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So where to start? Oh yeah.. with this!


<seksy board game porn>

This has to be hands down one of the most fun, challenging and entertaining board games I've played in a long, long time. My good friend Z-Ray perverted my feeble animal brain into trying it out at his place a couple of weeks ago. 30 minutes into our first game, we realised it had been four hours and that we clearly werent going to get any sleep that weekend. Upon my return home across the ditch, I sequestered one of the only remaining copies in Sydney (having foolishly missed the kickstarter last year) for myself. It arrived a couple of days ago to girlish squeals of glee. After changing my pants I busily went about opening up the dirty contents inside.

In a paraphrased version, these are the contents..

From left to right.
'Survivors'
Josh, Wanda, Doug, Phil, Amy and finally the super awesome Ned.
'Nightmare in the daytime'.. I mean 'Zombies'
Walkers (about 4-5 different variations of this availble in the box), Fatty, Abomination, Runner 1, Runner 2

In the pack, there are 40 walkers, 16 runners, eight fatty's and one abomination (it's enough). The nerd conossiurs among you will have noted that 'Doug' is Michael Douglas from Falling Down and that 'Phil' is actually the cop from The Walking Dead. There's many theories on the rest, but they're not as overtly recognisable.

Now both of us have an excellent habit of having brilliant ideas that fizzle out in retardedly short time spans. However, this idea (and subsequent blog) will force us to be a little more active than usual.. mostly through fear of social inadequacy and also to challenge ourselves to err.. challenge ourselves I guess.

The mini's are 28mm scale and arrive exactly as you see above, nicely colour coded for the survivors and frustratingly the same colour for the zombies. This leads to frustration. So we will be painting them all (and avoiding converting them.. Z-Ray). We will be updating this blog with pledges, as well as pictoral type evidence that we're actually following through. As well as using it to generally voice our bizarre and somewhat non-sensical delusions throughout the process.

First step has been cleaning all the mold lines. Abomination, check. Runners, check. Fatty's, check. 40 walkers? Ughh..

After that is done, my first pledge for the remaining two weeks of Feburary is two runners, a fatty and Phil. Because Phil is a dick. And no one likes Phil. Least of all people who have to keep picking Phil out of a pile of zombies and never being able to find him over and over again. ISNT THAT RIGHT PHIL. Yeah, you know what you did.

God damn you Phil.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS - Feel free to chip in with your experiences of the game. If you want to throw in a pledge or some pics of your zombie mini's go right ahead!

As Monkeh said the zombies all come in the same grey plastic making zones filled with mixed zombie types difficult to work out at a glance (as well as dirty dirty Phil in his slightly darker grey hiding amongst the stinkers)
so after the first couple of games 4 hours of cleaning mold lines and 5 minutes with some army painter coloured spray I got this:



A quick fix but enough to keep playing for the rest of the week, ( walkers are bare plastic because 40 sets of mold lines, erg.)
Next problem, the grey walkers blend with the grey concrete on the boards so that's where I'll start.

First goal 10 walkers to establish a style.

*edit to fix broken images

I am following this with interest. Keep up the good work!

- Valtyr

 Valtyr wrote:
I am following this with interest. Keep up the good work!

Unfortunately the work has been ... not so good :(

Finished the first ten zombies = F+ Try again
so zombies are soaking in simple green and I'm trying a new style on 4 fatties.

This is intriguing, looking forwards to seeing more.

My wife and I really enjoy this game.

My PLog has my attempt at painting one tray of zombies (still not done ). Also painted one of the abominations (I got the Kickstarter version with loads of extra stuff ).

I know there is someone here on Dakka who has a really well painted set, but I can't remember their username.

Edit: And then their PLog popped up right at the top of my feed

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/406869.page

 Z-Ray wrote:
Finished the first ten zombies = F+ Try again

So my first experience was with Phil. I painted him like I would paint a space marine. It failed, hard. I painted him again.. this time like I would paint an orc or guardsmen. Failure mark deux. I am no longer painting Phil.

I started work on my first Fatty and got 3/4 of the way through and started again. Then decided I was going overboard with layering and depth on a boardgame and decided to start playing with a more cartoony style of painting. I did quite a bit of looking around and watching animation movie (ahh research, duhh.. it's science!). I decided to go with a max of two tones.. a base colour and a painted in shadow colour (ala any DC cartoon). I think wanted to black line everything to really amp the contrast and feel of it.

