Zombicide Season 1: Zombie Hordes!

I've completed my monochrome paint scheme for all the zombies in Zombicide's season one. I saw this paint scheme on this blog, and decided I'd try it for myself. I really like the results!

Witness the hordes of walking dead! (Click for a much larger picture)

These models appear to glow when grouped together, creating a wonderfully eerie feeling that I did not expect. I did these with a "damp brush" treatment and tried to vary tones for contrast. I picked out details but wasn't too careful with my paint job. Neatness was a "nice to have" rather than a requirement of this paint job.

Here are a few close ups of the horde. If you enlarge the pictures you'll see how rough the paint is.

 Totally all these models took about 8 hours to complete. Overall that's not bad when you consider there are 55 walkers, 24 runners, and 11 fatties. It's not often I can paint at speeds greater than 10 MPH (models per hour -- Doh!). I should also note that I added to the base set with the first "Walk of the Dead" addition. This basically gives you more of all the base set models.

Here's a line up of all the unique poses for all the figure types, in case you were wondering how much repetition is in this pile of models. (Again click for a larger picture)

 

I'm really pleased with the results. I think I'm burned out on painting zombies for now! I had hoped to get these Zombicide models to the gaming table but work interfered. When I do, I may take some pictures of them on the gaming table to post up here. I'm curious how these look against the full color games boards.

Zombicide Season One Survivors

I guess I could've left this post's subject heading as the entire post. It pretty much says it all.  I've recently got the Zombicide Season One base game and like it enough to paint the figures. These survivors can be used outside of the Zombicide game too, since they scale nicely with other models. So it gave me an extra incentive to paint.

Here they are. Click for a larger picture.

For those familiar with the game, I painted them exactly as they appeared on their stat cards. So no great innovation.  I did take some detail pictures but the focus was all off. I think I accidentally changed some settings. Well, this picture gives enough details.

I decided to paint the Abomination, since I consider him a zombie character. While painting him, I noticed he had a camera over his neck, like he's a tourist or something similar. Detail like that gets lost if you don't paint the models.

These figures are really nice with a good level of detail. As I said, they can be survivors for other games like All Things Zombie, which I plan to check out soon.

Next it's on to the actual zombies, starting with the walkers. I plan to do these in a gray scale. I saw this paint style on a blog, which you can see here.  I'm in no way as good a painter as this guy, but I like the idea and will give it a shot.  Besides, I have over 50 walkers alone, and I don't want to spend the rest of the year painting zombies! His way of painting seems very fast. I've already got ten completed, and they look nice.

Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens

Wow, that took a while.  Twenty days later, I'm finally able to post the finished results for my Wargames Factory Zombie Vixens. I didn't even build the whole box! Well, I've been busy with other things and my recent binge-watching of Sons of Anarchy on Netflix has contributed to dereliction at the painting table. There's only so much time each night for leisure activities.

While calling them vixens is a bit of a stretch, here's the mob of undead gals. Click for a larger picture.

 The box gives a lot of different options and is quite an improvement over the Zombie Horde box, which is male zombies only. Here you have head options, two arm options, and accessories. Why zombie women need so many handbags is beyond me. I added one, just for laughs. Maybe she died holding it and never let go.  Anyway, my only complaint is the models don't have any good join points, which means those spindly arms fall off and the necks don't align with the torsos.  I had to constantly repair while painting, since some arms have only the barest of contact surface with the torso.  Still, overall I'm satisfied with these additions.

Here's my zombie horde with both men and women, forty models strong right now.

You can see that the female boxed set provided bases, but the male set did not. That was unfortunate, as I had matching bases but didn't realize it until too late. So their bases and corresponding heights are mismatched. Not a big deal, since most of my collection don't match bases. My fantasy stuff has both square and round bases, so I shouldn't really care about this minor difference with my zombies.

