modelling standpoint, red is more obvious as blood and recognisable.

And this is what they said in the WD... though not as indepthly scientific

Wez pant Id redz zog we kan go fasta.

They essentially take a garden hose and stick it in a bucket of red paint, they use a broken bottle as a syringe and then fill their bloodstream with red paint.