Zombie Characters/Bosses (Tengu stuff added 22/03/2011)

[cheetor]

I have been putting some more figures together to function as "bosses" or zombie "characters" in games.  In addition to painting the usual hordes of regular guys I find that painting a few to look slightly different to the rest is a nice change.  It also allows me to tie in other interests, such as computer games and movies to my painting, which I find encourages me to be more productive.

I find that the light where I live makes photography at this time of year a bit difficult, so apologies for the slightly "washed out", dodginess of the shots.

Anyway, below are a four figures that I completed a week or so ago.






This big (thats a GW 40mm base) guy, (known as "Mr Bajingo" in my house) is a Helldorado figure that I spotted on another thread here some time ago.  On a recent trip to Paris I decided to track the figure down.  I dont own that many miniatures that I genuinely regard as horrific and somewhat disturbing, but this guy and the guy below (Mr Hoo-Hoo) definitely count.






You dont need a PHD in Freudian analysis to see whats going on with this guy.  In fact, my wife encouraged me to colour the figures "mouth" look a little more like female genitalia , in the interests of making the emotional impact of such a repulsive figure a little more substantial (and before anyone asks no, I did not base any elements of the scheme on any parts of my wife ). I dont know if it worked but I do like the figure (if "like" is the right term).  Those Helldorado figures can be quite sinister.


I recently also felt the need to paint up some female zombies like the "Witches" in Left 4 Dead and the "Screamer" in House of the Dead: Overkill.  Basically they are zombie versions of the creepy kid from The Ring movie.





I normally go for a bruised purplish flesh tone for my zombies.  In order to help these figures to stand out from the horde I gave them a grey flesh tone.  In addition to that he rest of the colour scheme is also roughly based on the colours used for the L4D Witches.  As they usually wear nothing but underwear I had to use a little license to extrapolate the scheme but I am pleased enough with it.  Speaking of underwear, I just realised that I never painted the underwear on the figure shown above.  Oops.  I will get back to it over Xmas.





I also based the two witches on square GW bases.  Again, this is an effort to make the figures distinct from regular vanilla zombies.

I hope to get my Frothers Pro-Am competition figs soon.  They will probably be my next foray into zombie "character" painting Id say.


(I didnt reailse that this post was going to involve so many references to underwear and their contents before I wrote it.  It wasnt the original intention, but we are all grown ups here, right?  I dont think that I crossed any etiquette boundaries did I?  Probably just being paranoid)

Comments & criticisms encouraged as usual


Edit: I went back over the bloodier areas on the figures above to make them look a little less ketchup-y, based on comments in this thread.

[NurgleHH]

I like your skincolour, but I prefer round bases. I think GW Bases are to high...

[TheMightyFlip]

I like the skin tone, hair and clothing, but the sheer amount of red spoils it for me.

[cheetor]

I like the skin tone, hair and clothing, but the sheer amount of red spoils it for me.

Believe it or not I used to be very sparing with the amount of red on my zombies.  Recently however, I have changed my approach. So much so in fact that I have gone back and painted a lot more gore on older zombie figures too.

I originally avoided using that much red because it always reminds me of teenage boys starting out painting figures.  They seem to regularly go for very bloody GW Chaos armies, complete with impaled guys on the bonnets of vehicles etc.  It can often be a bit too adolescent for my tastes.  That put me off painting gore on miniatures for nearly twenty years actually.  But I changed my mind recently.

It was from playing more zombie computer games recently that I decided that my zombies were in fact not bloody enough: they tended to look pasty and a little dried out.  I appreciate that the very bloody, 28 Days Later/Resident Evil look it isnt to everyones taste however

I like your skincolour, but I prefer round bases. I think GW Bases are to high...

I also prefer round bases but I used the square ones to help to distinguish the witches from the regular zombies. 

As for the base height, I absolutely agree.  Its just that at this stage I have so many figures on slot bases that I choose to keep using them for convenience as much as anything else.  If I was starting my figure stuff all over again I would definitely consider another base type.

Thanks to both of you for your comments

[Gunbird]

Perhaps a dab of Devlan Mud wash over the red? Your blood looks like that gushing from my finger today ( saw slipped at work, fingers in way, it happens, plenty of snow to cool the wounds though) aka very fresh, but the bodies already seem rather drained. A bit more like this perhaps?



Mind you, I can't paint 28mm to save my life, so take my comments with a little salt  But I sure do love (in a disturbing  kind of way) those bosses!

