How Not To Paint: Zombie Halflings

So, this week I’m going to be showing you how I painted Matt Bickley’s quite excellent Zombie Halfling from Otherworld Miniatures.

As usual I started with a black primer undercoat, then I set to work on the flesh. This was a mix of Tanned Flesh, Stone Green and Bleached Bone.

Next I added some more bleached bone to the mix and highlighted again. Notice that I didn’t  bother painting eyes on this mini, this was because they are only half open, so instead I emphasised this by highlighting the lids and, later on, washing the recesses.

Next I used Battlefield Earth to paint the hair, waistcoat and trousers and I used Desert Yellow for the shirt.

Using bleached bone I highlighted the shirt.

Then Bleached Bone and White for the final highlight, this concentrated on just the edges as this stage will be made more subtle by later washes. I also started highlighting the hair and clothes using Bloodtracker Brown and Chestnut Brown.

Next I mixed up some Bleached Bone and Gryphonne Sepia and washed the shirt, muting the deep shading and the extreme highlights to give a more pleasing natural finish.

Mixing some Moldy Ochre with Bloodtracker Brown I highlighted the waistcoat, while I used Chestnut Brown and Bleached Bone to highlight the trousers.

Both were then washed with a mix of Chestnut Brown and Gryphonne Sepia.

Buttons were added using Dwarf Bronze and then highlighted with Burnished Gold.

Finally it was time for a bit of gore. Simply using Baal Red I added touches of blood to the face and sleeve cuffs and to anywhere the clothing seemed to have been slashed. To make the blood look darker you can also add some Leviathan Purple to the deeper recesses.

The last stage was to use some Thraka Green in the recesses of the face and the hands and feet. Note I didn’t wash all the flesh, I just used a brush to apply a small amount right into the creases to add a bit more depth to the skin. 

I used my premixed earth and some static grass and a couple of leaves to give a graveyard feel to the base.

And that was it, of course, with a Zombie Frodo you have to have a Zombie Legolas and a Zombie Gimli!

Next Week: Painting a Shambling Mound!