Having done some testing on some zombies from Mammoth Factory, I felt I was ready to jump into a bigger and more detailed horde of shamblers. I intend for these models to become part of my Nurglite horde, an unending tide of filthy cultists and shuffling undead led by the plague infested Death Guard. As I already have all the Poxwalker models I needed to look a little further afield to grow my army. As the Deadwalkers are sculpted to look like they have clawed their way out of their graves they were ideal for what I needed. 

But as with the models from the Mammoth Factory, they needed a little work first before they could be counted amongst Nurgle’s chosen. From my earlier tests I had refined the process of adding boils. I still started by drilling a hole with a 1mm drill bit, but then I used an old brush to add a bit of AK Interactive Acrylic Arming Putty into the hole. I could then use the putty laden brush to easily pick up a 1mm ball bearing and push it into the now sticky hole. A bit more putty to seal the ball bearing down and voila. One boil. Rinse and repeat until you have a boil infested group of nasties. Some turned out to be a little tricky to add boils to as there wasn’t much exposed skin on some of the sculpts, mostly the female ones as they’re wearing dresses. Now I’m not advocating for nude zombies. But also, I’m advocating for zombies in the buff.

I’d actually built these a little while ago and at some point I must have dropped them because one poor chap was missing an arm. I scoured my hobby area but it was long ago. Even worse, due to the way that these models are designed there wasn’t a suitable spare arm on the sprue. If I wanted a new arm I would have to make one. I don’t do much sculpting, mostly because I’m terrible at it, but there is no greater innovator than necessity. And so I began mixing up some greenstuff figuring that I could at least manage a tentacle of some kind. I mean, they’re just tapered sausages right? I could roll a sausage out of greenstuff and make it thinner at one end. Once I had my tapered sausage, I cut the fatter end and affixed it to the model with a dab of superglue. Bit of blending, including a bit of Arming Putty, and I had a tentacle. 

And it didn’t look half bad. 

And it was pretty easy. 

And I had grossly overestimated how much greenstuff I’d need. 

With the leftover greenstuff I looked through the remaining Deadwalkers to see how else might benefit from Nurgle’s Blessing. A couple of the barechested fellows looked ripe for a tentacle coming out of their armpit and belly respectively. A couple of the models had one of their arms end in a stump and Grandfather Nurgle would be happy to provide one of them with a replacement. 

At this point I was a little drunk with the Plaguefather’s power, and with the still remaining greenstuff I decided to try my hand at making some maggots. Rolling some very small sausages I poked a needle into one end for the mouth and used a hobby blade to add ridges along the back. These turned out alright, I definitely need more practice at them though. I left the maggots to cure and harden a little before using a bit of superglue to attach them to the models. Satisfied that my Deadwalkers were now suitably putrescent I left them a full day just for everything to completely cure.

I primed everything with Colour Forge Standard Grey and then gave them a zenithal highlight with Liquitex Titanium White Acrylic Ink. I then cracked out the remainder of my inks and applied shading almost at random with Daler-Rowney Sap Green and Burnt Umber, and Vallejo Violet inks. I also tested out Daler-Rowney Crimson Red on a couple of Deadwalkers but the coverage wasn’t great. What did have great coverage and was perfect for rusted metal was Daler-Rowney Red Earth, which I sprayed on the swords and scythe blades.

With all the shading done I could move onto the painting proper, starting with giving the skin a coat of Army Painter Speedpaint Malignant Green and then a ring of Guilliman Flesh around the boils. The next biggest area to tackle is all the wood details. For all the branches winding their way through flesh I used Wyldwood contrast paint straight from the pot. But for areas like weapon handles or the planks on their backs where there was some shading to take advantage of, I first thinned the Wyldwood about fifty-fifty with some water. Additionally, the thinned Wyldwood showed some of the grey undercoat making the wood look more old and rotten.. Next I could move onto the clothes, so I gathered all the high-flow paints that I thought would be suitable and just went at it without much rhyme or reason. About the only thought that I did put into this part was to make sure that no colour was used twice on each model. The colours that I used were:

• Army Painter Speedpaint Desolate Brown

• Army Painter Speedpaint Runic Grey

• Scale75 Instant Colour Arcane Purple

• Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde

• Citadel Contrast Basilicanum Grey

• Citadel Contrast Snakebite Leather

• Citadel Contrast Cygor Brown

• Citadel Contrast Creed Camo

With that done these zombies were really starting to come alive! And I had just a few more details that I needed to sort out. A few models have the scraggly remnants of hair, which I picked out with either Black Templar, Cygor Brown or Basilicanum Grey. I kept the colours to the drab and dark to stop them standing out too much. I’m sure there are ginger and blond zombies out there, just not in this horde I’m afraid. A few of the Deadwalkers had belts of either rope or leather, the former I painted with Skeleton Horde and the latter with Gore-Grunta Fur. The last few details I needed to pick out were the grass that’s on some of their backs with Creed Camo and the gravestones with Basilicanum Grey. 

Moving onto the metallics, I picked out the small details like the belt buckles and knifes with Scale75 Thrash Metal. The areas that I had shaded with Daler-Rowney Red Earth I painted with a layer of Vallejo Metal Air Magnesium, which as it’s an airbrush paint was thin enough to show the underlying Red Earth layer, giving the appearance of rusted metal.  

From there I could move onto the final fine details, starting by giving the skin a drybrush of Pallid Wych Flesh to brighten it up a bit and to further bring out the texture. Then I could go through all the models and pick out all the boils with Vallejo Heavy Goldbrown. I then followed up by painting all my homemade maggots with a couple thin coats of Ulthuan Grey and washed them with Athonian Camoshade. There were a couple of rats amongst the horde, one of which seemed to be a tasty snack for a Deadwalker, which I basecoated the bodies with Corvus Black and the tails with Vallejo Dwarf Skin, both areas were then given a wash of Nuln Oil. Any teeth and bone that was showing I painted with a coat of Army Painter Skeleton Bone and any tongues with Screamer Pink, which were then washed with Army Painter Strong Tone. I also ran a bit of Strong Tone into any open mouths just to darken them down a bit. To make the eyes look more sullen I added a small dot of Scale75 Instant Colour Arcane Purple to the sockets. 

With the Deadwalkers themselves done I could move onto the bases. As with my other Nurgle miniatures these would be a swampy-marshlands base. I started by gooping on some Vallejo Thick Brown Mud. Once that was dry I washed them with Athonian Camoshade and gave them a drybrush with Tyrant Skull. Then I dabbed on some Caliban Green to mark out some toxic puddles and then added a dollop of Nurgle’s Rot to the middle of each. Once that was fully dry, I added some patches of PVA glue and sprinkled on some Geek Gaming Scenics Base Ready Forest Ground Cover. This was then followed up by some more PVA and static grass. Lastly, I painted the rims of the bases with Warboss Green. You all hate the goblin green but I love it.