I thought I would start of with this clever piece of online viral advertising by Joe Schreiber who’s new book puts Star Wars Death Troopers surviving against our old favourite the zombie. When a prison ship (The Purge) docks with Star Destroyer (Vector) they find the crew of the Star Destroyer dead and without knowing whats happened they find them selves in a huge zombie Storm Trooper mess.

Mr Schreiber has used the online Star Wars fan base to create him mini fan-made Death Trooper trailers to promote his book. Mixing zombies with Star Wars is clever enough I thought but then allowing it’s fans free reign on it’s trailer was even better. With the 5 chosen videos online they set up a pole where you were allowed to vote for your favourite.

The verdict was anonymous and the final trailer I have posted below – Check it out.

Not only did they involve the huge Star Wars fan base they also created a fictional Twitter feed of a Storm Trooper that was based upon the Star Destroyer Vector. This has inspired me to do a similar thing in the future on an upcoming animation project really great stuff. Here is the troopers Twitter feed for your reading pleasure.

http://twitter.com/TK329

Letters that were found on the ships were posted up on fan sites and forum boards. You can read a couple of them here on the official Death Trooper book website > deathtroopers.com

As I loved the book so much I thought I would also post up some of the official artwork illustrated by TheUnknownStranger.

Step 1

First off you grab a few photos of really ugly mates and maybe one of yourself (me far right). Then place them where you like and start cutting them out. I thought I would just use images from the torso up in this post to save me a little time and to concentrate on the facial detail. If you can get your mates in Zombies poses the more it will help the authenticity of the image.

Choose your Zombies

Step 2

Find yourself a texture for the skin I wanted a dry peeling skin affect so I used a dry clay texture. Overlay the texture on each zombies skin and cut it out by lowering the opacity of the texture layer.

Choose a good texture and cut it out

Lower opacity to see what affect it has on your zombies faces

Step 3

Once you have the cut out the texture to fit the faces lower its opacity so that you can only just see it above your zombies skin. Try out a few textures until your happy with one. The one I used was great as it not only made the skin look dry and cracked it also looked sore and rotting. Perfect for zombies :) You can highlight parts of the texture making it look more like cracked skin. Either by using the burn tool lightly or darkening parts with the paintbrush.

Have fun testing different textures and see the awesome effects

Step 4

Right now to tidy up cut around your zombies take your time and make sure you have made the right choice with the zombies. No point in going to all the effort when you don’t really think your zombie is just not zombie enough. Here’s a few tips on how to place and select the right zombies.

1. Make sure your Zombies aren’t too over the top. I’m a traditional zombie guy I like the old style walking dead zombie slow and hungry – Check out Dawn of the Dead

2. They are zombies, there dead i.e zombies they don’t really smile or pull funny faces (so lets dump the funny looking one).

3. Layer your zombies, have a couple in the foreground and one in the background, play around with perspective until you are happy.

Make sure you have chosen the right zombies for your image! And get cutting

Step 5

To help you choose your perspective sometimes choosing your background can help. A background can give you depth to your image. It will set the scene and give your image the right mood if you choose the right one. Once again take your time use Flickr there are endless amounts of scenarios you can create.

Time to select a background

Step 6

Now to start adding the effects. I use a Wacom to add shading to my image you will find it helps with curves and blurring. Create a new layer for each bit you add too your post. This will stop you from making any mistakes on your actual zombie layer itself.

Use your Wacom to sketch on some rough shadow under the eyes and define the zombies faces i.e cheek bones and chins. Use the blur tool to blue the shadow this will fade it into the faces and make it look more realistic.

Right now it's time to start adding the gory bits

Step 7

As you can see in the last step I started to add some wounds to the zombies. As I have a Wacom I can spend lots of time illustrating wounds making them realistic but it takes a looong time. If you haven’t the time and want pretty much the same outcome search google or Flickr for fake wounds or real ones if you have a very strong belly there is plenty of imagery out there for you to play with. I also started to play with the zombies eyes a little here blanking them all out white gives the effect of death. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul but these guys have no souls so they don’t really need lovely looking eyes do they. :)

Make sure your zombies look rotten!

Take your time making the wounds look real

Use warp on your wounds to get them in the right perspective with enough tweaking and touching up it will look awesome. I used the paintbrush to make slight lines around the wound to make it look risen which then makes the it look as if there are lumps of flesh missing from the zombies face.

Step 8

Blood effects can be very cool

Adding blood to your image is easy to do. I simply created another layer on top of my zombie and started colouring different shades of blood where I though appropriate. Once your blood is sketched in simply use the blur tool with full opacity to blur your blood to the shirt and face.

I didn’t find any blood tutorials particularly helpful they all pretty much just embossed a vector layer to make it stand out and wet looking. I wanted the blood to be dry and soaked in apposed to wet and risen.

Right I think it's time for more blood!

Step 9

Burn some eyeballs!

Drawing in blood will take time sketch it in then blur it. Once you have a base coat of blood add a darker layer above it to add depth and age to the blood.

You can also start using the burn tool at this point burn. Use it under your zombies eyes and shaded places to create a darker harder feel to your zombies. Adding red around some of the edges like the nostrils will give a sore, worn effect.

Blood is good

Step 10

Hmmmm Tasty!

I found this dog bit mark on Devient Art so I tweaked it and moved it around to make it look more like a humans bite mark. I sketched a little red around each hole to make the cuts look sore and bloody.

I have also started to add shading to the far left zombie. You add another layer above the face layer and shade in where you want the shadow to be then use blur to heavily meld it into the face. (You can see the technique used more clearly in the next step)

All Zombies must have been bitten at some point! OM NOM NOM

Step 11

As you can see I also added a t-shirt graphic on the far right zombie I felt there was too much white space. I thought a zombie graphic would be very fitting. Remeber it takes time to get your zombies looking right keep adding plenty of shadow making them look as gaunt and as hungry as possible.

More blood and shadows

Step 12

I used the same technique for the highlights here as I used for the shadows. A good thing to do is add more than you actually need then slowly fade it away. As long as you have it on a separate layer as your zombie pictures it will not effect the skin and you can just keep adding highlights and shadows.

Zombie highlights

Step 13

I found myself repeatedly looking at the big gap in between the the zombie on the far right and the centre one. So I asked someone at work to pose for me and took lots of pictures of their hand. Best thing to do is test out loads of hand shapes. Different angles and shapes of hands can signify different things like anger or desperation. You could even have your zombie holding something like another hand?!

Empty space

Step 14

Dirty naughty hand!

The problem I had with this hand was that it was a slightly different colour to the zombie whom it belonged to. So I had to spend plenty of time adding new layers and putting plenty of fake blood to give it the look that it had been used for grasping eating and fighting.

Step 15

Right we are nearly there now. At this point take a good look around your post. Can any part of it be darkened, does the lighting look right, do my zombies have enough blood on them? (Seriously you can never have too much blood) Once your happy with all of your effects then have a little tidy up of edges. The burn tool makes a useful edge tool I find burning some of the edges will make them sharper and darker giving a much better effect.

The End is Nigh!!!!!!

Step 16

There you have it our finished Undead! They do not make a pretty picture but that’s what makes them dead good. If you are a huge zombie fan I would love to see some of your artwork so post your links up within the comments to show off your Zombie mates!

UGGGAAAAA UGGRRRRR

Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!