Painting Johannes from Zombicide is the goal of this video. Johannes is undoubtedly the hero of Zombicide Green Horde who immediately caught my attention. Much of this interest is due to his background. CMON describes him as an engineer, a scientist capable of creating weapons and improving people’s lives, until the arrival of the horde, of course. His ingenuity allowed him to survive, creating new and unthinkable weapons.

The miniature is also fantastic, with many different elements to paint, details to stand out and a plastic pose that gives it movement and dynamism, typical of Zombicide miniatures, especially in the fantasy version. Before we start, remember that this is a series of articles and videos about how to paint Zombicide.

How to paint Zombicide’s Johannes

When I started this video series, I gave all 6 heroes a black primer. To Johannes, however, I had recently also applied a zenithal highlight to bring out the points of light. If you’ve seen my other videos on Zombicide you know what I’m talking about. We are not here to repeat ourselves then and we pass to the second phase.

Painting Johannes from Zombicide: the brushes

To paint Johannes I used the Wargamer Character, a medium sized brush from The Army Painter, ideal for base colors. I started with Vampire Red as the base of the cape. The Army Painter colors are often subtle and I still wanted to bring out the shadows of the cloak by taking advantage of the zenith highlight. For this I only gave a hand, letting lights and shadows seep through the color.

We give the basic colors

Chaotic Red is a warm, reddish brown that I used for the base of the leather coat. The Wargamer Character helped me a lot in making this miniature, it fits well in its small size. I then switched to the complexion with Barbarian Flesh, after the right stir, I put some on the wet palette, mixing it with a little water until it reached the right consistency. I then painted the foundation for the face and hands. As already mentioned in other videos, I like to give a very precise basis, I prefer to work more at this stage than having to chase errors to be corrected during the highlight. I then moved on to painting the boots, using Necromancer Cloak. A gray that I often use as a base because of its medium shade. Pay attention to Johanness’s toes, according to the illustration they are made of metal and not leather. I also colored the sheaths of the sword and sword with the same gray.

At this point I put 3 browns on the wet palette:

  • Oak Brown
  • Leather Brown
  • and Fur Brown

Arranging them all on the wet palette to have all the shades available. I painted Johanness’s beard and hair and crossbow with the first two, actually leaving Fur Brown for later. Small parenthesis with some Mummy Robes to paint the parchments that Johannes brings to the wall. True Copper is one of the metallics that I like so much about The Army Painter, I used it for all the metal parts that in the illustration were duller than the gold of the armor, where instead I used Greedy Gold, a warmer gold is full. The same gold also for the sword and the metal objects resulting from Johannes’s inventions that he carries hanging from the belt. Troglodyte Blue, or whatever it’s called, is a bright blue. I thought that a much brighter color should be used for the hourglass, which detaches from the background of warm colors.

Johannes has with him several metal objects that I could only paint with the usual Gun Metal, a dark silver, ideal for bases of metal parts which you can then highlight with a light silver.

Shade the miniature

At this point as this is a game miniature, I decided to use a unique shader for the whole miniature. Given the prevalence of warm colors such as red, brown and gold, I could only choose a Strong tone. Otherwise, if you want to be more daring, there are shaders of every color and you can go and use them tone on tone. You can use a larger brush for this step, being careful to distribute the shader evenly.

Highlight of the most illuminated points

With the Kolinsky Masterclass, a natural bristle brush with a thinner tip, I started the highlight phase by highlighting the many folds of the coat.

Remember to dilute the color well and go over the areas you have already highlighted from time to time. You will never completely go over the same area as before, this will allow you to accentuate the color where you give two coats, leaving darker where you have passed one or none. Welcome to the world of Layering! Bright Gold is a lighter yellow than Greedy Gold, giving small coats of this different shade in the most exposed parts of the armor, you get a brilliant play of light.

I wanted to take the Fur Brown first in wet palette but since in reality the miniature was painted in different sessions spread over several days, by now he was annoyed. I thus highlighted the leather surplice and the pouch, giving it depth and movement. For the parts painted with Necromancer Cloak, I used Uniform Gray, highlighting all the most exposed creases of the boots and the sword and dagger linings. At this point, let’s go back to using browns with Monster Brown, to highlight the crossbow but also beard and hair. Again Mummy Robes to give some shots of light to the arbors, using the edges of the rolls.

To emphasize the armor, I decided to paint all the sharpest edges of the shoulder straps and elbow pads in light silver, Shining Silver. Last touch on the face and hands to highlight Johannes’s complexion a little, with some Corpse Pale. As you can see, as for the eyes for example, it is not necessary to load the brush a lot for this kind of detail. Finally, I gave a brown base to the base with Monster Brown and a flat brush, ideal for this kind of work.

Conclusions on how to paint Johannes of Zombicide Green Horde

We have thus finished painting the fourth miniature of the six heroes present in the Zombicide Green Horde box. What I’m trying to do is not repeat myself, but try to give you some ideas on how to paint your miniatures. This is why I try to deal with a different topic, or a different technique, with each video, in order to give you the widest possible range of techniques and possibilities. I think it’s useful, rather than repeating myself at each video, simply changing the subject, don’t you find it too?