Reaper Bones Zombies 07055; More Slapchop

With the success of the old chap from the Townsfolk set using the Slapchop method, I tried a few variations on some zombies included in the latest Reaper Bones Kickstarter. These are lovely zombies, as with the villagers, they are dressed in a suitably 'historic' fashion. These are dead peasants brought back rather than warriors or adventurers. They'll be ideal for Rangers of Shadow Deep, and many other RPGs and skirmish games. Although these minis arrived in the Bones 6 Kickstarter they were the bonus pack, I believe they were originally in the previous Kickstarter.

The four different zombie sculpts

Painting the Zombies

As with the old man, I gave the minis a shade wash using a 1:1 mix of Army Painter Darktone wash and Vallejo Thinner, followed by a white drybrush.

This time I used my small (but slowly growing) collection of Vallejo Xpress paints. I've no problem with the Army Painter Speedpaints; I've got used to them, I'm learning some nice mixes and the reactivation can be used to blend. But they don't allow me to use different layers of paints and washes. I also felt that my first go with Vallejo Xpress paints was less than satisfactory, and I was sure I could do better.

I've recently seen a couple of YouTube videos for zombie flesh that I thought I could adapt. Essentially a thinned flesh wash followed by a green/grey wash. This seems to be becoming popular in the hobby-sphere, but I remember doing a cruder version of this back in the 1980s using Bronzed Flesh and thinned Goblin Green.  Nowhere near as well, I should add.

Test Zombie 

For the flesh I used a 1:1 VXP Dwarf Flesh:Xpress Medium mix, followed by a 1:1 VXP Plague Green: Xpress Medium mix. 

I like the result, although it's darker than my usual zombie flesh colour of VGC Dead Flesh followed by a Strongtone or similar wash. I checked with my local friendly zombiemeister, T'Other One, and he assures me that zombies have quite varied skin tones. 

Test zombie skin tones

Clothing was simply a case of choosing suitable fairly desaturated colours, though I'm slightly hampered by my limited stock of Xpress paints.

 

Three More Zombies 

I liked the test results, but for the rest I decided to slightly vary the skin tones. Nothing drastic, but I think the variety works for the subject matter.

They all got a drybrush of Vallejo Game Colour Earth around the feet and lower legs and lower sleeves to dirty them up.

Four More Zombies 

I enjoyed painting them so much that I painted another four to bring the number up to eight, as per my planning.

The second batch were pretty much the same, but I tried to make them look a bit different. This was mostly through different colours for the clothing, but also different washes on top of the flesh colour. Some of the clothing looks a little garish to me,  especially as I'm trying to make them look naturalistic (for zombies), but some of it is fine.  I'm particularly pleased with the lady in the light green dress (VXP Orc Skin) with yellow trim. 

There are a couple of things I'm not completely happy with.  Mould lines and hair.

Slapchop really emphasises mould lines, and although I thought I'd done a pretty good job of cleaning these up, there are quite a few obvious lines.  More care and attention required next time.

None of the zombies have particularly convincing hair colours.  I'm not sure if this is down to my limited range of colours or a result of using the Xpress paints.  I can easily go over these again with more conventional paints.

Vallejo Xpress Paints

At the start I mentioned that I wanted to give the Vallejo Xpress Paints another try. What did I think this time?

Well, I'm impressed. I've seen YouTube videos about them, particularly from Juan Hidalgo (who helped design the latest batch) claiming that they are particularly good for Slapchop. 

I agree. There's a better gradation between the highlights and the shadows than I get with Speedpaints, though it's not such a difference that I'll stop using the Army Painter stuff. Indeed, I used some Speedpaints on the second batch of zombies as I was running out of colours for clothing and I wanted to make them as individual as possible.

My collection of Xpress paints is small (but growing) and the first release lacked some important shades. I particularly miss anything similar to Pallid Bone, which I use frequently to dull down and lighten other colours. The second batch does include some of these sorts of colours and I intend to get some,  but my local shop selling Vallejo (Boyes, a good old fashioned department store) hasn't expanded their stock yet.

A Note on Costume 

The different coloured collars might seem odd, but my musical friends who play in costume assure me that this was quite common. In fact, in most illustrations, what can be seen as a collar is actually a separate hood, the actual hood bit being frequently worn off the head, just hanging down over the back.  Medieval illustrators didn't always show the hood, leading to speculation if it was there or not, but my friends assure me that it is much more practical to have a hood rather than just a wide collar.