Wizkids, Mantic, And 4Ground Bits And Bobs

I have an unhealthy obsession with scatter terrain and accessories. I can never have enough and always want more, as you can see in the photo above. Clearly I went way overboard with everything lol! I even picked up some of the new pre-painted 4D Wizkids sets that I found for 50% off.

There is just way too much stuff to bother with individual photos, so I'll just show some of my favorite ones. The bunk beds behind the cage are from the castle barracks pre-painted set and are really nice.

The bulk of the items are all from $125.00 in store credit I had at one of the local game stores. I used all of it to buy a bunch of the "primed and ready to paint" Wizkids Dungeons and Dragons accessory pieces from their Deep Cuts and Nolzur's lines.

I blew through pretty much all of it thanks to Citadel's new contrast paints. If you have anything that needs painted in a wood color I highly recommend the Snake Bite Leather and Gore-Grunta Fur - the stuff is absolutely amazing, especially the Snake Bite Leather!

The same goes with any type of stone work you may be doing. Highly recommend both Space Wolves Grey and Basilicanum Grey. This stuff takes absolutely no time to do and the results are pretty astounding in my opinion. My only tip is to just do one coat, don't even try to do multiple passes on an area - just get it evenly covered and you're done. Less is more and definitely don't over think it!

I also made up this fun Ark of the Covenant set from 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'. The shipping crate is from a 4Ground box I modified a little, and the Ark itself was a stretch goal from Crooked Dice's last pulp Kickstarter. In hindsight I should have built the crate so the bottom was removable as the Ark is the perfect size to fit in there.

I also made up these books to kind of look like the books the story of three knights was in from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - the books that were in Walter Donovan's office. Forgot to add a red ribbon book mark though.

I know the contrast paints get a lot of hate, but they absolutely have their uses as you can see in all the photos, but especially above here. That green is just perfect 😃

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Cheers!
Ivor

US 7th Cavalry Mounted

Lots of figures getting based up recently, the first being of the mounted variety. This group is the US 7th cavalry from Artizan.

I completely forgot to do a year in review and goals for 2019 post but getting mounted figures completed was definitely on the top of any and all 'to do' lists I had.

The nice thing is I think these can be used in several types of skirmish games.

I'm sure they will see action in Dead Man's Hand and Gunfighter's Ball, in scenarios very Hollywood-esque along the lines of the John Ford cavalry film trilogy.

To even something like Peckinpah's Major Dundee could be really fun, as this guy almost has the exact face of James Coburn's character Sam Potts - of course the outfit is all wrong, but still, pretty solid likeness in my eyes.

This guy wins Movember 😂

And it's always fun to get more horses completed too, as all the riders are able to be taken off their mounts so corrals can be fully stocked.

Next up are some mounted robbers - it's been so long since I purchased these guys (big surprise right) and I can't for the life of me remember who the manufacturer is, though I'm leaning towards Artizan again.

A little variety with this group weapons wise as opposed to the cavalry, with this robber brandishing a rifle.

And a shotgun.

This guys hat makes me think he's probably from Kansas, and a former member of the outlaw groups there, as all he needs is a feather in it - maybe that could be a fun side project.

And finally I would like to say welcome and thank you to new follower of the blog Esben Christiansen, really appreciate you following along 😀

As always, thanks for looking!
Cheers!
Ivor

Zomtober 2019 Week 4 More Mantic's TWD

Another year and another Zomtober completed.  Painting is a real chore for me nowadays so anything over 4 figures completed for the month and I consider it a win, and for this last week I finished up another 7 models - plus a scenery piece and an initiative marker.

First up is Michonne. This is a pretty neat pose I must say.

Next is Lacey.

I tried something different with this Walker in the jumpsuit since it looked like he worked in some kind of automotive business. I made up a Texaco motor oil logo for the back of his jumpsuit. I like the idea, I just don't think the execution was where I'd like it to be.

A couple of walkers from prison set.

And the final two walkers for 2019.

I also finished one of the crashed cars from the scenery set.

I like the rust effects, but I think I may have gone overboard on the weathering, and definitely don't care for how the windows turned out.

I also finished the badge from the starter set. I used a brush flicking technique to put the little specks of blood on the badge and think it actually looks pretty good. Too bad it's a piece that will probably never be used lol!

