"Rainbows and Gore" - Chromatiz

The fabled Chromatic Unicorns 

from the elven realms were always 

rather curious creatures...

But now, with the black plague sweeping the world, 

it seems at least one of these noble beasts 

has developed an intense curiosity 

concerning the taste of living flesh!

- Zombicide

Hello one and all and welcome back to your weekly dose of The Art of Caesura!

Today we have a fun and crazy model from Zombicide: Green Horde, along the lines of  the terrifying zombie-rabbit (The Abominabunny) that we've previously seen, today we have a zombie-unicorn: the Chromatiz. 

I love the unheimlich juxtaposition of the mystical unicorn with rainbow mane, and hauntingly macabre exposed flesh and bones. 

Painting this model was quite straight forward. From a Grey Seer undercoat, I painted all of the (intact) skin Apothecary White and all of the exposed bones with Skeleton Horde. 

Then I painted all of the exposed muscle with Fleshtearer's Red.

Next came the mane. When I bought a bunch of Contrast Paints I went for colours that suit my painting style (i.e. dark) so I went for Nazdreg Yellow over Iyanden Yellow and Fleshtearers Red over Blood Angle Red etc. This all being said, I didn't think my contrast paints would be bright enough for the mane. 

Instead, I painted the mane with conventional paints diluted with contrast medium. The red was accomplished with diluted Mephiston Red, the orange with Troll Slayer Orange, the yellow with Yriel Yellow, green with diluted Warboss Green, blue with Lothern Blue and violet Xereus Purple. I did a modicum of wet-blending to tie each hue together. The texture and curls of the hair actually made it quite easy. 

I then painted the Unicorn horn with Vallejo's metal medium to keep it nice and bright and gave all of the muscles and some of the bones (ribs, parts of jaw) a thick coat of Blood for the Blood God. I thought I was pretty much done at this point (the above two images). 

Above you can see my uncharacteristically vibrant wet palate (and my more typical neutral tones off to the side!)

Then, with the model pretty much done, I said 'actually I'm not thrilled with it,' and decided to re-paint large portions of it. Specifically, I felt the muscles were too bright and while they "popped", they didn't have enough tonal contrast from the pale skin and bright mane. 

So, I coated all the areas of the muscles with Nuln Oil (as you can see above and below), being careful not to get it on the bones or skin. 

Still not satisfied that the muscles were dark enough, I then gave another wash of Nuln Oil. Luckily this process was quite simple, because most of these details are recessed. 

Now we're talkin'!

With the muscles complete (again), I coated them with gloss varnish to give further visual interest and separation from the other elements. 

For reference, I have the pre-Nuln Oil on the left below, and the post Nuln Oil and gloss varnish on the right. I'm much happier with the end result. 

We'll finish off with a few of my "studio" photos to get a look at this haunting monstrosity in all its glory!

The Chromatiz has interesting in-game rules: it is extremely fast, but its abilities are dependent on the gender of any survivors that it can see. 

My wife and I have only used it in one of our games so far, but such was our panic at its devastating potential, that we prioritized immediately blasting it off, so it hasn't really seen much time on the tabletop yet!

So, what do you think? Do you like it? Do you hate it? Did darkening the muscles make much of a difference? Let me know in the comments below. I'll see you next week on The Art of Caesura!

Watching: Dark - Season 3

Gaming: Batman: Arkham Origins. 

Next Week:

Pump up the horde!