Week 19: Zombie mini-horde

Whilst I appreciate that zombies are supposed to travel around in massive packs, everyone has to start somewhere. I have started by own zombie horde with a modest collection of 10 zombies. Even the most generous person would be stretching a point to call 10 a horde, but these are the first ever zombies I have painted so please give me a little latitude.

These guys are a mixture of empire militia and zombie models. I opted to go for grey as a skin colour because I thought that this would give me the most contrast and in my own head I thought it would look the least like they were still alive. I wanted a fairly uniform look to the clothing and so decided to try and limit this to three colours only; cream, green and a muddy brown. I hoped that this might unite the figures even though I am going to try for lots of different figure shapes to make them look less like a ranked unit and more like a rough mass of bodies.

The problem is that looking back at the figures they look a little too happy and cheerful. I think it is the cream colour that does this. In hindsight a dark blue or red would have done better. Oh well, you live and learn (or not if you are zombies).

As is normal I have combined figures onto bases to make setting up easier. I couldn't decide what to do with the eyes. I wanted them to have no life whatsoever, and so have gone forward with a dark circle, but I may go make and give them actual eyes in the future.

WIP: A Zombie shambles

I cannot put it off any longer. I need to knock together about 50 (ish) zombies for two lists. I have been putting them off for a while because I am not a fan of the figures that GW have and was hoping for some kind of inspiration.

Its fair to say that that spark of Genius never came, so its out with the plastic glue and a short time later 10 zombies are on the shelf ready for painting.

I have used combined bases as much as possible because it will make placement and casualty removal easier. The four chaps above are on a base from the Bretonnian peasant archers set. Whilst the chaps below are just on a pair of bases glued to the same magnetic strip. 

I have used a combination of zombie and empire militia sprues to make the figures, but this is where some of my problems have arisen. I was very much aware of the oversize hand issue with the zombie parts. What I was not aware of was just how much bigger the empire figures are than the zombies. If you try to put a empire torso on a zombie pair of legs, do it with caution, it might look a little daft. Hence the fact that I took the legs back off one guy to make him look a little better.

Week 18: The grave has a guard

The previous week was a disaster with only shields to show for a weeks effort, so this week I am pleased to report that I have managed to finish a complete unit of figures....

The colour scheme has been chosen to match units of skeletons that I have already completed. This means green, green and more green. I opted to keep the greens on the shields and the clothing quite dark with little in the way of highlights. The reason for this is that I wanted the swords to stand out a little.  

The grave guard wights weapons are magical and have killing blow. I have an awfull memory when playing the game, so I wanted some simple way of reminding myself of these properties. I started with a blue colour, but this did not look "undead" enough for the look I wanted. I therefore tried green, but was concerned that they would just get lost in the look of the unit. 

I may yet gloss varnish the swords to make them shine more...

The standard has been taken from an Ogre unit. I just didn't like the grave guard standard and wanted something which had size and a ragged look. The problem with this standard is that it needed raising quite a lot otherwise it just would not rank. I have used a stiff paper clip for this after the first attempt with using plastic standard posts glued together failed.