ToP Tip: The best bone & beige paints

Using the Stahly Swatches System, I’ve put together two more colour palettes for you, each with four paints from light to dark. One palete with classic warm bone tones as you know and love them from Citadel / Warhammer Colour, but with better consistency and coverage. And then a somewhat more realistic bone palette that leans more towards beige or warm grey. Check out these essential paint picks.

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 paint picks for warm bone

Here come four classic, slightly yellowish bone tones as you know them from Games Workshop or Warhammer Colour. In fact, PA Ivory corresponds pretty much exactly to Wraithbone, TTC Vampire Fang and TTC Skeleton Legion to Screaming Skull and Morghast Bone respectively, whilst P3 Gun Corps Brown is similar to Steel Legion Drab, only somewhat warmer. However, when it comes to consistency and coverage, I prefer my palette over the Warhammer counterparts.

Another round of #stahlyspaintpicks: Here are my favourite bone paints with a warm, slightly yellowish tint, I use these all the time! What are your favourite bone colours? Tell me in the comments! Check out the "Stahly Swatches System" over on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/stahlytaleof…

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— Stahly (Tale of Painters) (@stahly.bsky.social) 19. März 2026 um 16:08

The warm bone palette:

• Pro Acryl Ivory
• Two Thin Coats Vampire Fang
• Two Thin Coats Skeleton Legion
• P3 Gun Corps Brown

If you want to add these colours to your collection, a click on the links will take you to one of our partner shops.

My best paint picks for beige bone

With the beige tones I’m also very much calibrated to the Citadel or Warhammer Colour palette. I love the colours, but not (so much) the paints, if that makes sense. Here comes a greyer, more realistic bone palette. Two Thin Coats Ivory Tusk and TTC Griffon Claw correspond to Pallid Wych Flesh and Rakarth Flesh. For Baneblade Brown I haven’t found a better replacement yet.

As a follow-up to last week's warm bone palette, here are my favourite beige bone paints #stahlyspaintpicks Ivory Tusk & Griffon Claw are great replacements for Pallid Wych Flesh and Rakarth Flesh. What do you think?

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— Stahly (Tale of Painters) (@stahly.bsky.social) 25. März 2026 um 17:40

The beige bone selection:

• Two Thin Coats Ivory Tusk
• Two Thin Coats Griffon Claw
• Warhammer Colour Baneblade Brown
• AK 3rd Gen Burnt Umber

Here too, I’ve linked the colours, feel free to use the links for your next hobby purchase to support our work.

When I think of classic John Blanche artworks, I see three colours before my eyes: black, bone and red. You’ve got the best bone paints in this post, and you can find my recommendations for red here:

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 blue, or which colour groups you’d like me to put together next. Until next time, and happy hobbying!