Hi guys,
I thought I should get around to painting my zombies from Last Night on Earth, in time for Halloween.
Here are some progress shots for my zombies, also my first real miniature painting project (I practiced on some dollar store dinos before this though, but after doing both, it's a totally different experience)
I struggled deciding on colors, and had originally wanted a large variety of skin colors for the zombies.. after I had already started painting, I decided I needed to keep the zombie teams different (the game has green zombies and brown zombies to allow two players to have their own zombie pools), so I picked about 6 colors or so for each team, and started painting.
First two pictures are the base coat on the grey skinned zombies.
Here's a picture of the green zombies, after a nice washing! (My favorite step.. it's a total transformation!)
I struggled here too, trying to figure out how to do the wash.
Black or brown... Google for opinions, but not a lot out there. I didn't want to do a wash for each color on the zombies. Ultimately I decided the brown would be fine, but I'd like to hear opinions on black vs brown.
And the last pic here, this is the whole crew painted, washed, and I painted the tops and sides of the bases.. I'm probably going to add a little 'fresh blood', and may do a dry brushing (but that won't look great over the blood), and a protective coat, but I wanted to hear some opinions on that too...
My questions for you guys...
What's the best method to painting the base of these miniatures (not doing my own basing here, just want to paint the plastic bases as they are). Painting the mini first seems like a good idea, so I did that.. Then I painted the top and sides... Now I guess I'm going to wait till it's all dry, and paint the underside?? .... And then... when putting on a protective coat, do it in that order as well??
Speaking of protective coat... I had first thought I would do a spray on coat. Ultimately, after my practice session with my plastic dinos, I decided I didn't like the gritty feel to the touch, and with spray, for me, it feels like a lot could go wrong.
So I decided to go with Vallejo Gloss Varnish. Gloss vs Matte argument aside (think I prefer the gloss look), is this sufficient to give a nice solid protective coating, to prevent the paint from chipping, and to make it safe to handle over many many game sessions?
And if so, do I just paint on one wet coat, or do I do a coat, let dry, then do another coat? How many coats?
And again, I'm a little confused about handle the bases as they are on the plastic miniatures. How do you guys go about preparing the bases? Do they need extra protective coat since they are going to be in constant contact with the game board?
Oh and one more thing.. If I'm going to dry brush these zombies... how do you guys feel about just taking a very dry 'white' and lightly going over the whole thing.. Would that be bad? Taking a dry brush of each color would be ideal, but a lot more work than I want to put into these little guys. If a very dry light brushing with white is acceptable, I'll do that before I do the protective coat.
Looking to hear all your tips on these matters!
Thanks!