I have this really great app on my phone and tablet called Hoopla where you can register your library card with the app and it allows you check out movies, music, television shows, and comic books - well this has allowed me to read the first 35 issues of The Walking Dead comics this month, so I decided to have a bit of fun with this last photo and change it to a pencil drawing as a nod to the comics 😀

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Zomtober 2019 Week 3 With Mantic's TWD

Much better output this week than last week as the poison ivy debacle has almost completely cleared up. I went back to survivors this time around, all from Mantic's 'The Walking Dead All Out War' game and got 9 based up.

Have you ever bought so much stuff over the course of the year that you totally forget what you actually have stashed away in boxes? Yeah, that's me in a nutshell. A lot of these models I'd totally forgot I had - like Brian Blake here from the Woodbury set. And apologies for the photos, the lighting during the day is very difficult to try to get right up in the studio 😕

Sandra.

Andy.

Derek.

Negan, from the exclusive set.

Otis.

Allen.

Carlos.

Billy.

I also painted up this really neat objective marker from the exclusive set that Negan came in. I absolutely love little pieces like this 😀

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor

Zomtober 2019 Week 2 With Poison Ivy

No, not the Batman villain. I actually got poison ivy last week - and to make matters worse I actually got it around my left eye and it swelled up something fierce! Living on the farm getting poison ivy is nothing new for me, I'm good to get it several times a year and as annoying as it is I can usually power through it without seeking medical attention, but this time, not so much. It took me out of commission for quite a while and obviously made it difficult to get anything done this week for Zomtober, but I did manage to sneak a few completed models in at the last minute.

Anyone who has followed the blog for a while knows that I'm not a big fan of multipart plastic models - especially the WWII ones where trying to glue weapons into hands and arms is enough to make me bang my head against the nearest wall. But the Mantic zombie models for Kings of War are really nice and have some really incredible poses - much more aggressive than any of the undead you'll find in Mantic's The Walking Dead game so that's what I decided to give a go for this week.

The one thing I think I finally figured out is an undead skin tone. I have struggled with this from the very first time I tried to paint undead and have been trying all kinds of different recipes over the years with varying degrees of success, but I think I finally have a winner. The models are primed with the new Games Workshop Grey Seer, then I used Vallejo's Pale Grey Blue to paint all the skin.

I then washed the skin with Army Painters Green Tone Quickshade wash and that made all the difference in my eye (the one that was working at least lol!). I decided to not go all blood and gore on these models as I feel less is more with these types of undead figures.

I did a couple of other figures really quickly using some contrast paints since I only had a few models completed. First was this monk from Effin Cool Minis through their last Kickstarter.

I have 9 more completed but still need to get them based. The red contrast paint made them paint up really easily. I also have some really fun terrain pieces to go with the set that I hope to get completed in the near future.

When I first saw these monk figures it reminded me of what was my piece de resistance of my teenage Dungeons and Dragons years and the adventure 'Master of the Desert Nomads'. The last part of the adventure took place in this monastery high up in the mountains where this group of monks offer help, food, and shelter to the party but when night time comes they change into their true forms - sort of like vampire/undead creatures, making the adventuring party their targets. It made for an absolutely incredible gaming experience and was just the perfect ending to what was already an incredible adventure.

So that's what I was trying to accomplish with these models, and why the undead have red clothing - the monk models would represent the day time and the creepy undead models would represent the night time versions. So ideally I'd like to complete 7 more of the Mantic zombies, which will give me equal numbers for the day and night monks.

Something I would really love to try to do is to run that adventure again. I've subtlety been dropping hints to my son to see if there is any interest from him about playing, and now that I belong to an actual gaming club, who knows, maybe that could be a possibility. But ultimately I'd love to use my much improved terrain building skills and all the models I have to just build the monastery in 28mm. It is something that I've thought about for a long time now, and something that could be pretty impressive visually I think - and could even be used for other types of games, pulp or spy-fi for instance. We shall see :)

And finally just for fun, and since it's October, I painted up the Mummy from Crooked Dice's Pulp Kickstarter. This is a fantastic model and with the contrast paint took no time at all to complete.

Until next time, when hopefully both my eyes will be fully functioning, thanks for looking!
Ivor