Monday 13 July 2015

Zombicide: Abominations

Had an offline request to run through a process of quickly painting tabletop quality characters, so I adapted my plan to paint up the two Abominations properly and now we're trying to see how fast they could be wrapped up. More importantly, with one eye on my recent Kickstarter backing of Zombicide: Black Plague ... I've had the realisation there's a lot of figures coming my way 2016 (no-one believes CMON's 2015 delivery date) and I'll go round the bend trying to paint them all in the traditional fashion.

This means corners need to be cut. It's time to try out Army Painter dip! I bought a jar of this a few years back with the express purpose of doing a Skaven Warhammer Fantasy army, but that idea never got off the ground, and the tin hasn't been given a thorough workout. One thing putting me off the idea was the literal dipping of the figure, but turns out modern wisdom recommends painting it on. After a few YouTubetorials on the subject, basically I'm now an expert on the whole thing (right?) ... so off we go.


Figures basecoated. Common colours kept for skin, bones beginning to poke through the skin and toolkit around the belt, then different colour clothing for a little variety. Exactly how I normally paint so far. Watching people raise one area of the figure to perfection before moving to the next is an anathema to me.



Army Painter Strong Tone applied in liberal amounts. At this point, this looks bad. BAD. You also have to move quickly to ensure it doesn't pool up as it slides down the figure.



24 hours pass, and the varnish has dried. I'm unimpressed at this point, they look a mess.



But then, something strange happens. Matte varnish changes everything. The calming effect it has not only on the shine but also the colour, is quite interesting. We're no longer looking at near black delineation, it's more a nut brown colour in the recesses and a little more natural. Or as natural as painting plastic zombies with woodstain can be.



Few quick touch ups, some blood and goggles added, then a quick touch up of the skin colour where areas pooled ... and hey presto! Tabletop quality figures? I think so. Long way from "great" but certainly "it'll do" which is just dandy on the playing surface.



Better quality shots with a camera ...



Things learned here ...

  • Few years back, I'd probably have called this cheating. Now? Not sure. This isn't a painting technique designed to replace proper painting, but it is a technique designed to get figures onto the tabletop, and quickly.
  • If you don't watch the application of this stuff, it'll pool and become sticky very quickly, making a real hash of the figure.
  • There was far more detail on these figures than I expected, and my attention to detail is poor. Evidenced by missing the goggles entirely on the basecoating phase of painting.
  • If basecoating en masse, I'd use a colour primer to speed up the process. For two figures, painting the skin by hand was no hardship.
  • Did I mention quick? Around two hours of actual time spent over a 25 hour period. This was an hour per figure, being generous.
  • You could probably use this as a base for deep shading and then picking out detail by painting up normally for highlights. I may try this in the future.

Taa-daa. Thoughts on this?

Bit of painting downtime for a week or so as we do final prep and hunkering down before our son arrives. Little bugger is now a week overdue, so he'll be joining us soon enough. Once I'm back into the swing, it's Siren for my Fisherman's Guild team to crack on with. Good times ahead!