Saturday 12 October 2013

Knight Models Zombie Girl [Completed]

Two songs kept running through my head as I put the finishing touches to the Knight Models Zombie Girl, one was sad and melancholy while the other was upbeat and catchy. The former tune would have been perfect if one imagines it playing in the background from a radio as the Zombie Girl shambled along the road; the song ... 'End of the World' by Skeeter Davis. Meanwhile, the latter tune is one that I always associate with zombies close to Halloween that is 'Thriller' by Michael Jackson.

Knight Models Zombie Girl completed

I finally ended up painting the Zombie Girl's dress in pastel orange with white laces and a light lavender bow. The dress colours was as light and muted as I was willing to go to maintain a fine balance between providing enough contrast to further accentuate the skin tone but not too much as to overwhelm it and shift focus of the eyes mainly to the dress instead of the figure's pallid appearance. Well that was my intention anyway and how successful I was in this is open to debate.

Don't they know, it's the end of the world ... it ended when mum ate my brains ...

Dress colours for the Zombie Girl were partly inspired by the traditional colours of Halloween as well as a personal desire to do something different from what usually comes to mind. In comments on an earlier post, my fellow local painters had sportingly given some good suggestions which included blue, pink, green and yellow - some of which I very nearly ended up using. But in the end, I decided to go for colours most would not expect but yet ... hopefully ... makes sense when you think about it.  

Knight Models Zombie Girl (side view, left)

Hands down this is the most beautifully sculpted zombie miniature I have seen so far and it was really fun figuring out how to paint both the base and the Zombie Girl herself. Knight Models should seriously consider expanding their Terror Series line of miniatures and add more zombies while they are at it. For me, this miniature was love at first sight bite ... (ouch).

Lighter orange pastel colours on the dress versus the darker hue on the pumpkin

If there is one thing I would consider improving on is perhaps the eyes by adding pupils. But the danger in doing that for someone of my relatively lower skill level is that I might end up making the eyes look comical and artificial instead of creepy. Regardless, I always felt more scared by the clouded-white-irises-on-a-bloody-sclera look that you occasionally see on horror movies. 

I didn't go overboard with the blood as I wanted her to look like a 'normal' girl from the back

Another thing that could have added more contrast to the figure would have been to paint the Zombie Girl's hair black or make her a brunette. Nonetheless, I am still happy with her being a blonde.  

From this viewpoint, you can see the Zombie Girl arching her back at an unnatural angle

As you can see, I did not paint much blood stains on the Zombie Girl's dress. Rightly or wrongly, I did this intentionally to keep as much of the 'normal little girl' look on the undead figure as possible. I felt that by doing so it would make the abomination of what has happened to this innocent little child all that more horrifying and also smooth out the disconnect between reality and fantasy/horror.

Knight Models Zombie Girl (side view, right)

Finishing the Knight Models Zombie Girl just before the start of the latest season of 'The Walking Dead' TV series as well as before Halloween was fortuitous timing-wise. It allowed me to complete my first TV viewing event / holiday themed miniature. Sweet!    

It's close to midnight, something evil's lurking in the dark ...

It was a blast trying to paint in details in the painting of the base. If you have missed an earlier blog post on the base then click here to see the many small little details I had tried to incorporate. 

Can you spot the Reese Peanut Butter and Nestle Crush candy bars?

Well that's it for now. Till my next post stay clear of the walking dead unless they ask for candy.


10 comments:

  1. Lovely work bro.. Like it very much :)

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  2. Thanks Lord AK. ^_^ I truly appreciate your kind words.

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  3. A very good job My Dear !! ^^

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  4. Very very good. You used blood sparingly, so that it didn't overwhelm the model. The dead skin tones contrasted by the brighter dress make the model really come together!

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    1. Thanks Prof Chaos. Glad you liked it. ^_^ There are many ways to approach the Zombie Girl model and I went with a risky one in that the skin is sickly, pallid and pasty leaving it open to criticisms of lack of contrast and depth.

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  5. Nicely done bro! Orange was a good choice. Fantastic painting!

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    1. Thank you very much Khairul. =) I just wish I had better skills in which to tackle the eyes i.e. give them pupils while maintaining the horror factor.

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