Zombicide: Black Plague - A Project Summary

It's done!

A lineup of all survivors I have painted so far for Zombicide: Black Plague.

Confession: the box isn't entirely painted... I still need to paint Clovis and 2 walkers, but I have painted another 6 survivors and a bunch of extra zombies to make up for it.

Okay, it's done enough!

 After starting on June 17th, the following tiny people and (mostly) tiny monsters have been painted:

  • 77 Zombies
  • 2 Abominations
  • 1 Wolfbomination
  • 1 Abominatroll
  • 1 Necromancer
  • 1 Grin Necromancer
  • 1 Tank survivor
  • 2 Archer survivors
  • 2 Mage survivors
  • 1 Searching survivor
  • 5 Melee survivors

That is a total of 94 miniatures in 49 days. Quite an incredible number for a slow painter. 

So! Let's do some lessons learned!

Mould lines are a complete pain. And they should be destroyed with the utmost certainty. What I came to realize over the course of this project is that you should not be afraid to ruin a miniature when shaving the mould lines off. Because if you don't shave them off, then you will ruin your miniature. This brings me to my next point... 

Zombicide miniatures are not the best quality. There's a very good reason the game only costs $100 when it has 71 miniatures. In fact, you can frequently find it for under $1 per figure. The insane number of miniatures in the kickstarter brought that we'll below $0.50 per mini. Mould lines, mushy details, and even 1mm gaps were unfortunately prevalent. 

Do not rapidly base coat 70 miniatures with your favorite brush. It will be ruined. You will be sad.

A schedule helps push through bigger batches. Seriously, knowing that I had until August 6th to get everything painted helped. In my painting journal, I broke down the desired results into smaller batches. I then constantly evaluated (a 30 second evaluation daily) if I was going to be able to meet the goal. It helped me stay motivated quite a few times when I didn't want to paint another &#%@ing zombie.

It was a true struggle to get to the end on the zombies, but I'm glad I did.

Contrast is king. I tried to amp up the contrast on a number of the survivors and produced some of my best work on a very short time table. This partially meant going old-school and embracing washes again.  I would generally base coat, apply a heavy wash, then re-base and highlight up at least 3 shades.  This produced 5 real shades.  I did also try shading with layers on some of the more flowy cloaks.

Probably the best way to wrap up is a gallery of more detailed shots of survivors.  It was a cool project, and was fun to play with my sister-in-law and her husband.  Perhaps the best thing I can say about Zombicide is that I will be backing the next release the day it is available.

Airbrush School

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Experts are great.

Even better than experts are experts who share their knowledge.

Gamer's Haven has one of those experts. The humble master of painting, Mike.

On Saturday, he offered a hands-on airbrushing course, and I was lucky enough to go. The only requirement was that you were to bring your own larger model to paint. Generally, this means a Warhammer 40,000 vehicle. 

The only large miniatures I have are some Infinity remotes, and the crazy Abominations of the Zombicide Kickstarter.

Friday night I hastily primed the Abominatroll and Wolfbomination. The Abominatroll is a crazy, humongous monster, complete with armpit hair. The Wolfbomination is a bit more tame, looking more like a large wolf. 


The Abominatroll from the Zombicide Black Plague Zombie Bosses Abomination Pack. Complete with longest title ever.

The Abominatroll from the Zombicide Black Plague Zombie Bosses Abomination Pack. Complete with longest title ever.

After teaching us the basics of airbrushing, Mike turned us loose with the 2 airbrushes that he brought. I started with the Abominatroll, and per Mike's recommendation, started highlighting him with straight white.

I found this to be difficult to control. It didn't produce the smooth transition I had hoped for, but it did produce a transition. Honestly, the model didn't look great. The white spattered in spots, making the giant Troll look like he had run through a grey polkadot factory. The highlighted areas didn't make much sense. Plenty of folks cane over to give the "eew, you paint d it like that?!" look while smiling awkwardly. By all accounts, it was a failure.

The Abominatroll after final touches were applied.