I played with this for a while, and the three mini's below are what I've come out of it with. It took a TON of trial and error and the three mini's are far from my best work, but they are a good representation of spending hours playing with new techniques and a completely new style.

Lessons learned:
- Cartoony is harder than I thought.
- Oil washing is nowhere near as easy as youtube would have you believe.
- White mineral spirits do not eat paint and varnish as quickly as IPA or thinner do. When they say use turpentine.. use it.
- Mop washing with oil is a great way to get your miniatures covered in a proverbial crapload of fluff from cue tips (que tips? q-tips? Q-men?).
- I want to use three colours because I think a simple highlight would really amp the effect.. also I'm a glutton for punishment/slowed enough to want to make painting 100 zombies even harder.
- Gloss varnishing too much will ruin just about everything. This includes braincells and relationships.
- While not having done err black guy? Skin before.. I think brown zombies work out quite well. (Especially if they're in a kenyan running tracksuit)
- When you think you've removed all the mold lines, check again sometime when it's not the middle of the night. Chances are you're too stupid to check everywhere and missed a few (many).
- Hard colour coding things, but the eyes and details should colour code them nicely, but I need to go much brighter on the eyes.
- Auto adjusted images really crank the contrast more than I remember, so like.. it's not that dark.
- I like writing lists.

Fatteh number one!
Front side:

Back side.. hehehehehheee.. hehehe 'back side'.. hehehe:

Runner numbah one!
Front:

Back:

Runner numero dos!
Front:

Back:

Lunge!:

 SilverMK2 wrote:
My wife and I really enjoy this game.

My PLog has my attempt at painting one tray of zombies (still not done ). Also painted one of the abominations (I got the Kickstarter version with loads of extra stuff ).

I know there is someone here on Dakka who has a really well painted set, but I can't remember their username.

Edit: And then their PLog popped up right at the top of my feed

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/406869.page

You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar! That's an epic plog. And serves nicely to force me back into the shadows in humbleness.
Getting the wife involved eh? Nice work! I find that the opposite sex actually quite digs the game. It's simple to pick up, easy to play for extended periods, fun to play with big groups of people and best of all it has pretty pictures and characters they can really enjoy. Might be a good way to ween them into 40k... hmmm.

Guys, I have a humble request.. advice. 'Cartoon' style painting is what I'm really after. High contrast, bright colours but very simple. Can people throw down some links to tutorials or other work I can replicate? And I've toyed with the idea of using Nard's's cell shading technique and after an hour to do one body part I gave up on it. It's too time consuming.

Any and all feedback/requests/advice/provocation of my nether regions is welcome and appreciated! Cheers for reading guys

I hate being that guy that adds to his own post. But upon closer inspection of the toxic mall expansion and season two of zombicide I've decided I really need to step up productivity. At this rate I'll be looking at around 200 odd zombies when it all arrives.

That being said, I'm going to work on a much faster and less fidly version of mass zombie painting. This month's goal, 10 walkers.

Got distracted again,

But I have competed my first actually acceptably painted mini!

Sure his face looks like a deranged hobo but then the Zombie Apocalypse dose that to you.

Now for some zombies! Lets just flip a spawn card,

we haven't "killed" any zombies so far, so we are in the blue zone =1X Fatty.

Fatties always spawn with two walker friends so I'll paint those too.

*edited to fix broken images.

First Spawn finished!

I will be adding gore all the zombies at the same time once they all painted.

Second spawn!


Still in the blue zone so two more walkers.

*edited to fix broken images

Would almost be cool to use in DnD Modern campaign. Excellent painting, mate.

Next two zombies done.


and spawn,

first time I've not been happy to see that card come up.

lets try again,

...not much better, still every zombie counts.

*edited to fix broken images

They look class,the game looks like it could be a good crack too.

Really cool stuff...

I need this game...

That's such a fun way to paint walkers! They look ace too. Keep it up!

I wasn't happy with the freehand on Josh's hoodie so painted it out to plane orange
and updated the photo in my previous post.
(accidentally saved over the earlier image after having deleted the original photos so no comparison shots)

My zombie apocalypse is now equal opportunity!


Right on the edge of leveling, last blue spawn is...

another fatty and his two walker mates.

I've touched up the original guys. As well as taken new photo's of them. In addition is my hackjob attempt at a rushed scheme for the walkers. Not overly happy with it, but I'm not going to redo them. I want something that I can do in a couple of hours per mini and this is it. At arms length they look fine.. err.. mostly hahaha. Will keep working on the elusive cartoon style I'm after. Unfortunately, my 'Matt' varnish.. really doesnt dull the shine that much so I'll have to find another. Gives a hard coat though so I need to keep using it (as we play pretty frequently).

