"Is There a Comprehensive Guide On Monster Colors?" Topic

Does such a reference exist printed or online? I'd like to be able to find out what color a kolbold, or imp, or shrieker, etc is so I don't have to simply guess when painting. Thanks all!

Hmmm… I always thought they were imaginary… so, kinda whatever color you want them to be.

What VB3 said !!!

"What do you mean you've painted your orcs green!?!"
link

They are quite definitely pigments of your imagination. ~,~

Kobolds of the D&D variety are traditionally brick red, but have become strongly related to dragons in the past 15 years or so and may come in any of the evil dragon colors.

Imps are evil outsiders and specialize in deception. Color is probably somewhere in the black to red range, but nearly anything that looks sinister will do.

Shriekers are fungi. Surface fungi come in colors that span the spectrum, while subterranean types tend to be bleached out. Shriekers tend to hide among other fungi, so paint them the same color as the rest of your dungeon decoration mushrooms, assuming you have any.

Orcs are all over the place. The current default D&D orc is a grey to dull olive green, while Warhammer Orcs are a more vibrant and dark green, Chronopia's Orcs are a yellow ochre, and Tolkien's Orcs center on a sallow fleshy yellow but vary from there to deep red-browns in one direction to sickly yellow-greens in the other. I tend to paint my orcs whatever color looks good that that particular line or model.

Trolls of the D&D type are greyish green to light green, but the trollkin of the Iron Kingdoms center on blue to teal.

So the short answer to your question is probably "no". The more useful answer is a question: "what game are you painting for?" D&D materials these days are loaded with pictures and descriptions that would serve your purpose if that is what you are painting for.

This is useful:

d20pfsrd.com/bestiary#TOC-K-

What the others said. The short answer is, no, there are no universally accepted color schemes for most monsters of legend and gaming. The exceptions are those with colors in their name: green dragons, umber hulks, black puddings, purple horseshoes . . .

Digging deeper, there are some established schemes for various creatures and monsters in specific gaming universes, but even those can change over time. And not just colors, but appearance. Some of the first official D&D orc minis were pig-faced, but almost all "modern" orcs are not (and some retro pig-faced orcs have been released in recent years). Umber hulks were originally big (umber) lumbering "shaved gorillas" with insect-like mandibles; now they're giant mantis-like insects, and they still have the mandibles, but they're not all umber.

If you look at the sourcebooks for, for example, D&D/AD&D, Warhammer, Chronopia, Confrontation, and other games, you can see that most of them try to stick to fairly consistent color schemes for "their" humanoids, monsters, and other creatures.

My advice would be to check out those sourcebooks, if you have access to them, and if you care about that kind of thing.

If that's not the case, do a Google image search for, say, "kobold miniature," see what pops up, and replicate a scheme that catches your eye. You can also search the threads here on TMP; gamers are always posting potos of their work. There's also Cool Mini or Not, Lead Adventure Forum, and literally hundreds if not thousands of individual gamers' blogs.

Ultimately, they're your minis, paint them however you like.

But if you paint your umber hulks umber, they'd better be the *correct shade* of umber. Hah!

In fantasy/RPGs, there always seem to be 'subspecies' of each monster type to justify changes to color/behavior/size etc. That's what makes it fun!!

Yep, and "official" D&D/AD&D even has (or had) more than a dozen unique settings, making variations even more likely.

If I'm wondering what color to paint something I usually just search for it on Google images.

They make "bestiary" books for D&D, with pictures for every monster. Should be available in comic book store, game store or online. Very useful and fun to read, even if you don't play D&D.

My mistake. Books are called "Monsters manual"…

Look for some (choke) GW painting guides.

Why isn't this thread in the Napoleonics board?

I can only point to this thread – it is the only proper colour for them. (Fits very well with how they were described in 1st ed AD&D Monster Manual too.)

E. Gary Gygax was a wargamer, first. This translated into his work in the 1st Ed. AD&D Monster Manual, published back in 1977/78. He listed colors for most monster entries, as he kind of expected folks to have figures for them -- in my interpretation, anyway.

I have followed many of his color schemes, and I really enjoy the results thus far (brick red Goblins turned out really nice looking, different from the overly done green theme; he listed other colors for different tribes of Goblins, but I really like the brick red, and I don't have enough figures for multiple tribes -- yet). I believe EGG had figures for most monsters used in the original 1st Ed. AD&D Monster Manual book, as he has some strange-sounding color schemes listed, but they have actually looked decent when I've followed his recommendations.

You can get a copy of the 1st Ed. AD&D Monster Manual off of e-Bay for typically less than $10 USD, delivered, for a copy in decent condition. Best of luck. Cheers!

For Goblins I like brick red / ochre yellow, as in the good old AD&D Monster Manual.