5 Shades of Grey

Back in October, I held a demo day for Mantic's The Walking Dead: All out War at Epic Loot in Centerville.  Unfortunately this ended up being a month before they actually got most of their stock in, and it wasn't what I would call successful (a total of one demo game (would have had a second but he showed up just as I was about to leave, so I talked him through a bunch of it (but I had been there six hours at that time, so was ready to leave)) and talked to three more people).

However I'm not willing to give up that easily, and now that they have their stock in, we are going to try it again.  This time on Thursday night when they have their board game night.  And I had a whopping two weeks to get ready.

I hate doing demos with unpainted stuff - painted minis just look so much better.  So how was I going to get at least my demo set painted, if not my whole kickstarter box?  The survivors are simply going to take some time to crank through (and I only had one weekend to work on them, due to me being out of town for four days the weekend before the demo).  Maybe though I could do a speed painting technique on the walkers?

So I did some research (i.e. looked at facebook) and I found a post by Rick Britten in the "Mantic's The Walking Dead Fanatics" facebook group.  I had seen some other discussions about painting the game in monochrome to mimic the comic book, and I didn't like that (the survivors are hard enough to identify on the board unpainted - if they were all painted the same it wouldn't help), however seeing what he did, it occurred to me to do just the walkers monochrome.  Or very close to it.

I thought I'd show the process as I did it.

First prime white (these are the walkers from the retail edition).  You can see the paint I will be using behind them.  I like Krylon Painter's Choice Ultra Cover paint+primer for my primer - this is ultra flat white.

twelve white walkers

Then do a black wash on them.  (I used Vallejo Model Wash 76517 Gris Oscuro / Dark Grey)  This works better if you thin out the wash a bit.  It is crucial that you give this enough time to dry - if you don't then it is amazing how many little crevices still have wet wash in them and muddy up the next step. 

You would think that washing them would make the cleaner

Next is a quick drybrush of white (Vallejo Game Color 72.001 Blanco Calavera / Dead White).  This will help to lighten the skin if the wash wasn't thin enough, as well as do some highlighting from the next step.

a little brighter

We want the skin to be pale, so do not add any more wash to it.

Pick out clothing, and add either another coat of black wash, or a brown (Vallejo game Color Wash 73.200 Lavado Sepia / Sepia Shade) one.  This is where the white helps to highlight, as it naturally comes out lighter than the area around it.

re-washing the clothing - but nothing gets the walker stink out

some pieces of clothing will require a second coat to darken them.

Then use a red wash to add blood as needed.  I prefer to pick out the holes and injuries, with a few having it dripping from their mouths (but not overly gorey).  This wash I made myself ( I cleaned out an old Citadel pot to put it in).  Rick used a Tamiya clear red - which I didn't have any of, and was too impatient / lazy to go get some.  I realized that I did have a transparent red that I had purchased in a set for my airbrush - I thinned this out about 2/1 and added a drop of the dark grey wash to darken it, and used this mixture for the blood effects.  I think it came out pretty good.

blood for the blood - oops, wrong franshise

Lastly was the basing.  I'm not sure what appropriate basing would be - so for now I simply painted the bases grey (Vallejo Game Color 72.050 Gris Frío/Cold Grey )

So now to the light box for (hopefully) better pictures.

all together now - retail walkers

Except for drying time - I think I spent about half an hour on these one night, and maybe an hour the second.  Not award winning, but I like them, and they should stand out from the survivors once those are done.

I actually did three batches - one to test the concept, the second was the one I used for the pictures, and the third was all of the rest of the kickstarter ones.

ks walkers 1

Ok, I did violate my paint scheme for one model - Walker Ronnie - I just really wanted him in a blue shirt (based off the Mantic shirts they wear to conventions)

ks walkers 2 - at least he's not a redshirt

Now that the walkers are done, I'm thinking about a similar technique for the survivors.  It won't be the semi-monochrome palette I used here, but I want to see how it will work to try to paint them only using washes - so most of the skin will be a flesh wash - I have six base colors of transparent airbrush paint (blue, purple, red, orange, yellow and green) that should allow me to combine to make others (probably use the sepia for brown, I'm not sure).

ks walkers 3

So a very fast way to paint up walkers - I hope it may give a little bit of inspiration to others trying to get their sets ready for the table top.

ks walkers 4

Because it is all fun and games . . .