Onward to the next mini to mess up, the Wolfbomination! Starting with a dark brown, I base coated most of the Wolfbomination, creating some shading. I then switched out to a medium brown and highlighted the face and other raised areas. Unfortunately, the paint I used had a glossy finish to it, but I think those efforts will look great once hit with the matte varnish. The entire process took less than 10 minutes.

The Abominatroll with Grin and Scowl from the Zombicide: Black Plague kickstarter.

Leaving the Haven defeated, I faced the reality that it was not possible to ruin the Abominatroll further. Once I got home, I started slapping a purple wash all over him. And he started, miraculously, to look more interesting. The wash helped make the shading look more interesting, and picked out the details.  

The Wolfbomination from Zombicide: Black Plague - Wulfsburg. I plan on doing the next one in a grey-wolf theme instead of the brown.

Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the airbrush layer was so thin that it didn't obscure detail at all. This made washing over the top of it a breeze! There were a few spots that needed some light drybrushing in order to pick out details, such as the underside of the arms. 

The Wolfbomination required less work. I did a light drybrush on his mane to make the details of the hair pop. Otherwise, all highlighting is from the airbrush, and the shading from an application of Quick Shade.

A size comparison between the Wolfbomination and Silas from the Zombicide: Black Plague core box.

So there they are, the poor two minis that were the first to be airbrushed. They shall forever wear their pathetic coloration as a warning for all who yearn to learn about airbrushing.

A Year of Painting

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I almost didn't do this post.

To do it right potentially requires pulling out the camera and taking quality photos of newly painted figures. Honestly, I don't want to stop painting long enough to do that.

The story goes something like this. While we were in Scotland for my brother's wedding I found Sorastro's Painting Guides for Imperial Assault. I had been fooled into buying the Imperial Assault deal on Massdrop, and it had arrived shortly before we left. There was not much literature about IA, and searching for it instead produced a link to Sorastro's guides. 

It only took one watch to know that I wanted to try my hand at painting.

The first Stormtroopers were full of mistakes. You can read about those mistakes here.  

The first Imperial Assault Stormtroopers.  You can see the brown wash used instead of black on them.  Having the correct paint helps.

The droids that followed weren't much better, but they were easy to do. 

These minor improvements continued. Each miniature introduced a new technique to understand and master.

Then Vader was the next figure I wanted to do.  That said, I had zero confidence in my own ability to properly highlight a miniature.  An alternative was needed.  Queue Zombicide!

Zombicide comes with so many miniatures that it was the perfect tool to help get better. Painting half of the zombies and the survivors helped me understand contrast and color theory better. 

The Zombicide survivors are under attack...

Then, "real" miniature games started calling. Infinity was the next game painted, and that phase lasted for a good 8 months and will continue once I have wrapped up Zombicide Black Plague (and possibly RelicBlade as well). There are still hundreds of unpainted Infinity minis. That said, many of my favorite paint jobs have been on the Infinity miniatures.  

All of the Infinity miniatures completed in 2015.

Painting the Corvus Belli sculpts is quite different from painting the Imperial Assault or Zombicide minis. Infinity generally has detail to the extreme, including what could best be described as greebling. The poses aren't as dynamic as I would like, but they generally gave character and style. 

After dabbling in three different factions, the Steel Phalanx of the ALEPH was the force chosen to be focus on.

The first Infinity list, 150 points of Steel Phalanx.

The first Infinity list, 150 points of Steel Phalanx.

This was my first alternative color scheme, and it didn't really hit its stride until about 15 miniatures in. There are a few good miniatures in there and they have a similar theme, but the identity and cohesion I was hoping for never matured in a way that looked great on the table.

Infinity has officially occupied most of my painting time.  I started painting Caledonians in October and continued until June when I took a break for Zombicide: Black Plague. Over 8 months of painting miniatures for the same game.

And now for a sad statistic.  In that 8 months, I only completed 56 figures for my collection. That is nearly 255 days at a rate of a miniature every 4.5 days.

Ouch.

Zombicide: Black Plague has been fun even if the miniatures are a lower quality.  I learned how to airbrush while painting it, and it was like being back at the beginning all over again.

The airbrushed Abominatroll next to Scowl and Grin from the Zombicide Black Plague kickstarter.