[cheetor]

Perhaps a dab of Devlan Mud wash over the red? Your blood looks like that gushing from my finger today ( saw slipped at work, fingers in way, it happens, plenty of snow to cool the wounds though) aka very fresh, but the bodies already seem rather drained.

The blood on the figures does look both fresh and possibly a bit too red.  I tried a few different ways to tone it down using inks but didnt quite get the rich red that I was looking for when I did that (although the colour reproduction in the photo has exaggerated the redness in the colour a little bit). 

In particular the contrast on the paler witch figures may be a bit too stark. I will tweak the approach the next time I paint something similar and see what I come up with.

A bit more like this perhaps?

I love your mutilated cattle.  I presume that they are for an alien invasion game or similar.  Do you have any more photos?

Thanks for the feedback.

[Gunbird]

Certainly: http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=14602.0

But they are not mutilated....well, I do suppose artillery shells and shock waves mutilate too. They are just scenic pieces for WW2 and later games, there should be 3 more somewhere next year in a slightly more gutted version.

Having said that, your idea is pretty interesting. With a lot of modern troops in progress I do suppose adding a few aliens should be no problem.....not that there are many in 20mm, though I still have this one.


(I seriously need to update the bases of my older work to blend in more with my current kit)

[Commander Vyper]

I like the skin tone, hair and clothing, but the sheer amount of red spoils it for me.

Yup too fresh to be from their wounds and alittle too bright for a recent kill too. tcr is your friend if you use purples and blacks in th mix.

The Commander

[AKULA]

Yep, black, purple (or brown) mixed in with the TCR, gives more of a clotted, congealed look to your gore.

 

[Commander Vyper]

Yep, black, purple (or brown) mixed in with the TCR, gives more of a clotted, congealed look to your gore.

 

Yes AND brown, and even blue and green too.

(Alright Matt long time no whatsit!  L4D2....lots of good ideas there for scenery, must tell Ian ).

[manic _miner]

 Very nice painting.The Helldorado miniatures are a very good choice for Zombie bosses.

 Where is the Alien miniature from?

[Gunbird]

Alien > http://www.hlbs.co.uk/product.php?id=594

[HerbyF]

I use a dark cherry or black cherry color for my zombie blood. Giving it a old tainted or toxic blood look. Very nice fugures BTW.

[Darkoath]

I love the miniatures... I have those Helldorado figures myself and plan to use them as zombie bosses too.  Also the bright and fresh blood looks good to me... especially if it is on the hands and face, around the mouth... it makes the zombie look like it has just torn apart and eaten a survivor!  I agree that the blood from the zombies itself would look better with TCR mixed with black or brown.

Darkoath

[cheetor]

I love the miniatures... I have those Helldorado figures myself and plan to use them as zombie bosses too.  Also the bright and fresh blood looks good to me... especially if it is on the hands and face, around the mouth... it makes the zombie look like it has just torn apart and eaten a survivor!  I agree that the blood from the zombies itself would look better with TCR mixed with black or brown.

Although citing any notion of "realism" in the context of zombies is of course fraught with problems, I did go for a fresh blood with a vague notion of it being either from the zed being reasonably fresh or from the zed having recently bitten a survivor. 

Additionally, assuming the zombies actually contain any liquid form of blood (Max Brooks amongst others think not, yet in many ways the explosion of blood from a zombie headshot defines the genre IMO) then a lot of it would feasibly be evident from wounds caused during the zombies rather clumsy day to day activities I reckon.  Also, assuming that the zombie is fresh, the blood from the injuries that actually infected the zombie could be the source.

Using the same blood tones regardless of varying flesh tones is a short cut: presumably different stages of decay would show different stages of "wetness" and so on.

Of course, rather than basing my painting colour choices on pseudo-science, perhaps I actually just enjoyed ladling large quantities of  red paint of over the figures

I painted a whole lot of zombies over the years with a lot more understated bloody areas and I was unhappy with the somewhat dried out appearance that it gave them.  I possibly went a little bit too far in making these guys "wetter", even though I enjoyed the process quite a lot.  Its a lot more "freeform" than most of the pernickity figure painting processes that I use.

Making the blood look like it comes from a couple of sources might both break up the brightness and be more "realistic".  I have seen people use TCR as a matter of course for this but I have never had/used any of my own.  In all honesty, I am sceptical of its "magic bullet for zombie blood" reputation as I have seen some examples that didnt look right to me at all.  Nonetheless, I bought a pot to try it out due to the feedback on this thread.  Hopefully I will get around to trying it soon.

Thanks to everyone who gave their honest opinions, suggestions and compliments.  Its why I posted the photos up in the first place