Skin colour alternatives

[Lord Kallozar]

Would it be possible for space marines (chaos followers in particular) to have skin colours that are not your typical skin colours as we know them? For example, could a chapter or warband have red skin or blue skin? Or even metallic coloured skin such as gold or brass?

[WarriorFish]

Of course, 40k is full of the weird and wonderful already and that's before you add the warp into the mix Justifying it in universe is easy enough, so perhaps the question is more why and how? For painting purposes it's probably better to aim for more of a tint or shade rather than say go completely red or blue as you might on armour for example, there's enough ways to do this so you'd need to think about what you're after :tu:

[apologist]

No reason why not – you've already got extremes within the First Founding Legions (Night Lords, Salamanders, Raven Guard). Couple that with the Dark Age of Technology, gene-splicing, culturally-driven body modifications like full-body tattoos and similar reasons, and you've got a full spectrum to pull from.

 

Add Chaos influence to that, and the world's your oyster: black skin (that is, night-black), patterned skin and brightly-coloured skin were all examples of chaos mutations that have appeared ever since Realm of Chaos.

 

Not a marine per se, but I played around with blue-skinned guardsmen (a la Rogue Trooper) with my Nur Na Phom:

 

[Panzer]

Well Blood Angels skin gets a red-ish tone when they give in to the Red Thirst too much (begin of a bigger mutation), Ravenguard a pale white and Salamanders are coal black ... so yeah there are plenty of possible reasons for unusual skin colours. ;) 

[omo667]

And obviously there's full body paint. Given that technology has advanced, why not have something that does not abrase quickly or even somehow melts into skin (as skin tears down and grows all the time).

[Doghouse]

Perfectly feasible concept. There are well known chapters that exist with minor tolerated mutations such as Melanchromic Organ defects. Tattoos and skin marking are also plausible so it's entirely possible that a chapter could exist that alters the tone of it's skin using such practices so they are all bronze or blue skinned. So you have two options right there, genetic disposition or chapter ritual.

 

As for chaos they can have any skin tone you want as they are chaos it's what chaos does.

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, you even had Lorgar being described as having gold skin due to the number of his tattoos.