This is a nice start to a zombie apocalypse theme. I will need more survivors, and I have the boxed sets of survivor men and women from Wargames Factory. However, for now I think I'll paint and use the survivors from the Zombicide game. They'll get double duty that way.  Also, they will be done faster and give me a chance to do something else!

In the meantime, let the zombie madness begin!

Zombie Chow!

What good is a zombie horde without a bunch of hapless victims? I asked the same question, and my answer was "not much good at all."  Therefore, I broke open the piggy bank and sent some cash to Reaper Miniatures. They sent back some blisters full of modern figures suitable for zombie gaming.

Here's the batch, representing "citizens", criminals, and police.  These are all Reaper Chronoscope line models. Click for a larger view.

I'll work down the rows to explain what I've got. First row is a single blister of Townsfolk: Ladies of the Night. Reaper has several of these townsfolk blisters, which are a good value for the price. These girls will fit with an urban area, and can be used in other modern scenarios other than zombies. I guess if I ever find a good prostitution game these figures will be handy.

Next row is Townsfolk: Jock, Chick, Nerd. I bet you can tell who's who. Again, this is a single blister and is a good value. They represent the classic triumvirate of teen slasher movies. I will have to buy Reaper's serial killer model just to go with these kids.

My favorite of the bunch are the bikers. These had to be purchased individually.  You have Noel the biker boss in his duster and shotgun, Peaches the old lady, and Stubs the Biker. I made sure Stubs was a full patched member of his club. From the rockers on his back, you can tell he's with the Cthulhu Riders of R'yleh.

Lastly we have some law enforcement. With all these prostitutes and bikers running around, you need some police. One officer is a Bones model, which you can tell from the non-matching base. The other is a Chronoscope sheriff. The girl is actually a "Sci-fi Heroine" but I figure she can be a professional zombie hunter. Seems to fit.

There you have it. I'll be adding way more to my modern zombie collection. I'm currently working on female zombies, then I've got hordes of modern "armed civilians" to complete. This has turned out to be a seriously involved project, but I'm enjoying it.

Wargames Factory Zombie Horde

Is it strange that I keep hearing "The Monkees" theme song whenever I look at my newly created zombie horde? Substituting "zombies" for "Monkees" in they lyrics really works. You should try it some time. Or not. Anyway....

Behold the start of the zombie apocalypse at my house! Here are twenty male zombies from Wargames Factory. Click for a bigger picture.

I've grown tired of my standard rotation of WW2 and Fantasy models, and decided it was time to do something modern. Zombies fit the bill. I'll be filling in this startling gap in my collection by creating a small horde of about 40 zombies. Then I'll move on to survivors, police, criminals, and plain ol' innocent bystanders. When done, I'll have the foundations of a modern zombie game that I can then expand as I want.

These Wargames Factory models really allow for lots of variation. According to their website, you can make 1,800 unique combinations out of one box. That's pretty cool, though I think the variations are fairly minor and you are stuck with some obvious repetition, like the doctor / raincoat guy and the guy holding a severed foot.  Still, it's a remarkable value even at full retail cost (which you can get cheaper if you look around online).

Here are just a few detailed shots of some of the zombies. Due to their pale flesh, I overexposed the pictures slightly. Still, you get the idea.

I went a little crazy with the GW blood effects paint. Also, I went heavy with brown washes to make them appear dirty and rotting. I think zombies benefit from a rough paint job. Overall, I'm pleased with the detail of the models, though some of it was very shallow and therefore obliterated beneath primer and paint. Take a lighter hand than I do and you should be fine.

My only complaint with these models is they are small compared to my other 28mm figures.  I guess I can excuse this as maybe being dead means they've lost some mass. I was hoping to mix these with other models, but I fear they might not mix too well when it comes to size.

Of course, having only zombie men is unrealistic (which is a weird thing to say when we're talking about the living dead). I also got the box of female zombies. I wince at calling them Vixens, as what could possibly be attractive in a pile of rotting, wounded flesh? Still, I will populate my horde with both genders for equal opportunities at undeath.

