Why do the zombiemen/former humans have green hair?

[DoomUK]

Have they been splashed with toxic waste or something (though why none of the other monsters have any on them is another mystery)? Or did they die their hair green for some unspecified reason before being zombiefied? Or was it just a design decision to help distinguish them from the shotgun guys?

[Waffenak]

I think its to help distinguish zombies from each other or the rifleman zombie discovered punk little too late.

[Marnetmar]

I remember reading somewhere it was some kind of palettizing error, but they left the green hair there because they thought it looked cool.

[Phobus]

It was camoflague to help them blend in with all the grass and trees on Phobos, Deimos and Mars.

[GreyGhost]

Yep - tropical camouflage hair gel, yet another example of the UAC's administrative ineptitude.

[Kira]

GreyGhost said:

Yep - tropical camouflage hair gel, yet another example of the UAC's administrative ineptitude.

The PDA giving data about chainsaws on Doom 3 was pretty epic. As for the former humains I long thought it was because they had been in toxic waste.

[Maes]

I always thought it was because they were half-rotten and moldy.

[TwinBeast]

I had green hair some years ago and then people who didn't like me called me moldhead or something like that.

[Krispy]

I thought it cheapened the look of the game.

[Udderdude]

Maes said:

I always thought it was because they were half-rotten and moldy.

Their eyebrows are also green, so this kind of makes sense.

It's still probably a palette error they didn't bother to fix, though :p

[40oz]

Thank you for the zombieman photo, I forgot what they looked like. When I finished Icon of Sin for the first time, I always thought the name "Zombieman" was a pretty fitting name for a guy with that shade of green hair. If I had the opportunity to name the monsters, zombieman is probably the name I would have chosen as well.

[TimeOfDeath]

He's a non-conformist.

[geo]

Probably to disginguish them and the background... or it is the same reason that they are zombies and former humans.

[Coraline]

I always thought it was an "early 90's" kind of style that made its way into the game.

[Maes]

Or, a coded way to signal that Zombiemen are punks....as in, punks in the monster hierarchy.

punk n [origin unknown] 1 : a young inexperienced person 2 : a usu. petty gangster, hoodlum, or ruffian : WANNABE 3 : one who is sodomized in a correctional facility

[40oz]

Is this where you learn your english from?

[Maes]

Maybe.

[lupinx-Kassman]

So that they could trick me into thinking they were clowns with guns, which as a four-year old, is actually what I thought they were. This made my first impression pretty creepy. I was a dumb four-year old.

Alternate answer: So that I could one day base my avatar on it.

[Captain Toenail]

Former Sergeants have green eyebrows too. Must have been the 'in thing' at Phobos base prior to the invasion.

[Maes]

Pennywise would find them pretty tame and lame, by his standards.

[MSPaintR0cks]

I think it just adds to the whole "dead and unhealthy looking"-feel that these zombies should give the viewer.

[Retog]

Marnetmar said:

I remember reading somewhere it was some kind of palettizing error, but they left the green hair there because they thought it looked cool.

haha I'd love that to be true.

[Retog]

I have actually never thought about this before. I just took it for granted.

[_bruce_]

The green as in decayed and poisoned seems fitting.

[jute]

Could the green be palette-swapped in Dehacked like the player's uniform?

[Captain Toenail]

I've tried that in the past. It doesn't work because the green contains elements of the khaki range of colours in the palette, so you end up with a half recoloured mess.

[Darkman 4]

Because they're fans of 90s XXXXTREME comic books.

[printz]

jute said:

Could the green be palette-swapped in Dehacked like the player's uniform?

They'd get a red/indigo/brown headband if you do that.

[Maes]

jute said:

Could the green be palette-swapped in Dehacked like the player's uniform?

If you rig a source port to use the special color-translated rendering function, yeah, it could.

[betabox]

DoomUK said:

IMAGE

Have they been splashed with toxic waste or something (though why none of the other monsters have any on them is another mystery)? Or did they die their hair green for some unspecified reason before being zombiefied? Or was it just a design decision to help distinguish them from the shotgun guys?

From that screenshot, it looks like the Zombiemen have a huge bald spot on the top.