Anyone have some suggestions for a good dull coat locally in Sydney, AU?

Fatty! This is the closest to the style I want across all the minis, but he took twice as long as anyone else.

Runners.. Ugh.. runners.

Walker batch one, 'wife beaters'.

Walker batch two, 'scout master steve'.

Walker batch three, 'the suits'.



Next up, two fatties so I have some surface area to work on this method.. man, looking at the photo's I really need that dullcote.. aaand some talent. Hah!

Subscribed. Reading your thread reminds me I still haven't finished painting my set.

Been slow getting these zombies painted.



Got distracted actually playing the game.

Introduced two gaming buddies and Mrs-Ray to the game,
by the end of the evening everyone had met a horrible, horrible zombie devoured fate.
Still everyone thoroughly enjoyed it and wants to play again, even Mrs-Ray who wants to invite some of HER friends to play.
(this from the woman who jokingly refers to my hobby as "gaming" with emphasis on the Y )

Those Three push us into the yellow threat level unlocking..
Amy.




Leading to our first yellow spawn:



Another Fatty and his two Walker buddies. (kinda would have liked to paint the 1X Runner in the blue zone)

Got a group photo of all the blue level zombie spawns and the survivors together.


Stayed up late painting and got more zombies finished.

Was too tired to get up in the morning and was late to work.

Next spawn:

Finally some Runners!

Egad's Z-Ray! You're a painting machine! I've managed to get two more fatties done .. in the time you've painted like 12 minis. That Amy man.. seriously, nice work!

My photo skills are not improving much, the colours on these are much more vivid in real life and the depth is much better. But in the short term I'm happy with these.. finally found the style I want for this in a time frame I'm happy with. Again, when super close like this there's things I missed or didn't do the best on, but these were done in just over 4 hours for both all up, so pretty happy with how they turned out. Didn't spend a lot of time on them recently as I've been dedicated every waking hour to making a Vassal port of Zombicide. Finally managed to get my hands on some dullcoat here in Sydney, dullcoated all my other painted zombies so far, they look much better without the glaring shininess.

Second and third Fatty's.

And the back..


Next up, four more runners. Going to work through around 20 zombies, then sit down and paint a survivor how I would normally paint.

Two more zombies bite the dust!


Next spawn:

Two Runners, huh SSDD.

Cheers.

Alright,
had to work the long weekend much to the annoyance of Mrs-Ray who had me spend the rest of my evenings with her and not painting tiny plastic zombies (I know, right?)
but I did manage to sneak two Runners into the few moments of personal time that remained.



and the next spawn which hopefully should be done by the weekend.


Uh oh! it's the big guy, Abomination time!
Unusual he waited so long to show himself usually I get him in the first couple of spawns (out of 50 odd cards there are four cards with the abom, one in each colour level) plus when I do eventually manage to kill him, next spawn gives me another

Bravo for the both of you! This is such an entertaining way to paint the minis and mix it up. It took me a second to figure out that there are TWO of you doing this project. When I saw the Josh/Amy/zombies and saw that there was a "repaint"... you so crazy!

Either way, the wife and I love this game, and I'm happy to see more of this on Dakka. Josh happens to be one of my mains, but I haven't found my absolute "favorite" (cousin totally ripped my Bruce Willis for his personal character... ) Hope Ash/Samuel L Jackson/Cardboard Tube Samurai/Chuck Norris can finally fill that void for me.

Keep it up!

-Remi

ABOMINATION!

Have to say not sold on the blood, but this guy was hard to paint so it stays for now.
Each layer of paint for his skin (5 in all) took as long as painting an entire walker.

Next spawn:

These two will put us into the orange zone
that's where the spawn rate really starts cranking and gives us our next survivor, who will it be?
find out next time on... um, dakka I guess.

Awesome work so far! Whenever I see threads on this game pop up it makes me want to buy it

I concur on all your points KingCracker. The game looks fantastic!

What can I do after that Abomination? Day-um but he's pretty!

First up, another batch of runners. Getting the hang of blocking out sections and airbrushing now. They went quite a bit quicker. Still painting a lot of detail by hand.. but still at around 4-5 hours for four of them, I'm not too upset.
One thing though, my oil washing is not getting any finer. It works ok on large models like fatties.. but the runners.. yeuck, but I don't want to have to expend energy or time doing a pin wish... because I'm a lazy SOB. So i'll have to find a better way.
Again, yellow detailing to make them easier to pick out.

