Tutorial: How to paint purple Deadwalker Zombie flesh

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how I painted the purple flesh of the Deadwalker Zombie players from my Shambling Undead Blood Bowl team. I used a combination of a zenithal basecoat and Slapchop in combination with Citadel Contrast and Speedpaints.

This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with the fundamental techniques of painting Warhammer miniatures. I have a rather eclectic paint collection, so when I use a paint that
is not from Games Workshop (or out of production), I’ll try to provide you with suitable
alternatives from the current Citadel paint range [in brackets]. However, if you want to
achieve exactly the same result as shown, I recommend expanding your paint collection. You’ll find a list of all the paints used in this tutorial at the end of the post.

How to paint purple Zombie Flesh

After applying your primer of choice (I used Leather Brown Colour Primer from The Army Painter), use the Warpaints Air range to spray the model with Oak Brown Air, ensuring full coverage. Next, create a zenithal highlight by spraying Charred Bone Air at an angle of approximately 30 to 45 degrees. Finally, add another zenithal highlight by spraying Bleached Bone Air directly from above.

If you don’t have an airbrush, you can achieve a similar effect by using Oak Brown Colour Primer from The Army Painter or another suitable dark brown primer like Hyrax Brown from Colour Forge. Then, apply a thin coat of Wraithbone spray paint (or Wight Bone from Colour Forge) from above.

Using a soft makeup brush, drybrush the entire model with Game Color Dead White [or White Scar, or your favorite white paint]. As you can see, I also started to paint the armour, rags, and leather, but for the following tutorial this is not relevant.

Apply a wash of Dreadful Visage over the zenithally basecoat flesh.

Highlight the gore using Speedpaint Moody Mauve [or an about 1:1 mix of Leviathan Purple and Magos Purple].

To create sore areas around the daggers and nails embedded in the skin, apply multiple thin glazes of a 1:1 mix of Magos Purple / Contrast Medium. Use this mixture to also glaze the recesses of the face.

For stains, paint small dots of undiluted Magos Purple using a fine brush.

Layer the gory parts with a 1:1 mix of Model Color Violet Red and Kakophoni Purple [or use Kakophoni Purple with a touch of Xereus Purple instead].

Accentuate the gore by highlighting it with Ethereal Spector from The Army Painter’s D&D range [or mix Kakophoni Purple with Pallid Wych Flesh].

Add a gentle highlight to the skin using a mixture of Warpfiend Grey and Reaper Master Series Leather White
[or Pallid Wych Flesh]. Increase the amount of Warpfiend Grey for the darker, downward-facing areas, and increase the amount of Leather White for the lighter, upward-facing parts.

Paint the hair using Ratling Grime.

Highlight the hair with Formula P3 Trollblood Highlight [or Stormvermin Fur mixed with Pallid Wych Flesh].

Here we have the completed Zombie players with all of the other details filled in. Check out my whole Blitz Bowl Shambling Undead team here. If you would like to know how I painted this team, then check out this masterclass tutorial:

You can get the complete step-by-step tutorial for my Shambling Undead team here in my Patreon shop (or by becoming an Aspect Warrior member). The classic crimson paint scheme is perfect for all sorts of Soulblight Gravelords models!

For a flesh recipe with a more greenish hue check out this free tutorial here:

If you need to expand your paint collection, check out our 🇬🇧/🇪🇺 partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, and Firestorm Games, at 🇩🇪 Taschengelddieb and PK-Pro, and at 🇺🇸 Noble Knight Games, which all offer an amazing range of paints and hobby products at a discount. Using our links helps to support Tale of Painters at no additional cost to you, so thank you very much for using them!

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If so, leave a comment or reaction below, and if you got any questions, leave them here or on the Tale of Painters Discord so I can answer them for you.