Why is the Zombieman's hair green?

[Noah Eadie]

1 hour ago, ChopBlock223 said:

I recall hearing once that the hair turning green was supposed to be some sort of palette conversion error, but the guys decided "Hey, that's kinda cool actually, let's keep it."

No idea if that's true or not, though it would mesh with the very mixed approach to art overall in the game.

 

I can relate to that, a lot of what I consider my best art had a mistakes-into-miracles moment somewhere in its creation.

[DNSKILL5]

When the space marines were converted into demonic slaves it causes them to lose their hair, but it’s a special type of hair loss where there’s a chance the hair could regrow, but the hairs have lost the original hosts’ hair pigmentation and it regrows as green hair instead of white due to the demonic properties of the regrown hairs. The former marines are more than likely all younger than the former sergeants  and commandos, so they’re less likely to have already gone bald naturally, hence the more likely chance of there being hair regrowth for the common grunt. 
 

Another guess, possibly, the hair was green because at one point they could’ve considered allowing the color of their hair to change through palette manipulation much like how they did with the marine armor in the player sprite, but there’s no evidence of this as far as I can tell.  

Edited December 28, 2020 by Gerolf

[leodoom85]

Barons of hell threw their green balls SO many times to poor humans that, when they revived, their hair stayed with that green dye.

[gothgirlxx96]

All zimbies be bald,

poss laid dead for a week before getting back up,

Grass grew in dead dirt head

 

[seed]

Likely because of radiation, looking at various environments they are found throughtout the games.

[xdarkmasterx]

"...Those unfortunate enough to chance upon the Chasm of Eternal Suffering have reserved for them the worst fate of all. Their body is expunged of every strand of hair. In their place, bilious growths of nauseating Demonium sprout from their festering skin. This peculiar brand of Hell's baleful rapacity eternally marks them as being in servitude to the powers of darkness, the stains on their body and soul shall stand eternal as a testament to the evils of demonkind."

 

-Doom Eternal Codex

[Noah Eadie]

On 12/28/2020 at 6:58 PM, MidnightMage said:

From a simple web search...

 

"What Causes Blonde Hair to Turn Green? Copper is the culprit. This metal is found in most pools, and when it is oxidized by chlorine, it binds to the proteins in your hair strands, turning it green. It is a simple chemical reaction."

 

Turns out hell is one big pool party!

[Tetzlaff]

[Denim Destroyer]

All the former humans were part of a base punk rock band before being turned. Zombieman was the lead singer, chaingunner on drums, and shotgunner was the main guitarist. This is my new headcannon and if I had the skills/knowledge I would make a mod based around this.

[Yandere_Doomer]

4 minutes ago, Denim Destroyer said:

 Zombieman was the lead singer, chaingunner on drums, and shotgunner was the main guitarist.

seems about right.

get the thickest one on the drums

and the flashiest one on the mic

[EvilNed]

Why shouldn't it be green?

[purist]

On 12/27/2020 at 11:14 PM, ChopBlock223 said:

I recall hearing once that the hair turning green was supposed to be some sort of palette conversion error, but the guys decided "Hey, that's kinda cool actually, let's keep it."

No idea if that's true or not, though it would mesh with the very mixed approach to art overall in the game.

I thought the same thing but I'm not sure if I read it somewhere or just arrived at an assumption.

[TheHambourgeois]

On 12/31/2020 at 1:36 PM, Denim Destroyer said:

All the former humans were part of a base punk rock band before being turned. Zombieman was the lead singer, chaingunner on drums, and shotgunner was the main guitarist. This is my new headcannon and if I had the skills/knowledge I would make a mod based around this.

Imp was bassist, no one knows what his fucken deal was

[geekmarine]

I always assumed it was like, either mold or from rolling around in the toxic slime that seems to be all over the friggin' place.  And I mean heck, it was the 90s, green slime was in!

[Immorpher]

The real reason why it is green I don't know. But in my whether the zombies are in Doom or a George Romero film, if they had green hair, it didn't seem odd to me. This is because I remember seeing in nature documentaries that sloths have green hair: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/untamed/0000015f-dfa0-d03c-a7df-dfb9d9870000

Sloths do not have green pigments in their fur, instead green algae grows on it. I imagine for zombiemen that (due to neglect, hair not replacing itself through growth, and a moist environment) that either algae or fungus/mold is growing on their hair turning it green.

