Painting Classic Night Goblins

Like the black of the robes, all other base coats are best applied in two thin coats to get a good even finish. After the Citadel: Abaddon Black for the robe, the rest of the base coats are as follows:

• Vallejo: Goblin Green for the skin.
• Citadel: Mephiston Red for the bow haft, the shoes and the quiver.
• Citadel: Averland Sunset for the rope around the waist.
• Citadel: Zandri Dust for the wrappings around the bow, and the little ropes around the quiver.
• Citadel: Mournfang Brown for the arrow shafts.

If you worked neatly, you can leave the arrow fletching in its white undercoat colour — but if it was stained by accident, clean it up with some Vallejo: Dead White (or your personal favourite white paint).

With all the base coats done, it’s time to add some shading to the model by using washes (or sometimes contrast paints) to all parts of the model except the robe (the base colour of Abaddon Black can’t really be shaded down further as there isn’t anything much darker). We take a medium sized brush that can soak up enough wash and apply the following paints unthinned, straight from the pot:

• Citadel: Biel-Tan Green to all the green skin.
• Citadel: Flesh Tearers Red for all the red parts (bow, shoes, quiver). If the skin shading has dried, also apply some Flesh Tearers Red to the inside of the mouth.
• Citadel: Agrax Earthshade over the bow wraps and the ropes holding the quiver.

Goblin Skin. We start by highlighting the skin tones in three steps. The first step is using pure Vallejo Goblin Green, covering almost all the skin area — only leaving the deepest recesses. Then, we start adding progressively more Citadel: Yriel Yellow to the Goblin Green, and highlighting ever smaller areas. In this example, we have three stages. In Stage 1. we apply pure Goblin Green to about 90% of the skin area. Leave the dark green showing at the edges, between the fingers, and in the deepest wrinkles of the skin and face.

In Stage 2. we mix about 1 part Yriel Yellow to 2 parts Goblin Green and highlight the raised areas — start defining muscle shapes, paint the fingers and most protruding facial features such as the nose, chin and cheekbones. Then in Stage 3. we mix about 1 part Yriel Yellow to 1 part Goblin Green and paint dots on the knuckles of the hands, the chin, cheekbones and nose, etc. Finally, using almost pure Yriel we place a small dot on the nose and chin).

Tooth and nail. One this model, we don’t actually have visibly sculpted nails, but if yours does have them, they are painted in the same way as the teeth. We first apply a layer of Citadel: Morghast Bone, and then highlight them with a little bit of Citadel: Screaming Skull towards the tips.

Evil Eyes. For the evil Goblin eyes, we first paint a bigger round shape in the space of the eyes socket using Citadel: Evil Sunz Scarlet. There should still be a clear darker outline from the Nuln Oil we applied earlier. Next, we place take our smallest brush, take a deep breath, and place a tiny dot of Citadel: Yriel Yellow.

Lip, and Nose. I know that none of this is actually mandatory, but I consider the following three steps to be really optional additions to liven up the face. I understand if you feel like this is too much for a 4 point model in your Warhammer army, but the steps are simple and add just that little bit of extra. The first of these steps is to paint a thin line on the lower lip using Citadel: Screamer Pink. In the second step, we highlight this by painting small dots of Citadel: Pink Horror to represent small scabs on the lip.

Finally, in the third step we apply a “filter” of Citadel: Kislev Flesh to the nose. To do this, mix a tiny bit of paint in a blob of water to create a super thin and watery mixture, and apply that to the model to subtly change the underlying colour hue. If you’ve added too much water, you can add several layers to strengthen the effect, but make sure that the paint has completely dried before applying a next layer.

Bright and colourful red details is what really sells the classic ’90s Games Workshop look. We highlight all the reds (boots, bow, and quiver) in four stages. In Stage 1. we “re-base” everything with Citadel: Mephiston Red — in this stage, we cover almost everything, except for the deepest recesses, and the places where the red transitions to another colour. In Stage 2. we highlight using Citadel: Evil Sunz Scarlet — still covering quite a lot of the areas (50% or more). On the bow you can start introducing lines to create a “wood grain” effect. On the boots you can start creating the shapes of the folded cloth. In Stage 3. we paint an edge/line highlight of Citadel: Trollslayer Orange — highlighting the sharpest edges everywhere. And finally, in Stage 4. we mix in (50/50) Citadel: Yriel Yellow into the Trollslayer Orange, and apply a few small dots (the tips of the bow, and the most protruding parts of the quiver are good candidates).

