The Kroot Hunting Pack is available for pre-order on Saturday. Featuring 26 new Kroot miniatures, it’s an entire Kroot army in a box for the first time, rounded out by new Kroot Hounds, the Trail Shaper, and the deadly Lone-spear.
All these new Kroot needed painting, and that duty fell to the ’Eavy Metal team. We caught up with Content Lead Max on the approach to painting these unique alien auxiliaries.
Max: For the first time since the original release of the T’au Empire and Kroot, we had the chance to really consider how the Kroot are positioned in the context of their T’au Empire allies. It was a chance for us to make them stand on their two feet* and feel fully fleshed out.
They present a unique challenge in that they are a less technologically advanced analogue to the T’au. The T’au army is uniformed and strictly structured, while the Kroot are more individual and use their knowledge of natural materials and their unique alien genetic traits to their advantage. We wanted to visually represent this in the painting by varying Kroot skin across the range, and reinforce their fieldcraft, traditions, and culture through colour choices and markings.
Skintones and Flesh
Some of the earliest work we did on Kroot was on the Farstalker Kinband Kill Team, a very particular expression of the Kroot. These exemplars, gathered together and sent out to range far and wide with a selection of advanced technology, let us establish some extremes that we could then use to create an overarching spectrum to represent each of the different cultures and tribes of the Kroot.
For the core Kroot range, we wanted to show a broader spectrum, influenced by how Shapers shift their genetics. We spent a lot of time subtly modulating skin colours, introducing markings and patterns on the skin, and incorporating other aspects of Kroot culture, such as their language and symbology across their armour plating.
We found that sticking to a range of shifting natural tones for the kroot skin, while being able to vary the hue between different kroot armies, gave us countless options to work with. The colour of a specific kroot force can vary greatly – be that green, blue, or red, but keeping the vibrancy and subtle variation of tones consistent links them all together. Other xenos factions often feature less variety when it comes to the colours, and it is unusual to see as much colour modulation within Orks or T’au, but the use of genetic manipulation opens up that avenue for us to explore this further in the Kroot.
It’s also important that all the different organic textures are rendered to visually describe their properties. For example, the beaks look much harder than the other skin to better represent their flesh-tearing ability.
Accessories and Symbols
The Kroots’ appetites are foundational to their culture, and they use every part of the animal. Hides become leather straps, capes, and holsters. Inspired by countershading in the natural world, we made the bellies lighter. This makes them look more alien and provides a much better base for leather straps, rustic metal, and carved wooden weapons to contrast against.
Ritual consumption informs many visual motifs across the range. The triangle and diamond shapes evoke the visual of the cutting beak and the open beak. When creating these motifs we looked at a wide variety of examples of early artwork across a large range of cultures in our world and noticed certain shapes and patterns could be identified in disparate cultures. We then extrapolated that further to represent the pictographs shared by the various tribes of Pech rather than one monoculture.
With this in mind, for the written word, we didn’t want to create a lexicon of alien language and then use it as decoration on armour because that isn’t how armour markings are used. Ultramarines or Blood Angels don’t have “UM” or “BA” written on their shoulder pads; they have Chapter symbols, important names, or phrases that matter to them.
For the Kroot, we created a series of glyphs, punctuation, and numerals, and we used them to explore what Kroot decoration would look like. We developed a series of shoulder pad designs, which feature a hierarchy of the Shapers down to the Carnivore units, starting off complex and becoming simpler.
Larger pads for units like the Kroot Rampagers are much more decorative, the idea being that these markings reflect their heroic deeds or brave actions. Because the Rampagers are on the frontlines, impetuously smashing up their foes, they need bigger pads to protect them in close quarters and therefore have more room for more iconography!
For their natural markings, we took inspiration from amphibians, reptiles, and birds in our world, pushing them into alien territory with the use of colour and placement. We also introduced subtle warpaint-style markings that reflect and reinforce some of the shapes and designs used on shoulder pads, adding more variety and individuality across units. This is a great place to introduce contrasting spot colours and create markings that tie your units and characters together.
Beasts of War
Unlike their T’au allies, the Kroot use beasts in their war efforts. Many of these have their ancient roots in the Kroot genome, adapted by the Shapers at some point in history to perform a specific function. These creatures are venerated, and the bond between Kroot and Krootox is more intense than between a human and a pet.
Krootox have more desaturated skin tones offset with lots of blemishes to really emphasise their age. Rampagers are younger creatures, full of life and energy, so we pushed for higher contrast across the body. Their poses are perfect for showing off the countershading we discussed earlier as they rear up in motion to show their pale undersides. As a bonus, the dark backs help visually separate the paler Kroot riders.
These expert stalkers also use creatures outside the Kroot genus to wage war, such as the newly revealed Kalamandra. These chameleonic mounts are master hunters who shift their skin to match the environment and communicate. We painted up two primary versions of the Kalamandra to represent this shifting skin. One is painted in very natural colours that reflect the Kalamandra camouflaging itself, breaking its silhouette up with natural tones that match the environment. The other is painted in vibrant oranges and reds, displaying aggression – perhaps it is right in the middle of combat?
One final point to note is that using natural materials on Kroot also extends to carved wooden weapon handles and hand-crafted leather – something quite rare in Warhammer 40,000. Woodgrain is quite difficult – it’s hard to scale correctly with the miniature and requires lots of brush control as you paint on fine lines of varying widths. It also has to suit the sculpt itself. For the overtly sculpted elements like the Trail Shaper’s rifle butt, which looks like a stylised Kroot head, it was important not to overwork those textures as they need to work with the sculpt.
The meat carried by the Kroot Trail Shaper has a little Imperial Aquila tattoo painted on it, to expand the narrative, while the Flesh Shaper has red quills painted with the blood of its prey and red leather to reinforce his role in Kroot society. Details like this elevate the believability and the story of the miniatures and are a great way to add a personal touch to your characters.
Thanks, Max. The Kroot Hunting Pack will be available to pre-order tomorrow.
*Or four in the case of some of pack.