Now if the zombieman initially had dark hair, the green would not initially show up. However pigments are large biological molecules which are subject to degrading. With a little bit of heat over long periods of time, they will break down and the hair will turn white (really allowing the green show up). This is usually accelerated in the sun, which is the explanation of "sun bleaching". Where dark molecules absorb heat and become more unstable, then break down, while lighter-colored molecules reflect and remain stable. Now outside of the sun, the process still happens, but much slower.

I just assumed the zombiemen were kept alive long enough as animated corpses such that both processes of algae/mold/fungus growth and hair turning white would happen.

[Cruduxy Pegg]

People dye their hair blue and green nowadays. Doom predicted the future.

[Noah Eadie]

On 1/1/2021 at 10:18 PM, Immorpher said:

The real reason why it is green I don't know. But in my whether the zombies are in Doom or a George Romero film, if they had green hair, it didn't seem odd to me. This is because I remember seeing in nature documentaries that sloths have green hair: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/untamed/0000015f-dfa0-d03c-a7df-dfb9d9870000

Sloths do not have green pigments in their fur, instead green algae grows on it. I imagine for zombiemen that (due to neglect, hair not replacing itself through growth, and a moist environment) that either algae or fungus/mold is growing on their hair turning it green.

Now if the zombieman initially had dark hair, the green would not initially show up. However pigments are large biological molecules which are subject to degrading. With a little bit of heat over long periods of time, they will break down and the hair will turn white (really allowing the green show up). This is usually accelerated in the sun, which is the explanation of "sun bleaching". Where dark molecules absorb heat and become more unstable, then break down, while lighter-colored molecules reflect and remain stable. Now outside of the sun, the process still happens, but much slower.

I just assumed the zombiemen were kept alive long enough as animated corpses such that both processes of algae/mold/fungus growth and hair turning white would happen.

That is a really awesome and scientific take on it. I tend to find scientific explanations behind cool sci-fi stuff kinda boring, but you managed to weave multiple seemingly unrelated scientific facts together into a believable and entertaining conclusion. Tell me, do you write sci-fi at all? Because that's a skill only the best sci-fi writers master (speaking as a sci-fi writer myself who tends to instead go "yeah this science word sounds cool, I'll just use it here and figure out what that actually means later").

 

On 12/31/2020 at 1:36 PM, Denim Destroyer said:

All the former humans were part of a base punk rock band before being turned. Zombieman was the lead singer, chaingunner on drums, and shotgunner was the main guitarist. This is my new headcannon and if I had the skills/knowledge I would make a mod based around this.

As an illustrator, I find this premise tempting...

Edited January 3, 2021 by Noah Eadie
elaboration

[Immorpher]

16 hours ago, Noah Eadie said:

That is a really awesome and scientific take on it. I tend to find scientific explanations behind cool sci-fi stuff kinda boring, but you managed to weave multiple seemingly unrelated scientific facts together into a believable and entertaining conclusion. Tell me, do you write sci-fi at all? Because that's a skill only the best sci-fi writers master (speaking as a sci-fi writer myself who tends to instead go "yeah this science word sounds cool, I'll just use it here and figure out what that actually means later").

 

As an illustrator, I find this premise tempting...

It's a result of being obsessed with science since I was little which I leveraged into a career! Normally, I don't write much, but I have been doing a lot more lately for the Doom Master Wadazine. My grammar and word choices are still atrocious at times, however I am becoming much better at editing and revising. :D

[SixtyCargo]

Zombieman have green hair because the developers (this is not true it's just what I think base on the articles) had mostly green or lime if you want to call it so they tried to use much of it as they can that's why there are so many hit scanners

[Stupid Bunny]

To this day I’ve never been able to see the green in the zombieman’s hair. Being colorblind will do that I guess.

[SixtyCargo]

hey your colorblind too thats nice

[Murdoch]

Because Hell's beauty industry is a shambles.