Rope. The little rope belt is a rather insignificant detail, so I opt for a quick and lazy finish — highlighting the rope using Citadel: Yriel Yellow, essentially creating a “dotted line” pattern. As a little extra, dot the very edges of the dangling ropes with Citadel: Dorn Yellow (or just mix some white into your Yriel Yellow if you have it on your pallet). 

Straps. We use the same colours for the wrappings around the bow and the little rope around the quiver. I don’t like to paint these “wrappings”, but they appear on many Warhammer models. So we will keep it simple. The first highlight is to bring back the base colour of Citadel: Zandri Dust. The second step is to edge highlight the top of each “wrap” with a thin line of Citadel: Screaming Skull. And then we quickly move on to things that are less annoying to paint.

Arrows. These parts are better visible on the back of the model, so we show some images of that on the right. For the arrow shafts, we highlight them using Citadel: Skrag Brown. At the top of the bunched up arrows, paint small dots to distinguish the individual arrows. For the feathers, we use Citadel: Blue Horror, painting 4-5 thin lines per side of the fletching to highlight the feathers. I opted for a slightly blue-ish colour (instead of simple white) to set this apart from the patterns that we will paint on the robes later, which are going to be a more pure white.

Now that we’re almost done, it’s time for the part that takes up 60% of the model: the cloak. Even though this is a large part of the model, we’re not spending a lot of time on painting this. I like the cloaks to appear as black as possible, partly because it’s what sets Night Goblins apart, and partly because it increases the contrast with the reds, greens and yellows. The recipe is thus a simple two stage approach. In Stage 1 we edge highlight using Citadel: Eshin Grey. This is one of the darker greys available from the Citadel range, and you should try to use it sparingly. Only highlight obvious edges and lines. Then, in Stage 2, we paint tiny “v”-shapes on the most extreme edges, such as the bottom of the cloak or the top of the hood using Citadel: Administratum Grey.

This is quite a bright colour, so it’s important not to overdo this. Only pick out a few of the most extreme edges and corners on the cloak.

Finally, the most iconic part of a classic Night Goblin has to be the freehand pattern on the robe. I think these patterns really give some extra flair to the models, harkening back to the 4th and 5th edition typical ‘Eavy Metal pages of White Dwarf and the Orcs & Goblins army book. 

For the choice of colours there are two typical options: yellow, or white. In this example I choose white as I like the contrast it provides to the black cloak. For the pattern: this is your chance to really personalize your models. Giving each unit a different pattern can nicely tie them together, or giving each individual model a different pattern can help sell the feel of a rag-tag band of individual Goblins, each with their own personality, hopes, fears, and dreams (of killing Dwarfs or pointy-eared Elfs).

Anyway, below I show the steps for how I paint the most typical pattern: the checkerboard. I think it’s also one of the most challenging options, so if you manage this, you can easily do moons, stars, triangles, etc… let’s go.

I use Citadel: Pallid Wych Flesh as the base colour, with Vallejo: Dead White as the highlight colour. 

If painting checker patterns is too far out of your comfort zone, I recommend starting with a “teeth” or “triangle” pattern, or even little stars and moons are much easier to achieve.

Step 1. Paint a thin line, parallel to the edge of the hood.

Step 2. Draw white blocks of around three brush-strokes wide, leaving an equal amount of black between them, on the edge of the hood.

Step 3. The next step is the most difficult and it is to paint the remaining white blocks, trying to maintain roughly equal sizes.

Step 4. Use the cloak base colour of Citadel: Abaddon Black to tidy up each block, trying to make sure they are all of roughly equal size.

Step 5. Finally, paint a Vallejo: Dead White edge highlight where the white blocks hit the edge of the hood – make sure to hit the “rim” of the hood as well, so the checker pattern is nicely visible when looking your Goblin straight in the eyes.

And then all that’s left to do is finish up the base, and that’s another 4 points ready and painted for your Orcs & Goblins army!

If you have any tips on how to improve on this recipe, or have any questions on details I didn’t cover, I’d love to hear it! Let me know in the comments below or reach out to me on my Instagram.

And finally, below is a picture of our boy in black with his two friends that are the result of the two previous, failed attempts of getting this tutorial photographed…