Zombies for County Road Z

    My first-ever painted zombies -- 3-D prints from JS Wargamer Printing (STLs by WhiteBeardMinis)

I have been gaming since my teens, and now in my 60s, I honestly believe that this is the first batch of zombies I have ever painted. I don't dislike zombie games, fiction or movies. I love Will Smith's "I am Legend," enjoyed the heck out of "The Last of Us," and even liked "World War Z." I just never was bitten (ha, ha) by the zombie bug to do it as a project. However, reading about the upcoming release of the County Road Z rules from Modiphius intrigued me. 

The rules are solo or coop and have the players living in "flyover country" -- the Great Plains states out West (from where I am). The idea is that the more densely populated Eastern and Midwest of the country are being overrun by the zombie epidemic. With fewer people, and thus fewer zombies, the folks out west have a fighting chance. My own personal take for my campaign is that the players have packed up in vehicles and are heading west. I'm going to modify the "Road Trip" campaign in the rules, and actually bolt on Gaslands Refueled rules when vehicles are involved in a tabletop game.

    Closeup of three of the zombies - I like the Frankenstein looking on in the middle best!

I can easily use my 28mm post-apocalyptic miniatures for my players. However, once I decided to do this, I didn't own any zombie miniatures at all. Like I said, never bitten! Knowing that I'd need a lot, I reached out to John Leahy of JS Wargamer Printing. He sent me a couple of pics of what he could print up for me and I gave him the thumbs up. I picked them up in March at Cincycon 2024. I bought two packs of 10. The first were modern civilian looking zombies from WhiteBeardMinis. The others were "infected" zombies from the Kraken Apocalypse Dawn kickstarter. 

My first thought upon examining them once I got home was that they looked small and thin compared to my 28mm metal miniatures. I figured maybe that was due to the white plastic material they were printed from and that they might look chunkier once painted up. Seeing detail as opposed to an off-white blob might give the figures the appearance of more heft. Either way, I don't plan on intermixing them with other manufacturers' zombies, so this shouldn't be a problem. Or, worse comes to worse, I can use the 3-D printed figures as "passive" zombies and switch to bigger ones when they switch to "aggressive" mode. In the game, zombies are activated by the presence of player characters or the noise they generate. Otherwise, if not activated, they patrol the tabletop randomly.

    The half a zombie crawling along the pavement is a nice tough, I think!

I decided to use round plastic bases and model glue to attach them to it. I am worried that the thin legs or ankles may prove to be fragile on the tabletop, so I didn't want a heavy base providing any torque or resistance to the minis being picked up and moved. We shall see how they stand up to the rigors of a game with them being moved about the table multiple times. To hopefully give them more strength, I spray primed them with Krylon Fusion Acrylic black paint. I then went over them with my usual 50/50 black paint and water.  I have never mastered the black prime and dry brush speed painting method used by many gamers, though. So, it was then on to painting them in my standard block painting method.

I used a craft paint called "Wild Rice" (a light tan) for the skin. I figured with no blood flowing beneath the skin, the zombies would lose the ruddy color of typical Caucasian flesh. So, they would be very pale. Jenny asked if I was going to give them greenish skin, but I said no. I don't buy into the rotting green flesh look of zombies from some movies...ha, ha! A black wash at the end should make them look suitably corpse like, I hoped.

    I tried to "junk up" the bases a bit more on these to give it that modern apocalyptic feel

After the flesh, I painted the clothes in various colors. I had to be careful to paint around the tears or holes in the clothes. I was pleasantly surprised that the 3-D prints had enough raised detail to accept dry brushing for the clothes. I was worried it would be too smooth. I added some more details on certain figs, like belts, buckles, and such. However, these were very...ahem, shall I say "bare bones" sculpts with not a lot of equipment. For the eyes, I did a did my usual black socket with white inside, but didn't paint the iris. They were left with white eye sockets, as is sometimes depicted in zombie artwork. Unlike in most figures, I used a dark red brown on the mouths. After finishing that step, I was very worried they would look too cartoonish. I was happy that the heavy black wash softened the sharp contrast between the pale skin and reddish mouths and lips.

The figures were finished when I did the dark black wash -- a 50/50 mix of water with Vallejo black vehicle wash. It was at this stage that I finally decided I was happy with how the zombies were looking. The wash gave their skin a grayish look that seemed to fit for the walking dead. I can't claim to have seen many dead bodies or anything, but it looked more believable than they had before. The final step was to do the flocking. I decided to take a page from my recent Sci-Fi flocking and use Woodland Scenices Fine Blended Gray Ballast with bricks, rubble, and various other trash on the bases. I like how the Sci-Fi figs look, but wanted the bases to look even more junked up.

    Another look at the first ten zombies of my hopefully, soon-to-be horde...

I'm curious to hear what you guys think of my first-ever batch of zombies. I probably need at least two more batches before I can play a game. My friend Mike S is also apparently painting zombies, using the figures from the Zombiecide game. If I like how his look, I may have him bring them and use his for the "aggressive zombies" and mine for the ones still in passive mode. So, stay tuned for more from my newest project, County Road Z!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

• Miniatures acquired in 2024: 64
• Miniatures painted in 2024: 57