Choosing a paint scheme can feel like trying to pick a tattoo: permanent (or at least hard to undo) and weirdly personal. You’ve gathered inspiration — a moody fantasy painting, a bit of Netflix drama, maybe some AI-generated faction art — but now what? How do you turn your paint scheme inspiration into a painted Warhammer model?
If you’re building a full army, and want the paint job to match your vision, you need to plan it well and apply it consistently. Boiling your inspiration down into a reference guide means you can refer back to it and maintain the standard of your army no matter how big it grows. While the full process of creating a physical mood board is probably over the top, a selection of reference images allows you to distil the key elements of your inspiration into a theme.
In this guide, we’ll show our process for going from inspiration to painted plastic so you can create beautiful, eye-catching armies.
Step 1: Define the Mood, Not Just the Colours
Before you even think about which shade of green matches Nurgle’s belly, you need to define what you want the finished product to be. You’ve chosen your army, now you need to choose the vibe you want to go with them. There’s about a million options, but here’s a few questions to ask yourself to help define an answer:
What feeling should your army give off? Grim and ancient? Noble and radiant? Blood-splattered and fresh out of melee?
How do they operate? Are they stealthy? Brash? Grim sentinels? Religious zealots? Wandering mercenaries?
What media, art, or real-world examples express that tone? Are you inspired by Aztec eagle warriors? The art style style of games like cyberpunk? Luckily we’ve already put together some advice for finding your inspiration to help you out [LINK].
Use these answers to establish a guiding theme, and summarise it in a simple sentence. “Corroded desert scavengers” is way more helpful than “bronze with teal accents”, and will help find further style examples.
Step 2: Collect Inspiration From Diverse Sources
Now that you have a vibe in mind, start gathering references. You can find these in so many different places, so just keep your eyes open and work out what catches your eye. Here are a few excellent sources:
Film & TV: Use stills from shows or movies with strong visual design (e.g. Blade Runner 2049, The Expanse, Dune).
Nature: Desert reptiles, alpine birds, jungle fungi — nature’s contrast and texture game is elite.
Video Games & Concept Art: Games like Destiny, Dark Souls, Starcraft, and League of Legends have deeply considered colour palettes.
AI-Generated Art: Generate faction-themed images using prompts like “Warhammer 40K Death Guard heraldry, grimy, ancient, teal and bronze tones.”
Fine Art & Illustration: Old masters like Rembrandt or modern fantasy artists like Karl Kopinski have incredible palettes.
With your models mood identified you can save a few screenshots to a dedicated folder (or use tools like Pintrest or even an Instagram carousel). Don’t go overboard; if you gather hundreds of images distilling them into a colour palette is going to be overwhelming. Three or four screenshots that represent the vibe you’re trying to re-create will be plenty.
Step 3: Analyse and Extract a Core Colour Palette
Now that you’ve assembled your inspiration it’s time to turn it into a Warhammer paint scheme. You need to break it down, identify the core elements and get an understanding of the colour palette:
- Determine the key colours: Identify dominant colours (used most) and accent colours (used to highlight).
- Look for repeating combinations: For example warm neutrals coupled with a cool contrast, or monochrome with one vibrant spot colour.
- Boil it down: Pull out around 3–5 core colours that make up the vibe of the inspiration you’ve drawn together. If you’re not sure how to identify the shades you can always make use of software and apps, even AI, to help create a list.
These core colours are what will make up your palette to paint your models, which you can apply across any model in your army, giving you a cohesive look that stands out on the table.
Step 4: Match Colours to Paint Ranges
Once you’ve nailed your palette, it’s time to translate it into paints. Here’s how:
- Use colour matching apps like Miniature Painter Pro which helps you pick colours and compare them across various paint ranges.
- Manually compare the colours on your palette to paint ranges. You can go to a local gaming store and compare your colours to the ranges they have available. Alternately all the major ranges have digital swatches on their online stores (while not ideal they provide a rough match).
- Make sure you’re matching colours to the appropriate formulation. If the bulk of your scheme is a rich blue, make sure you get that in a base paint or contrast. Matching it to a layer paint designed for highlighting is going to make it more of a challenge to paint such large areas.
- Write yourself out a list of the paints on your palette and the brand you settle on, so you can source good deals going forwards.
Step 5: Test the Scheme on a Single Model
Before you commit to an entire army, test the scheme. Creating a test model allows you to do several key things.
Firstly, you identify how the palette fits onto a model. What makes up your base colours? What are your highlights? How does that bold flash of colour fit onto the model?
Secondly, once your test model is painted check it out under different lighting. What’s working and what isn’t sitting right?
Finally, decide if anything needs adjusting: are the accents too-bright? Does the model need more contrast? Are elements too complex? This is your chance to tweak and change to get it perfected.
Only when you’re happy should you commit to batch-painting your box of shame.
Save and Reuse Your Palette
Once you’ve gone through the process of distilling your inspiration into a paint scheme for your Warhammer you don’t want to waste the hard work. Predominately they’re a reference to check back to if you grab a new unit for your army, especially if it’s been a while since you painted anything for that force.
However, while you might not want to reuse the same paint scheme on another army, you might pick up a miniature of the month or models for another game that you want to match the same vibe.
Finally, if nothing else, they make good social media content. Your fellow hobbyists love a good ‘inspiration-to-finished-model’ comparison post. Let the likes role in.
Following this process turns the inspiration of “I saw a cool picture” into a structured paint scheme to apply to your Warhammer. One that helps you stay consistent, creative, and proud of your army’s look. Whether you’re painting your first Intercessor or your fiftieth goblin, this approach makes your colour choices more deliberate — and way more fun.
How do you turn a inspiration picture into a painted model? What’s your process for developing a palette? Let us know in the comments!
Did you enjoy this article? You could always tip the author with a coffee (or something stronger). If you fancy getting yourself some minis to try your new ideas on, then check out Element Games. They have great deals on paint supplies and a wide range of Warhammer and other minis. Finally, make sure you’re following us on Instagram to stay up to date and get involved in our community!
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