I didn't do the whole contents of the box (20 out of 30 models) just to save time. The models need assembly and each one is an individual model for painting purposes. No uniforms to make batch painting speed up things. Once all is done, if I need more zombies I'll finish out the boxes.

So up next will be some survivors and citizens, along with cops and bad guys to add some variety to my games.  These are from the Reaper Chronoscope line, and are a little bit bigger than these models. Still, I think they can match up. I'll have a comparison next time.

Clearing Out More Reaper Metals

It has been a busy week for me and I've not done much on my various projects. What I have been doing is cleaning out a bag of Reaper metal fantasy models that have been hanging around for a while. Not much to write home about, but here they are.

These are "vampire thralls" or something similar. Not a lot of detail on these models but they look suitably undead and evil. They come two to a pack.

Then I had a couple of crossbowmen, a model type not represented in my fantasy collection. So I put them on the painting table this week. These are much more detailed. The female is a Werner Klocke scuplt, and like all of his stuff it looks great. I'm not sure my paint job did it justice.

So there you have it. I also painted a giant snake but forgot to take a picture. It's really nothing to speak of anyway.

Up next are modern zombies, a whole new genre for me!

Copplestone Castings Cavemen

In my last update I mused about adding Copplestone Casting's Cavemen range to my tiny collection of prehistoric miniatures. I got inspired and placed an order. I was surprised at how fast the delivery was from the UK to the US, and it really wasn't all that expensive. I'll be ordering more from Copplestone from now on!

So here's the whole tribe. Click for a larger picture.

I decided that they were a little under-dressed to represent northern climates during the Ice Age. So, I painted them to look more "equatorial" or at least like people from a southern climate. I was thinking of going crazy with tribal tattoos, but decided I had neither talent nor patience for the effort.

The full range comes in four packages. Some of the models don't have their weapons attached, and so you can decided what goes where. For the most part, the poses dictated their weapons. Still, if I ordered more I could create a bit of variety by switching a weapon. The weapons were over-sized for the models' hands and have a tenuous bond with the models. One drop and the weapons will break off. That's my only complaint.

Here are details of the packages.

These are the Caveman Characters pack. They make suitable leaders or shamans. One is equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry, a bow! They're all single cast models.

For the unobservant, these are Cavewomen. They look a little too pretty for me, but at least they are solidly built. I really didn't think the bikini tops were necessary, but I guess it gives the models a pulp flavor with a nod toward modesty. Anyway, they're good models with interchangeable weapons.

Here we have the Cavemen pack. These guys remind me of some people I knew in high school. They all have swappable weapons, but I think in this case it's obvious what weapon should go with a model. This package provides the tribe with its hunters, so an extra pack might be worth it.

Lastly we have the More Cavemen pack. This is a cool pack because it give two more adult hunters, but also a range of ages. There's one about 18 - 20 years, one 14 -16 years, and a boy about 8 - 10 years who is throwing a rock.  That's a cool touch, and rounds out a "tribe" theme where everyone contributes.

So that's all of the cavemen I'm going to paint for now. These models don't all have to be from the same tribe, obviously. Combined with the Neanderthal types I painted last time, I'd have a good mix of prehistoric clans for some small skirmishes.

As a bonus, I dug into my bag or Reaper metals and found a large flightless bird I had once planned to use for my aborted World of Warcraft conversions. This was going to be a Plainstrider (WoW has tons of these large, flightless birds in the game). So I painted this up to go with my prehistoric stuff.

I don't know what it represents, but it looks stone age to me! Combined with the sabertooth tiger I have plus some wolves, bears, and a giant snake I need to finish, I have some animal enemies for my cavemen to hunt, too.

Not sure where I'll take this now, but I'm glad I scratched this itch. The models look great and can serve a lot of different purposes.