Return of My Living Dead

Howdy all,

I have finally finished up the zombies I had started on ages ago. (see here) They had been pretty much painted up but I was never happy with the way they looked and never got around to surfacing their bases. The solution seems to have been a couple of different colored washes and a little garden fill dirt from the landscaping at work.

The first step was to dull down the awful whitish green "mint ice cream" cream color they had dried to. This was accomplished by a couple layers of brown wash. Not only did this seem to darken up the flesh, but it also darkened up the blood and made it look less like Hollywood "ketchup".

Next, I gave the bases a good painting with an uneven mix of brown and grey that hadn't been completely mixed together, producing a mottled, dirty pavement effect. While this was still partially wet, I sprinkled dirt grabbed from the landscaping at work. The little particles of this and that in the dirt gave the ground a nice debris littered effect that looked like a nice neutral mix of urban decay and scattered leaves. On a couple of bases, I experimented with signs cut from paper, but this didn't work out well, so I won't go into that too far.

The final step was to apply a black wash to the whole deal - figure and base. This worked with the previous brown wash on the figure to create deeper shades. On the bases it really worked nicely and soaked into some of the dirt in uneven patches that looked like oil stains and scorch marks.

The figures were finally sealed to lock on the gritty surfacing material on the base. I had to apply a couple of layers of flat sealing spray but that seems to have gone a bit glossy on me. Still, they look nice.

I now have an updated set of the All Things Zombie rules and am thinking of picking up the Undead States of America rules as well. These figs should serve me well enough for starters. I have to say that there is a certain satisfaction in having turned old "rubish" miniatures that were languishing in my collection, never to be used again, into something that I can see myself using. Sure, I could have bought new zombie figures. But this was very fun and fulfilling and I even learned a thing or two along the way.

Hope you had fun,

-Eli