How to: Paint gore and open wounds on Death Guard, Pox Walkers and Zombies

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This is an older post from 2017 that we’ve recently copied across from the old site. With some of the newer Nurgle and undead miniatures coming out recently I thought it’d be a good time to repost it. Enjoy!

On a lot of miniatures, you get the opportunity to paint the grotesque and gory, which can bring them to life – or unlife – a little. Whether it’s an open wound, a gutted stomach, or a zombie missing something vital, the steps below will help you get your miniatures looking hideous with ease. This method saves coating the miniature with Blood for the Blood God, and allows you to see the gore, without losing detail.

For this, I’ll be using two pox walkers and a Death Guard Plaguecaster from the Warhammer 40k: Dark Imperium box, and one of the zombies from Mantic Games’ Walking Dead: All Out War.

The technique works with both white and black undercoats, and the miniatures below show them undercoated and ready for bloodshed.

I’m going to work on the Dark Imperium miniatures first, then hop over to the handsome Walking Dead guy once they’re done.

The first thing to do, is to base coat the innards. On the Plaguecaster, this involved mixing Vallejo Flat Red with Vallejo Flat Flesh. I did two mixes, which you can see on the intestines hanging out, with more red being used to give the left hand tubing a more pinky look.

On the pox walkers, I took two different directions. The chap wearing the long-coat has had his guts painted Flat Red, and the bionic armed chap has just had the tentacles coated in Citadel Xereus Purple.

Next, the insides of tentacle-tummy were painted Flat Red, with one organ painted with the same mix as the Plaguecaster’s lower intestine. Long-coat also had one painted with that mix, and another painted in a Flat Red and Xereus Purple mix, to give it a kind of ‘liver’ colour. Any remaining white internal areas were painted Flat Red.

The next step is to give the areas in and around the wounds a Vallejo Red Shade wash. It’s a lighter red than the Citadel Carroburg Crimson I use later, but gives a look of infected skin, and makes the organs look a little inflamed.

With that done, pick out the details and paint the rest of the highlights in and around the wounds. It’s the last time we’ll be doing them before goring them up. The tentacles I mixed Vallejo White with Xereus Purple and gave them two highlights. On the Plague Caster I painted the two maggots in his gut.

Now comes the gore. Now I like Citadel Carroburg Crimson because it is a deep, blood red, and when it dries, it looks dark and a bit horrible, which is ideal. Using Carrobug Crimson, I gave a wash to all internal parts, and also the parts which should have been internal, but no longer were. I also applied it around the edges of the wounds and tears to make them look infected, as well as leaving more shade beneath the wounds, as this is where the juices would be running (Tasty!).

Once dry, I used my old favourite, Citadel Druchii Violet to add a bit of darkness and depth to the deeper recesses in the stomach of the two pox walkers.

With the shades dry, I then used Citadel ‘Ardcoat Gloss Varnish to give all the insides and protruding organs a ‘moist’ look.

Now the Mantic Walking Dead zombies are ace, which should have been a dead cert really, as I really like their Kings of War zombies, and use them for Frostgrave. To start the zombie off, we’re using a base coat of Flat Red for the open wounds, and Citadel Rakarth Flesh for his skin.

Next I gave the skin a wash of Citadel Reikland Fleshshade, and painted the exposed bone with Citadel Ushabti Bone.

I highlighted the flesh with a mix of Rakarth Flesh and White, then used Druchii Violet to shade all the wounds. Once the wounds were dry, I used Carroburg Crimson to add trickles of blood from the open wounds on his head and back.

I also gave a wash of Carroburg Crimson to the exposed ribcage and bone parts.

Once all the shades are dry, just add ‘Ardcoat to the wounds and rib areas, so they still look wet, and that should be the wounds done.

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