So what color is Grav?

[Stoobert]

I think it's more-or-less usually somewhat true that Plasma is green.

But what color is Grav, in particular the glowy parts I might want to paint on the Gravgun and whatnot?  I've googled and gotten nothing conclusive.  Since OFCC is better than Google anyway, I am kicking myself for not asking here first.

What say ye all?

[WestRider]

I almost always see Plasma as bluish white. I did green for my Grav Cannon, just because of the alliteration.

[Ish]

Plasma tends to be bluish or greenish, depending on what will work best with the rest of the model’s paint job.

I don’t think gravguns have an “official” color... 

[Stoobert]

Wait plasma is blue?  Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

[Ish]

Usually, but it’s not uncommon to see green. It’s more about whatever will look better visually. 

Thats why Luke’s lightsaber changed colors.

[Guest]

Agree with Ish above.

Some players try to keep their color count down. So Helmet eyes, energy cables, and plasma mine all share the same color just because it's easier to paint them all one color. Helps make the army have continuity, especially if plasma isn't common in your army.

I've also seen plasma more red/yellow/orange if they are trying to make the plasma look "hot." Saw a good conversion a while back where they used the missile launcher open hand to have the marine using their hand to shield themselves from the heat of plasma gun. I'm pretty sure they used a red/yellow/orange firey color for their plasma gun. A good funny pose for a marine.

As for your science answer. I have no idea, but I'd argue that GW also has no idea. It's just paint on a fictional model. And it might not be actual "plasma" just something they're calling plasma in the 41st millenium. There's a lot of misinformation in the 40k setting, choose what works for you.

For plasma, I tend to think of that area of glow as a heat sink. So instead of it glowing, you could also paint it metalic to represent a heat sink. Your army, your fiction. Decide how you think Grav works and then paint accordingly.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ish said:

Plasma tends to be bluish or greenish, depending on what will work best with the rest of the model’s paint job.

I don’t think gravguns have an “official” color... 

I've seen GW paint them green, but I think it's more that the other colors are taken, and less about that being the decided color.

[Ish]

I seem to recall green plasma coils being more prominent on studio models in the Eighties and Nineties,  but then blue seemed to become more commonplace in the mid- to late-Nineties. Probably because of Doom.

They’re your toy soldiers, paint them whatever looks good. 

[Stoobert]

Ok, phew, then I get to keep my plasma green and be old skool. 

I think Grav is purple.  So there.

[WestRider]

Out of curiosity, I went and looked up some stuff about plasma. Turns out it can appear in essentially any colour, depending on what element(s) predominate in it. Hence why Plasma-screen TVs can actually work for full colour, for example. Plasmas with energy levels high enough to weaponize would tend to be blue-white simply due to their black-body radiation, but, as I said, could vary pretty much freely depending on what you're turning into plasma.

[Ish]

Plus, if you reverse the polarity of the neutron flow through the dilithium chamber as it enters the flux capacitor, that will cause a reaction on the quantum level inside the event horizon of the khyber crystals...

...and that’s why my toy soldiers have yellow lasers that go pting! pting! instead of blue lasers that go pew! pew!

[IamTheHuman]

In pretty much every game I've ever played, any "gravity" gun is pretty much purple. Gravity spells in FF type games are usually black or a dark blueish purple with white "stars" and such. So, go with a kick ass purple with maybe some cool particle effects in it? Like a galaxy.

[Ish]

That makes as much sense as anything... Plus, putting on my Star Trek nerd technobabble hat, it would make sense that a gravity weapon would probably have some kind of localized high density gravity field, which would distort light. Blue shifting it towards the violet end of the spectrum...