Not sure if I like the fleshy tones I'm working on the runners, my idea was that they would be the only non-rotting type ones. More like 28 days later-esque where they're just rage-virus humans with blood still pumping around them in furious cacophony of flesh eating madness. But they are now the only zombie type that doesnt have matching colour skin.. which irks my OCD something chronic. What do you all think? Is it worth developing the effect? Or should I pick a nice colour to make all my runners skin?

I've been talking to the union. It turns out my walkers will go on strike if I don't provide them some members of the fairer undead sex. So with that in mind, I've painted up some ladies.. I use the term loosely. I'm trying to work a grey-er (word?) skin tone into the walkers. I wasn't happy with the way the blue/grey was turning out in terms of depth. Pretty happy with the grey tone now, but I still think the oil wash lining isn't really working for me and is undoing a lot of the depth on the skin. Still playing with the consistency of it.. so next time I'll try 2-3 different mixes and if that fails go for a normal pin wash with Nuln. The method for these ladies took a little longer because I couldnt block all of it out when doing different airbrush colours and ended up painting half of it by hand anyways. Still at around 6 hours total time investment I think it's not too bad.

From the left there's Daisy, Delilah, Shivaughn, Jacinta, And Rose. To immersed? Yeah.. to immersed.


Oh and uhh... their back sides heheh hehehe.. hehehe.


I've completed my original goal of painting at least 20 zombies, YAY FOR MONKEH. REJOICE. As a reward (as per the demands of my attention span), I'm now allowed to paint a survivor. I'm going to do something I don't normally do.. and that's do it as a WIP with shots so that people can provide feedback while I'm doing it. So in that spirit, pre-shading is complete (slight light influence from the right, but brightness and shadows are painted in) and my first survivor is under way! This will take a bit of time, I'll be going slow because I'm establishing the style as I go. Enjoi!

Despite not having a day off since Sunday 24th of march and not getting one until Monday the 22nd of April (OK, it's just 4 more days, but still.)
and the onset of winter meaning its still dark when I head to work and the sun has already set by the time I head home.
(Not that you can tell the sun is up with the torrential rain we've been having all week.)
I have still managed a small amount of progress:

"is that how you get zombies Barry? yes it is Other Barry, yes it is."


So we made it through the blue and yellow danger zones onto Orange!
Here's our orange level survivor...Phil, yes the much reviled Phil in all his shoddy flash photography glory:


Phil brakes the trend of painting the survivors in colours to match there mini because he is a policeman and here in NZ the police wear blue, not tan.
But I did paint him as Maori because Mrs-Ray has a boss named Phil who is Maori and while he is not a policeman that's only because he is too busy being ex-SAS.


To round off our journey through the yellow zone here is a group shot of everything so far:



And the first spawn into orange:

You will just have to forgive the horrifying flash burnout its dark and my camera sucks.

...Abom again, told you he always comes back after you thought you'd taken care of him.
I don't have any left to paint (there can be only one!) so the rules say if you spawn an Abomination while one is still out you get a Fatty and his two Walkers instead
...also you have to repaint the blood you screwed up on your first one, that's the rules says so right here in the book.

So that's what I'll just have to do.

I'm sorry guys, I lied. I didnt do any WIP shots of Josh. Had some time free over the last day or so, and just kept working through with him. Maybe the next one survivor will have to be broken up and WIP'd.

Pretty happy with how he turned out.. his back shot is a little over exposed, the first shot is the closest to his actual colouring. I didnt want to go for the dashboard shots and I had a hunch for the bases that I've wanted to do since I brought the game which turned out pretty well. The hoodie took the longest, because I really took it as a chance to work on black clothing for the first time, it's not the most amazing I've seen but I'm quite happy with the depth and feel of it, just need to practice more!




It's still irritating me that I can't identify what's in his pocket. I think it may be a gas torch, but that's pure speculation based on shape.
Thoughts? Feedback?


In addition to this I've been working on a custom character that was based off a hasslefree miniature that I've modified. Below he is in all his painted glory. Pretty happy with how he turned out.. again photo's let him down, the depth on his clothing is quite a bit better than this. But still.. happy with how he turned out.. think I'm getting the hang of this painting thing. Better 18 years too late than never right? ... right?



Guys, if you're interested in Zombicide, come on over to zombiesdash.com it's the first (currently only) dedicated Zombicide fanboi website and forum. Either way, we'll keep posting here too so that everyones in the loop!