The airbrushed Abominatroll next to Scowl and Grin from the Zombicide Black Plague kickstarter.

Man, I am bad at airbrushing right now.  But with practice, and I have a ton of miniatures to practice on, I think it can be an amazing tool in the arsenal.

So there it is.  My year of painting in review.  Honestly, it was all possible because of the magical Sorasto. Please check out his guides and consider sponsoring him on Patreon if you fall in love with the hobby as I have.

Finally, here is a small gallery of how my panting has improved over the year.  Thanks for reading and- to quote Sorastro- happy painting!

Something Like Painting - Zombicide Black Plague Progress

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Wow, what a month it's been painting Black Plague.

Because I think stats are fun, here's what I've accomplished in a month:

  • 64 Zombies (fatties, walkers, and runners)
  • 2 Abominations
  • 1 Necromancer
  • 7 Survivors

74 total miniatures, not bad at all for a slow painter like me!

Here comes the neighborhood...

I must admit, I'm using a cheater version of Sorastro's zombie guide.  I'm not doing anything after applying the varnish, like giving the face a highlight or eye glow.  I do plan on at least adding eye glow at some point, but completing the set is currently more important to me than doing them really well.  Peeps be coming to play, yo!

The first six survivors, with poor lighting. Left to right: Redcap Rodney, Nelly, Ann, Lady Grimm, Cadence, and Baldric.

After knocking out Cadence and Lady Grimm, I decided that I would use the Black Plague survivors to practice cranking up the contrast when painting.  I like how the extra contrast is turning out, particularly on Baldric and Nelly.

I feel like I didn't quite achieve the same level of contrast with Redcap Rodney's skin.  I should have taken the highlights one tone higher, but really just wanted to be done with him.

Ann the nun close-up.

Ann is one of the first miniatures where I feel like the True Metallic Metal (TMM) turned out great.  I love her armor bits. That said, I wish I had cranked up the highlights on her deep blue nun-garb.  It would have made for a more dynamic figure.

Also, this is the first survivor miniature that wasn't very high quality.  Some of the Zombies had problems with literal gaps in their sides, but Ann's face was nearly impossible to find detail in. This made her face near-impossible to get right, and unfortunately I settled for "good enough."

The gold embellishments are not in her character art, but I think they give a great amount of contrast to the figure, and also help me feel better about the choice of a dark blue habit instead of black/grey.

The first Necromancer.

The Necromancer was a good figure to paint. He has a lot of details, and most have enough depth to make painting them easy.

I decided to be brave and practice shading with paint instead of washes on his cloak. I started with a dark gray and shaded down to a black. I then highlighted up to a medium gray in most areas. Unfortunately, I chose to do a fast job instead of a good job, and that leaves some chalky highlights and visible lines. Considering it is a tabletop piece that is okay. However, I am uncertain if I can do a much better job than this.

I love the blue jewel though. It is a great center piece for the figure.

I posted him to the Zombicide reddit hoping for direction on how to make him better.

Finished Silas prior to varnish.

Silas is the most recent completed miniature. He had a significant miscast similar to many of the zombies. Basically, he has a 1mm gap in his right leg. In hindsight, I should have filled the gap in with green stuff and sculpted it to blend smoothly. Then again, he's just tabletop quality.  The folks I play with likely won't care.

For his color palette on the green cloak, I tried using the Android Paint Palette app. It recommend that I use Reaper HD Stained Olive for shading, but when I tried it on the miniature, the green was a dark brown-green.  It looks okay, but if it wasn't an exact tonal match, then I think I would have preferred a cooler dark-green.

His face had similar problems to Ann's. There wasn't clear definition for everything, and that made it difficult to paint.  I tried shading under his huge cheekbones with Agrax Earthshade, and I think the effect works.

There it is! A painted, slightly bastardized Zombicide: Black Plague box. The first play will be in a couple weeks, giving me time to finish more of the Kickstarter zombies and a few additional survivors and necromancers for varied game play. 

 

Something Like Painting - Zombicide Black Plague Start

Opening the Zombicide: Black Plague kickstarter box was truly magical. My 20 month old daughter was my companion for the opening ceremony. After each item we removed, she would utter "awesome" in her most powerful (for a 20 month old) voice. 

