That’s how to skin a rat

Back again already! I wouldn’t get used to updates this frequently…

Like I mentioned in my first post I have been looking to come up with a paint scheme for my new Skaven army that is a bit out of the ordinary. For me the paint scheme is primarily defined by the skin and fur colours used with the clothing and armour more of a secondary consideration. The image of a brown Skaven is what comes to my mind as a typical example of the army and this steered me more toward grey colours.
I also wanted to stick as much as I could to foundation paints and washes to keep things simple and prevent me from having to build up a huge paint collection. Furthermore, I was not enamoured with mixing paints for the base colour and so looked to start with a flat colour.

My first idea was a clan that had been underground for a long time and had begun to lose the colour from their hides, akin to the weird and wonderful animals scientists occasionally find in long sealed caves.

Basically: White base coat, 1:1 Devlan mud/ water wash all over, Baal red wash on the skin areas, 1:3 Menoth white base/ Morrow white (P3) on all the raised areas, pure white for extreme highlights.
I like the result, but it looked a little too healthy for me.

Next was an idea that I had talked over with Matt previously, doing a scheme where the fur was a lighter grey than the skin.

Fenris grey for the skin, 1:1 Astronomicon grey/ Fenris grey for the fur, 1:1 Badab black / water wash, 1:1 Astronomicon grey/ Fenris grey for the raised areas of skin, Astr. grey for extreme highlights on skin, 1:1 Astr. grey/ white for highlights on fur.
It came out okay in my opinion, but also took a lot longer than the first test model, while also being not as interesting on the tabletop.

Third was similar, but darker. I wanted more of a charcoal look, but since I was using Fenris grey as a base it turned out too blue and way off the mark from what I was thinking.

Basically the same as number 2 with black added into the initial mixes.
Not happy with this one. If I had a dark grey that was less blue it could have worked. Maybe also from a dark brown base.

The last test came from the results of the first. I tried to keep things very similar, but more pallid.

Same as #1 but I replaced the red wash with a Leviathan purple wash and the subsequent skin tone with 1:3 Astronomicon grey/ Morrow white.
I think I like this one the best, but going with a 2:2 mix to more easily see the final white extreme highlights might be a little better. Also, the fur areas stand out a bit funny as I didn’t wash them purple like I did the skin.

So there you go. I am leaning toward scheme #4, but I am keen to here some feedback first while I build up the remaining clanrats. Sorry about the relatively bad photos but I wanted to get them done today in the half-light that was available rather than wait until the weekend when I’ll have too much to do.

Cheers for reading.