The end of the world show

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With Season 2 of Zombicide incoming very soon, I thought it was about time I got around to painting up Season 1 as we can also use them all for 7ombieTV as well. As I'm in the middle of moving house, progress will be slow, so my apologies for any slow progress, or less than clear photos. Hopefully this (and any other threads) will pick up a bit when I finally get a proper gaming room of my own. I suspect this one will be the slowest thread to grow as the zombies will be done between other things, to prevent burnout occurring as I think there will be in excess of 250 zombies of differing types to paint when the next shipment arrives in September!

First up we've our first survivor, Sandy (from Hasslefree's Post-Apocalyptic gang). The others are in the painting mountain somewhere.



He's a bit grumpy as the apocalypse has made it harder to chill out with a giant sandwich; the van broke down and had to be abandoned somewhere back on the M4 and these darn zombies won't stop following them!

Speaking of zombies, here are the first few in very much a WIP state




I'm currently not all that happy with them. I was attempting to find a quick way of painting them that didn't involve block colours and a wash of devlan mud, but they are just coming out looking a bit... odd. I'll try and clean them up tonight and see if they look any better, otherwise it is back to the drawing board. Eventually all the zombies will be based on clear acrylic like Sandy so they can also be used in standard 7TV and in some cases IHMN and strange aeons (all of which will get separate threads when I get that far).

As for some other examples of what I've done recently, I won't clog up this thread with off topic stuff, I'll just leave this link here.

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Ok, after yesterday's disappointment with the progress, I managed to get a bunch that look much better. I'm still not 100% happy, but given the number of zombies that I will eventually need to paint I think fast and easy is better than perfect. It's not as if they are going to be on the table long enough to be a centrepiece or anything.



The main DOH! moment was forgetting to varnish them before putting them onto the clear bases and applying gloss varnish to the gore *face/palm*. I suspect some careful application of masking tape the bases is in order at the weekend, otherwise these guys will get trashed quite quickly.

[Argonor]

I'm about to reanimate my long-sleeping z-project (aboput 150 Zeds to paint), and I would very much like to see a breakdown of your fast painting method - maybe I can use some of your ideas.

My first thought was to block and wash, too, to get a lot of Zeds done in a minimum of time, but I still would like to hear other takes on the subject. 

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I've gone for a semi-block and wash method. Rather than solid blocks of colour, I've started with a white undercoat and used slightly thinned paint so it starts to create a bit of colour variation. Be careful about thinning too much as it will end up looking really chalky or patchy. When applying the washes I also tend not to apply it all over, but apply it to where shading or colour tones need to be.

For example, the black trousers start off dark grey and get a black wash all over, with things like the knees wiped off before it dries. This gives a fairly basic shadow/highlight and generally darkens the whole thing. Then the knees and the bottom parts of the trousers get a secondary wash of brown for staining and makes it look a little more realistic.

The skin is a base coat of VMC Deck Tan mixed with a bit of white as this gives quite a pale, lifeless skin tone to start with. A 50/50 mix of black wash and devlan mud is then carefully painted into the eye sockets, mouth and any dark places like under the hands.  Next up thin lines of devlan mud are painted around some of the muscles, between the fingers and where skin meets clothing to provide some shadowy contrasts and remove the general flatness to things. By this point you'll be thinking that it's going to be looking a bit too healthy for a zombie and you'd be correct. This is where some careful application of purple and green washes to the eyes and cheeks start to bring an unhealthy glow back to the show. We can even add some bruising with a few dots of purple, green and black to the skin.

Once the base model is done, it's time to apply the blood. I've seen people splatter blood all over the place, but I like to be in more control, so I'm stippling on some VMA Hull Red first as this is a nice dark, dried on blood colour. As it is intended to be used in an airbrush it's about half way between a wash and normal Vallejo paint consistency, so on dark clothing it stains, but still allows some of the base colour to shine through; which is perfect. Over the top of this we then stipple a slightly smaller amount of Scab Red for some slightly fresher blood. Once you've varnished them (which I stupidly forgot to do last night before basing them on the acrylic), paint a bit of gloss varnish over some of the fresher blood for that extra wet gore feel.

[Argonor]

OK, nice breakdown, thanks!

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The zombie horde is starting to grow. I think doing these in batches of no more than 4 at a time seems to be working as there's less time to become disheartened by how many there are left.




And here's the full thing together. It's starting to look quite daunting for the survivors...