The thing is, she wasn't wrong.  

It was awe inspiring. Box after box of miniatures and artwork were pulled out. There was an endless supply of miniatures, both hero and vilian, and we had an incredible time looking through all of them. 

Since that wonderful evening a week and a half ago, I have tried to focus that excitement into painting as much Black Plague as possible. The zombies are the largest portion of the work, and the least exciting. I started with the first nine of the walkers, runners, and fatties. 

The first Zombicide zombies covered in Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade

The first Zombicide zombies covered in Army Painter Strong Tone Quick Shade

The only problem was that I lacked the quick shade, and my FLGS did not have the Strong Tone Quick Shade that I was looking for.

Instead, I started focusing on the first six survivors I wanted to paint. First up were Cadence and Lady Grimm: 

Lady Grimm and Cadence from the Marc Simonetti Guest Box

Lady Grimm and Cadence from the Marc Simonetti Guest Box

Lady Grimm was a bit of an experiment, and the first mini I have painted in less than an hour. I used Army Painter Silver to base her armor. The armor was then covered in a blue shade, hoping that it would give good depth and make the armor look more like steel. Unfortunately, it didn't come out like I hoped. She does have a good amount of depth though, and I think she looks good on the table. 

Cadence is my favorite survivor sculpt out of the many (30+) that came in the Kickstarter. She's dynamic, interesting, and just damn cool. 

Looking at her now, my only regret is that I didn't put more contrast into her face. The Reaper fair skin triad does not produce enough contrast, and I need to start shading down further.

I then moved on to Baldric and Nelly. 

Nelly and Baldric from the Zombicide: Black Plague core set

Nelly and Baldric from the Zombicide: Black Plague core set

I worked on Baldric first, and tried to crank up the contrast by using an excess of wash. It worked really well. I love how his hair and the inner brown robe turned out. The hair is Celestra Grey, blue shader, and then highlights with Celestra Grey and Reaper Ghost White (a white with a hint of blue). The robe is the Reaper Ivory triad with a heavy wash of Army Painter Strong Tone, a brown wash equivalent to Agrax Earthshade. His outer robe is Reaper HD Armor Grey Shaded with Nuln Oil, and highlighted up. The skin is Reaper's Tanned Skin triad.

Honestly, Baldric is an exceptionally easy figure to paint. He looks fine without eyes. His robes have deep grooves to help give him character, and all of the cloth is easy and obvious to highlight.

Side perspective on Nelly and Baldric 

Side perspective on Nelly and Baldric 

Nelly on the other hand is not.  Her arm blocks access to her face. Her sword is flimsy and- even after straightening multiple times using hot water- bent back awkwardly. Her apron, which is whitewhite in the character art, is angled oddly which makes it difficult to highlight.

I tried a few different things with her. Perhaps the most radical was mixing a dark base skin tone. I combined Rakarth Flesh and Mournfang Brown to create a dark rosy skin tone, and base coated the skin (that I could reach) with it. I then created harsh highlights using the Rosy Skin Shadow, and highlighted up appropriately from there.

Her eyes were also nearly impossible to get right. I intentionally left them large and thoroughly surrounded by eye liner and mascara. The addition of a white dot on the pupil provides the simulated glint of crazy eyes. I feel this makes her look a little more like the barmaid who has lost everything and finally snapped.

Her hair is the standard Reaper red hair triad. The apron and blouse (that's what a frilly shirt is called, right?) are Celestra Grey, washed with Nuln Oil and highlighted up to white. It has nice depth, especially in hand. 

The weakest point of both figures is unquestionably the sword. I don't really know how to pull off True Metalic Metal well. They lack the depth and interest of the other parts of the model. For that reason, I may switch to NMM... But it's so slow, and more work than I want to do on these figures.

It is worth noting that Sorastro's approach to painting on bases is quite incredible. It doesn't take much work, but turns into a lovely painted road pattern. Bigger stones and smaller lines look better, but it is kinda hard to mess up (I would have messed it up otherwise...) because each "mistake" simply gives it more character.