Zombie hordes keep on growin'

Over the weekend I posted a surprise update to the painting challenge. I thought I was done when I submitted the gladiators and instantly dreaded the 1500 point target I'd just set as the next goal. Turns out it wasn't that hard to beat after all. 1 early morning, 4 episodes of Arrow and a truck load of undercoated zombies. This first photo was what I submitted on Sunday. 65 zombies... that little lot is all of the zombies from the normal Zombicide Season 1 box, plus one spare berserk walker that I found on the painting table.

The next photo contains every zombie painted up for the challenge this year, which is a mere 92. Shame I didn't quite breach the 100. Still, it is an impressive feat.

To put it into perspective though, this is the entire horde. This is everything from the Season 2 kickstarter* and the standard Season 1 box. That totals to 78 normal walkers, 20 normal walkers, 21 toxic walkers, 32 normal runners, 10 toxic runners, 10 berserk runners, 16 fatties, 5 toxic fatties, 5 berserk fatties, 3 normal abominations, 2 toxic abominations and 2 berserk abominations. 204 zombies in total. Fear for your life if you ever see even a portion of that on the board in one go (unless you managed to herd them all into one square to firebomb)

* minus the zombie dogs, which I still need to partially resculpt to hide the gaping peg hole in their chests.

Yes, that is one lone full colour Abomination in there. I needed a flesh golem for Strange Aeons. I like the imposing look he has int he middle of that horde though, so I am tempted to go back and paint up the other abominations as full colour now, just to make them *really* stand out on the board and be terrifying.

The scary thing is I still have some unopened Walk of the Dead boxes to bulk up the Toxic and Berserk hordes a bit; plus we have season 3 landing soon. So that horde you see there is going to nearly double in size! I'd better get working on those survivors so there is someone to save the world.

Now to work out what colours to use for Skinners and Seekers so they remain B&W with one spot colour. I wasn't that keen on the preview of the VIP rules, so I suspect those will just become additional standard zombies in funny outfits.

Season 2 zombies...

This little horde is the remainders of the Berzerk zombies (25), with two toxics that I'd found in the bottom of a box. These mark the end of all the Season 2 zombies. With Season 3 delivery looming, it's quite a relief to have this lot done, even if it did kill my drybrush. The poor thing is a tiny, worn down stump of a thing, useful only for weathering powders now.

Last night's entries (some Russians and these zombies) to the Painting Challenge saw me manage to breach the second points goal this year and exceed last year's total, so I'm now staring at a 1500 point goal. With under a month left on the painting challenge and various uncompleted projects still floating around, I can't decide which thing to work on next... finish the gladiators, finish the Not-Ogryns, start the second War of the Roses force for Lion Rampant, or start on the fantastic Vikings my mystery Secret Santa sent.

Alternatively... Not sure if you remember, but way back in the dim distant past, I traded my painted season 1 set with a friend when I decided to go from full colour zombies to this black and white version. This means I have another 65 zombies sat around waiting to be painted (if you don't count the extra boxes of Toxics and Berzerkers).

Toxic-city

After a sudden spurt of activity (and a fair bit of tedium) last weekend I managed to finish off the Toxic zombie borde. Rather than showing just the new additions, I've taken shots of all the toxics... but the new additions include 9 walkers and 6 runners

Speed painting

It seems that when you're on a roll, you can do quite a bit of work in 2 hours and a larger brush!

The other day I broke down the list of remaining zombies (see right) into their respective types to see what I need to work on. The answer is actually quite a lot still, sadly. So in order to give myself a little boost, last night I decided to try and finish some of the smaller groups.

We have the two Berserker Abominations ready to kill and maim.

The second Toxic abomination is now also finished, which means all my abominations are now finished

Finally we have the last three toxic fatties

Making things more toxic

Well, Season 3's kickstarter gets going tonight, so I'd better get a move on if I want to finish all these here zombies before more turn up. I should start a zombie/survivor counter to keep me on track...

It was pointed out last time I posted some toxic zombies that they were too subtle to stand out in a crowd, so the green has been brightened up to an offensive level with some VGC Foul Green (which really is offensively green btw) and toned down a little with some GW Athonian Camoshade wash. While I preferred the old colours, they were too tricky to spot quickly, so this is the next best thing. They are still the trickiest of the zombies to spot so far, but it's better.

I also found a rager fattie buried under the painting table clutter that I'd missed basing last time

We also have three more survivors finished to cull the growing hordes

More zombies

I've finally finished a few more zombies. We have three normal, one rage and one toxic fatty as well as another standard Abomination. The Rage zombies stand out from the crowd with the red splashes, but I'm still not sure if the Toxic zombie with the green elements stands out enough.

The Toxic colour started out as just the new GW pus technical paint, but it's too pale and doesn't really stand out, so I have tried adding some very bright green blobs on the blisters and a green wash over the top of that to blend it in a bit. I think I need to see more of them done in this style before I can see if it works properly...

The zombies are haunting a graveyard... surrounding two future updates

Quick Zombie recipie

So yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that I didn't like where the zombies were going. Today I can happily say that an evening's work has rectified some of the problems and I now have 8 finished and another 4 nearly finished.

 

This lack of decent lighting setup (and a dead battery this morning) is killing me, but  you get the idea behind this lot anyway. The main tactic for these is going to be block colours, followed by multiple different coloured washes to give the right tones.

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.

I think now I've got that all worked out, I can try working my way through the rest of the horde!

The missing gaps represent models that are on the painting table; the right column contains the bonus model that I get to do once I have finished a row of zombies.Wish me luck!