I have previous experience in creating low-poly characters, rigging them, and animating them. I'd work in Blender, which would require more time to set up the rig to be used for the character. I am willing to send over the .blend source file, so that the animations could be reused for further character models, and if required, I can design a simple rig and model so that it's easy to create custom variations of the zombie character.
I suggest dividing the task into three milestones. This gives you the possibility to give meaningful feedback twice during the creation of the model. First, after the character has been modeled and textured, but before it's been rigged, you can give feedback on the visual style and the color scheme of the zombie. Second, after the zombie has been rigged, you can give feedback on the animation style. This makes it easier to get the end result you want, and if any changes are required, less work will be wasted.