Undead Army Painting

[toxicpixie]

Not all zombies are human... Blue skinned elves, green skinned orcs, and as for clothes perhaps several were landsknects in their previous life... Let them dress like peacocks, for tomorrow they will die! And come back from the grave looking like a massacre in a peacock sanctuary...

[Matt J]

definitely blood and gore. I mix red paint with brown ink. Gives a dirty blood colour that has a bit of gloss to it. Apply liberally.
Got plenty of modern zombies on the painting board at the mo, I like zombies 

[cra1gwt]

Thanks all for the excellent Zombie advice - I'll have a go at them when I next sit down with them!

In the meantime, the promised photos:


The skeletal main battle-line - three regiments infantry, one regiment bows, and two squadrons of cavalry.


A rather more experimental photography close-up, to try and show some more of the detail (I think I'm slowly getting the hand of this photo-posting business!)

[Techno]

Great stuff ! 
Cheers - Phil

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very cool  8)units!

[toxicpixie]

Lovely stuff! Coming on really quickly

How're you finding the dry brushing & painting on bases technique - well, from the look ?

[Ric]

Looking great mate, can wait to see them in the flesh... :p your dry brush highlights are spot on - comfort zone be dammed!

[cra1gwt]

Hi all, and thanks for all the kind words!

I have to say, toxicpixie, that the dry-brushing actually went surprisingly well!  I had a fair bit of advice from Ric to see me through it, but basically the Undead are remarkably fast to do in this way.  The undercoat, shade, highlight process is very swift and after the last odds & ends like brown for spears or metal for swords, I actually found myself staring at them, thinking "I can't be finished already!"

Of course, I've still got the bases to do, which may be a whole different story!  The skeletal undead do give quite a bit of space to work around, but I expect there'll still be a bit of struggling to fit in between gaps with a brush.  My normal basing method is to roughly PVA the base and cover with sand to dry, then tip off the excess.  I then repeat with an even sparser PVA-ing and add some grass, then turn the base upside-down and give it a few taps to shake off the excess, and make the grass stand upright.  It has worked well enough for me in the past, so I was planning to repeat it here.  I'll need to have a think about what brush I'm prepared to sacrifice to all that PVA, while I work into the narrow gaps!   

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I have a shot 2 and a dead 00 for that job!

[toxicpixie]

I use pretty much the exact same method, and have a series of increasingly knackered brushes to do it with. The advantage of never throwing anything away...

Can be tricky though, with big dense units, but most of the PVA and sand splatter can be wiped off quick or passes for mud and muck at gaming distance, I find.

That said I did do my Italian Wars pike on painting sticks this time round, then glued them on in ranks, sand & PVA the base around the rank, glue next rank on, sand & PVA etc. Worked well, if a bit slower than my usual "stick to base > paint > base effect" process.

And back to the actual thread point, the techniques come up good, cra1gwt! Kudos to you and Ric - and once more I have army creep and fancy some undead, some orc/goblins and some dwarves, for randomness I'm thinking Northern Crusades, Teutonic Dwarves, Slavic-Baltic green skin hordes, The Kiev Undead...

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I also have a 'dry' 2 that is used for removing excess sand and/or flock.

[FierceKitty]

The title of this thread always puts me in mind of a zombie sweatshop.

[Ric]

Craig, if you don't want to waste a brush you could always use a cocktail stick to spread the glue around..I've used that before as the length of it is handy and the point can be used for tight spots!

It's great how quick we've put these armies together, and without a doubt, this has rekindled my enthusiasm for fantasy, ive planned out armies for wood elves, dwarves and orcs already!

[Wulf]

Your photos remind me of my own hassles trying to decide whether to base first or paint in ranks. Base first and the innter faces of the two ranks suffer a less satisfactory paint job, while basing one rank then painting makes it harder to get that intervening space decently based...

Nice result in your pics though. I have to have another go...

[cra1gwt]

I can definitely see Ric and I winding up - almost by accident - with a selection of fantasy 10mm armies each, battling over some fantasy continent.  These projects always tend to grow legs once they get going! 

Anyway, basing should happen this weekend, but for now - here's a pic of the banners and shields.  Hope it comes through, but basically I went for a deep-purple base and then put on a sort of electric-blue highlight, as I thought it looked nice and also implied something of the evil magic keeping them active!