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So, I've been reading lexicanum articles in preparation of a Snakebites/ feral Orks army and a thought crossed my mind:
Why are Squigs, that are part of the greenskin race - always depicted with a red paint scheme? Is there a fluff explanation for that and/or are there actually squigs that are not red?

And additionally - why are Squiggoths, that are some large breed of Squig apparently - NOT red, but green like other orkish races?

Is there some old fluff talking about this? Is the answer to be found in Warhammer Fantasy instead? (Btw., looking at the giant Squig from Fantasy, that's as red as the smaller ones', makes it even more puzzling)

Well, Squigs are red because WHFB.

Squiggoths are green because...erm...40K.

In short, there’s no good reason, or even background reason. They just sort of are.

Importantly, there’s nothing to say what colour they should be, or are background limited to.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, Squigs are red because WHFB.

Squiggoths are green because...erm...40K.

In short, there’s no good reason, or even background reason. They just sort of are.

Importantly, there’s nothing to say what colour they should be, or are background limited to.

I had thought about directing the thread at you because of your library of ancient fluff, happy to see you being the first to answer
So, I take that as there won't be definite answer to this, just someone at GW porting the look from fantasy to 40K and before that choosing the red color in fantasy because of mushrooms or because it's a nice contrast to the green...

I was going to say, the red was likely a contrast to the green, but also red tends to be GW’s go-to for anything particularly rabid and aggressive.

See Blood Angels, all Khorne stuff, squigs, the Sam Haim Eldar (jetbike focused). Evil suns orks (red ones go fasta).

The green squiggoth is likely because it is dinosaur-like. For me, my childhood had more green dinosaurs than any other colour, most lizards I can think of a green in colour... just the “obvious” colour to make it.

Also, squigs come in many colours, but the most popular is red. Night goblins, in WHFB, were the big users of squigs. They were traditionally black robes with green skin, and yellow icons (the bad moon). Pretty much anything that looks like a poisonous frog was fair game, bright and garish.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Why are Squigs, that are part of the greenskin race - always depicted with a red paint scheme? Is there a fluff explanation for that and/or are there actually squigs that are not red?

And additionally - why are Squiggoths, that are some large breed of Squig apparently - NOT red, but green like other orkish races?

It was always weird to me too. I would prefer Suigs to be green just like the other orkoids. In at least one wh40k novel (I do not remember in which one) I read about Squigs depicted in many various colors, like blue or yellow. If I would have to create an explanation it would be something like that the smaller Squigs are very primitive organisms, much closer to plants/fungi than the rest of the orkoids, and that is why they have more variations of coloration.

I think it's not background based, it's just because it looks good. It's like why do Orks have red blood in a lot of warhammer media? It should be green too, that's why their skin is green after all.

If you want a reason, red algae also exists, as well as blue algae. With red, green and blue in various combinations you can make practically any colour. And that's just algae that evolved on earth, who knows what weird colours space fungus might be to absorb the radiation from strange stars?

Fundamentally, it's because the big red toothy squig was introduced with Night Goblins in Warhammer 4th edition in the early 1990s, right in the middle of the "red period". On the other hand, the Squiggoth as we know it was introduced by Forge World in the early 2000s. By that point, the colour scheme of Orks (and Citadel miniatures in general) had become more muted, and also Forge World was founded by Tony Cottrell and others who are big WW2 tank modelling fans, and used to more "realistic" colour schemes and painting styles (compare the colours in Imperial Armour volume 1 to those in 3rd edition Codex Imperial Guard).

For a bit more history, before the big round squigs appeared (first in Warhammer, then eventually also in 40k), squigs were much more varied in the 40k setting - hair squigs (tiny body, long flowing gill "hairs"), medical squigs (long pointy proboscis like a mosquito, used to inject an anaesthetic. Come in big, 'uge and 'urty sizes) and loads of other useful breeds. They were also crowbarred into the Tyranid army list, since that range only had four unit types and less than a dozen miniatures.

You can see some examples of squigs on page 70 of the 1986-1991 Catalogue volume 1 and on page 399 of the 1992 Catalogue volume 3. Same models, but "Big Squig 1" is a Tyranid Grabber-slasher assassin/infiltrator and "Big Squig 2" is something that lives in hive ships and repairs damaged tissue.

