Verlinden Zombie Bust

By Anthony Karl Erdelji

I saw this beauty at my local hobby store and I just had to get it!  Busts are great pieces to practice on, and since I've never done a large scale dead guy, this would be a great opportunity to practice painting the dead, and to play around with oil washes.

The model is a single resin piece, so there was no assembly required. The back of his head was a bit miscast, but it was easily fixed with some Magic Sculpt. There were no other mold lines to take care of. After the putty dried, I washed and let the model dry. Next, I primed with Citadel White Primer and mounted the piece on a plastic card box so I could handle it without touching the model.

I decided to move all of my Ral Partha and Citadel paints aside and got out my Polly Scale paints. Polly Scale paints look much more realistic and the colors are not as bright. The last thing I wanted was a bright, clean zombie! I started by airbrushing the entire model with Olive Drab. I then painted in all of the bone areas with Khaki. I sprayed the entire model with a Dullcoat before moving on to the next step.

Now for the wash. I mixed together equal amounts of Winsor & Newton Raw Umber and Ivory Black with some turpentine to create the wash. This mix was brushed over the entire model then I wiped off all of the excess with a clean cloth. The washed settled into all of the areas where skin met bone, which helped to define where one stopped and the other started. When I was satisfied, I let the wash dry for a couple of hours and then sprayed the entire model again with the Dullcoat. If your not familiar with washing with oils, click here for more information.

I brushed all the bone areas with liquid latex rubber to protect them. I then mixed up some Olive Drab with Dirt and proceeded to drybrush all of the skin. For the best results I used a very large 3/4 inch soft brush. I then added more Dirt to the mix and drybrushed again. The final stage of drybrushing was done with straight Dirt. I then peeled off the latex and carefully drybrushed the bone areas with Khaki and White, then again with a little more White. Once again, I sprayed the model with a Dullcoat to seal it.

I then painted the tendons, mouth, and eye areas with a mix of Red and Olive Drab. I then washed it with the same oil wash as used before. When it dried, the areas were drybrushed with a little more Red and Olive Drab.

The teeth were painted with Horizon Yellow-Brown. Ivory was added to highlight, moving from the top of each tooth, down to the tips. Straight Ivory was use on the edges of the teeth.

I left the eyes for last. I was nervous about doing the eyes. With the eyes being so large, if I did a bad job on them it would ruin the entire look of the model. I started by painting the entire eye with Dirty White. For some shade, I mixed the Dirty White with a small drop of German Uniform Gray and painted around the edges of each eye. I then mixed together Red and Magic Wand White Flesh and some water and carefully painted a red ring around each eye. Next, I took the same mixture and with my 20/0 brush I gently brushed over each eyeball for the faint look of red veins.

The irises were the last thing to do. Luck for me, each iris was already outlined by a very fine circular cut in the resin. The entire iris was first painted Scale Black. Some color was added by taking German Uniform Gray and paint several very fine lines starting from the outside of the iris to the inside. The process was repeated twice, adding a little White to the Gray each time. To add depth, I was sure not to go over the same area twice. The results were very realistic. The final touch was a drop of Horizon Black for each pupil.

A final coat of Dullcoat was sprayed on. Then I painted each eyeball with several coats of Gloss Lacquer, letting each coat dry several hours before moving onto the next. The final thing to do was to glue on the base.

This piece was a pleasure to paint and a great break from painting Games Workshop miniatures. I have just started using oils for washes and I can now say that I'm very impressed with the results.