Im having a hard time picking what colors to paint my Leviathan tyranids. Most people recognize Leviathan as being purple, however, official paint guides and 'eavy metal box arts often lean burgundy, but sometimes are purple or pink.
I sampled the dark, mid and highlights of several Tyranid box arts hoping to find some answer, but it seems most of them lean closer to burgundy. In Space Marine 2, most Leviathan Tyranids seem to be this color as well. The most recent (Leviathan) Tyranid refreshes and releases are burgundy leaning, however...
Older Leviathan models and box arts depicted their shells as purple, and not burgundy. Only some newer models are still mostly purple these days. Additionally, the majority (but not all!) official Leviathan codex art depicts them as purple.
I also painted one gaunt as (mostly community art) Leviathan purple one side and (mostly box art) Leviathan burgundy on the other, but this didnt help much either, to be honest. The official GW gaunt is burgundy, however it seems the majority of Leviathan Tyranid players actually lean closer to the purple appearance.
In an official GW interview with the painters, they said its because of the shell thickness (shells becoming pinker as it becomes thinner), however the examples given are fundamentally different colors than the explanation provided (i.e. most shells are closer to red and some shells are closer to blue) but the consistency is all over the place. The official answer is that GW is aware of the difference, but that they want Leviathan armies to look inconsistent on purpose to provide a more 'organic' feeling visually.
However... I am not happy with this. The visuals are too different, at least in my attempt, to try to host them in the same army for me to be okay with.
I know some will say 'just pick the color that you want' but I want a color that GW would actually confirm as being the most accurate, or at least the most likely to remain long term for Leviathan. It seems they're leaning closer to pink-red-burgundy with newer releases, but that might change over time.
Edit; Im getting a lot of comments overestimating how 'serious' Im taking this. The truth is, I just like analyzing the colors! Im aware its actually quite silly, but Ive not seen it talked about yet in the community. This is not a super-serious post, but sonething I would like to get the Hive Mind's feedback on regardless.
Edit 2: Its very possible GW will continue with the wine-colored burgundy for Leviathan for the foreseeable future, and this will become the new community 'default' over time. Thus splitting them into two main colors; Retro-Leviathan (purple) and Modern-Leviathan (burgundy). Kind of like what happened to Hive Fleet Hydra's blue black carapace shells variations with Hydra taking on a darker appearance in official capacity.