The squiggoth first appeared in 2nd edition Epic, around the same time as the round squig appeared in Warhammer. That model was covered in hair like a mammoth, rather than a big scaly reptile-like thing. It's hard to find an example of the studio miniature online, but IIRC the beast itself was painted with brown hair, to avoid clashing with the brightly-painted armoured howdah on its back.

Very interesting, Andrew. I read these descriptions of all the different kinds of squigs on lexicanum and always wondered if they were ever put in model form - apparently yes.

Lexicanum shows one of the wooly Squiggoths you're referring to. https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:EpicSquiggoth1st.jpg

I wonder, when the Squiggoths came out from Forgeworld in the 2000's - was there fluff in an accompanying Imperial Armour to describe their origins more indepth, maybe referring to the color?

Just carefully bred and fed Squigs to ensure maximum size - Snakebites are of course the main exponents of this art.

It’s also worth noting that the name Squig is short for Squiggly Beasts - a catch all terms for the various beasties that crop up wherever there are Orks and Weedy Grots.

So what’s called a Garagantuan Squiggoth, a Cave Squig, Oiler Squig and so on aren’t necessarily all that closely related. Particularly if you consider Squig to be a classification equal to say, Mammal or Amphibian.

That they’re all part fungal is no closer a relation than use being warm blooded.

The studio Ork army for Epic Armageddon included a red squiggoth.

Hmm, ok, the red squigs lack a lot of photosynthetic algae to encourage them to be vicious and aggressive, since they rely on killing and eating prey, this keeps them competing with each other and evolving to be fiercer and more aggressive.

Squiggoths have green photosynthetic algae to provide at least some nutrition to them to reduce their feeding cost. Also, as large as they are and as big an investment in resources as they are they may be able to hibernate as long as they get enough sunlight to keep them ready for battle when needed so you don't have them eating you out of house and home when not needed but don't have to grow whole new ones when you need them.

Squigs pop out of the ground, orks don't worry about them, a squiggoth takes much longer to grow and needs to eat a lot more, making them able to more or less take root when not needed and sustain themselves on sunlight till needed makes sense and maybe the slann engineered that into them to be able to be held in reserve for longer periods.

It's worth noting that the bouncy red beasties from WFB are a specific breed of squigs. Cave squigs, to be precise. While it is entirely possible that there are cave squigs in other colors (and there have definitely been featured armies with them in different colors), the cave squig is (normally) red. They may have been bred to be red due to an association of red with aggression (as cave squigs are definitely aggressive).

However, the assumption that other squigs are normally red is largely an erroneous one, perhaps stemming from the fact that most people in the last few decades have mostly seen cave squigs, and assumed that all squigs are cave squigs. GW themselves has often painted other squigs,, whether they were cave squigs or not, in a red color scheme, presumably for a good contrast with the green orcs/orks.

The attack squigs seen on several classic Ork Warboss models might be assumed to be cave squigs, or some similar (fast, very aggressive, grot-sized) squig, and it's pretty reasonable to think they might have the same colors as cave squigs (red). Bomb squigs appear to be identical to cave squigs (same size, speed, and aggression), so may well also be the same 'species'.

But the other squigs that GW has produced could easily be of different colors. Targeter squigs, oil squigs, buzzer squigs, face-eater squigs, hair squigs, bile squigs, boom squigs, squigeons, squig-hounds, etc. could all be different colors. In fact, I suspect orks would expect them to be different colors, so you could tell squigs apart more easily.

Given that Snakebites take great pride in breeding many different varieties of squigs, I would also anticipate that Snakebites might seek to differentiate their 'superior' squigs from some inferior 'common mongrel' squigs by breeding squigs in interesting, even novel, colors.

"Nah, that's not yer garden-variety face-eater squig, mate. Thassa Greater Blue-bellied Leopard squig from More-dakka. Dead killy, 'e is. Cost ya extra."

Wot I'm sayin' is paint yer squig the color you want.

Those are some interesting thoughts, Butcha.
I guess the only recent example of not-cave-Squigs are the Squigs on the Squigbuggy, and guess what, GW painted these red as well personally I think I'll stick to the Red because I like the color, it makes those little buggers look terrifying and it's a nice contrast. I think a red Squiggoth would look pretty awesome, too. Kromlech seems to have followed your thoughts as they present their Squigs in different colors.

Big Squigs are green because they are mean.

Small squigs are red because they need to be fasta.

