In this edition of Stahly’s Paint Picks, we’re going chocolaty. I’ll show you a colour palette of 8 paints, starting with a light latte macchiato, going through mocha, and ending with a warm, dark chocolate brown. Perfect for painting leather, dark skin, horses, and much more.
Here on Tale of Painters and on my YouTube channel, I’m constantly testing out the latest paint ranges. However, only the finest colours from each range earn a spot in my rotation. I like to keep my options open and explore a variety of brands, cherry-picking the best paints and colours from each range.
My best picks for chocolate brown
When I want to paint brown, I often lean towards warm tones, but not too orange or reddish browns. Maybe because I’m addicted to chocolate in real life? Cocoa itself, without all the sugar, is healthy, I tell myself.
We’ll start with light mocha browns:
Here too, I’ve linked the colours, feel free to use the links for your next hobby purchase to support our work.
Now we go darker, until we end up with a dark chocolate brown:
- Warpaints Fanatic Leather Brown
- Citadel Colour Gorthor Brown
- Vallejo Game Color Charred Brown
- Citadel Colour Rhinox Hide
If you want to add these colours to your collection, a click on the links will take you to one of our partner shops.
Comparing colours with my digital swatches
The colour squares shown above are taken from my hand-painted colour swatches, which I have created for many paint ranges such as Citadel, Vallejo Game Color, Warpaints Fanatic, and Two Thin Coats. All of them are professional reproductions, hand-painted on plasticard and photographed under consistent, neutral lighting conditions, making them much more accurate and true to life than the manufacturers’ colour charts.
Additionally, my swatches are compatible with each other, allowing you to compare different paint ranges to find the best matches for tutorials from sources like White Dwarf or the Warhammer YouTube channel, or to convert your old colour schemes to paints from other manufacturers. You can find my swatches on my Patreon, either for a small donation in my shop or by becoming an Autarch tier member.
My paint range top list
And if you want to know what my current favourite paint ranges are, I’ve summarized my current recommendations for you in this post:
I hope my paint picks might be an inspiration for your next Warhammer or scale modelling project. Feel free to react and let me know in the comments about your staples for painting skin, or which colour groups you’d like me to put together next. Until next time, and happy hobbying!