Interlude - Zombicide!

So some of you may have been following the Zombicide Season 2 Kickstarter (which closes in 4 days!) and as I picked up season 1 to 'try before you buy' if you will, I have 71 new models to paint. There have been a few page of tutorials posted for new players to learn to paint their horde of undead but they all are aimed at the new painter. My goal here is to aim a little higher and shape some of those new painters into semi-pros.

One of the advantages of the kickstarter is that we get to see two new types of zombie, toxic and berserker. The potential issue not explored is that these models NEED to be identifiable. Different sculpts aren't always effective enough. The basic zombies are grey plastic, toxics are green and berserkers are orange. Something that I have always done is use limited colour pallets, usually for army schemes. This is also very applicable to Zombicide. By maintaining the plastic colours as the primary colour for each zombie type they will always be identifiable, even for new players. One of the first 'mistakes' new painters can make is to try and use every colour they now own. All on one model.

When picking a colour pallet for your models you should stick to the rule of 3. No more than 3 colours (black/grey/white don't count) and for each type of zombie you should keep this across all of them. The best way to explain this would be to look at photos of business people on their way to work. The crowd tends to all be in the same colour, usually blues, whites and greys. This is a good pallet and adding in some red gore will make them really pop. Below are my first 2 zombies, gore and bases still to come.

Above you see two zombies, a fatty (left) and a walker (right). Both are using the same colour pallet but the fatty has a splash of orange. Small splash colours can make specific models stick out and generate interest. Another way is to use patterns, such as making the shirt striped.

There is one more type of zombie that can be really hard to spot, the runner. My plan for runners is to keep to the same pallet but brighten up the blue significantly. This will help to pick them out of a mob of walkers. Look for this, hopefully next week!