As an off shoot to this, they should release an upgrade sprue for Gore-gruntas for 40k versions of feral orgs/snakebites on boars with some special rules, or well, just let them be used as is... If only we were still in the days of conversions being allowed in the rules, it would be so easy to merge them and a lot of Orc models from AoS into a feral ork army list without even needing to release any kits.

I always painted mine purple, blue, yellow, orange, green and occasionally red.

Cat's, dogs, fish and other families of species often come in a variety of colours. I think it makes perfect sense that they're different.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
As an off shoot to this, they should release an upgrade sprue for Gore-gruntas for 40k versions of feral orgs/snakebites on boars with some special rules, or well, just let them be used as is... If only we were still in the days of conversions being allowed in the rules, it would be so easy to merge them and a lot of Orc models from AoS into a feral ork army list without even needing to release any kits.

That's what I'm going for with my army project. I think there are more AoS Orks on my wishlist than 40K Orks. The basis for most Boyz will be feral orcs from GW and Shieldwolf as well as conversion Bits from Spellcrow and Kromlech. I'll even mix in some archers into shootaboys because why not.
I thought about using goregruntaz and boar Boyz as Bikers but I'm undecided yet. With enough shootas on them it should work.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
As an off shoot to this, they should release an upgrade sprue for Gore-gruntas for 40k versions of feral orgs/snakebites on boars with some special rules, or well, just let them be used as is... If only we were still in the days of conversions being allowed in the rules, it would be so easy to merge them and a lot of Orc models from AoS into a feral ork army list without even needing to release any kits.

That's what I'm going for with my army project. I think there are more AoS Orks on my wishlist than 40K Orks. The basis for most Boyz will be feral orcs from GW and Shieldwolf as well as conversion Bits from Spellcrow and Kromlech. I'll even mix in some archers into shootaboys because why not.
I thought about using goregruntaz and boar Boyz as Bikers but I'm undecided yet. With enough shootas on them it should work.

Do it, figure out a way to magnetise them onto the boar, so they can be taken off and you have an AoS compatible force ready to go as well then also.

My headcanon is that they start off red and as they age and get larger they slowly change colour from red to green. You can tell the rough age of a squig by the colour and shade of its skin (an of course the size).

 Afrodactyl wrote:
My headcanon is that they start off red and as they age and get larger they slowly change colour from red to green. You can tell the rough age of a squig by the colour and shade of its skin (an of course the size).

Ha-ha, ha, ha! That's an awesome idea! I could even see them going through colors as they mature. They start off really tiny, weedy little yellow squigs, gradually turn orange, ripen into red, then gradually mature into green (maybe splotches that slowly take over the main color).

"Can you ride that squig?"

"Nope, it's not ripe yet."

I personally like the idea of them all being different colors, just because 'squiggly beast' seems like too broad of a category to limit it to any 2 colors (and I love seeing wacky looking squigs), but that's some great headcanon (and, if squigs vary from place to place, it's headcanon that's compatible with other headcanon).

The colossal squig may cause issues in that regard!

At any rate, fwiw OP squigs can theoretically be any color(s) red is just the default.

Momma says dey's red cus dey got all dem teef and no toothbrush, same for Oths'

Squig goths should be black

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/03/20/warhammer-preview-online-faith-damnation/

So, in GW's new video they call Squigs "the red ones'". This might be a hint that squigs are all supposed to be red in 40K.

That being said I like all your ideas about different colors of Squigs as well

 Afrodactyl wrote:
My headcanon is that they start off red and as they age and get larger they slowly change colour from red to green. You can tell the rough age of a squig by the colour and shade of its skin (an of course the size).

If you cut open a squig can you tell it's age by counting the rings like a tree?

I would guess the reason is little squigs being red doesn't change the aesthetic of a whole army much, but if a massive squiggoth was red it would kind of dominate*. When I paint orks I like their green skin to be the most stand out colour, so I definitely wouldn't paint a squiggoth red for that reason. Maybe green or brown, but black or grey works too. I'm quite conservative with colour though, I use a lot of browns, beige, greys etc. so things like ork skin get to be centre stage

* Imagine a red land raider in an Ultramarines army? It wouldn't be a good look

edit: Look at my avatar, even for the yellow stripes on Iron Warriors I went with a dull yellow

I really hope with this new wave of Ork models we get loads of weird and wonderful new varieties of Squigs.

I mean my wallet would hate it though.