The Close To Zomtober 2018 - I Guess You Can Never Have Enough Walkers

Another year and another Zomtober in the books. This year was pretty good as far as totals were concerned - 46 models were completed and based for the month. Here's my obligatory splash photo with every walker I've done so far, with a couple of select survivors putting up a last defense.

This week had me finish 20 figures. I think that I only have a total of five unpainted Mantic walkers left to do, which is pretty amazing honestly. There were no new poses in this group except for the Shane walker, so I didn't think there was any need for close ups this time around.  I really like the look of the horde bases, so I did two more on the right.

One thing I really wanted to do this month was get some of the prone figures done. But with the switch to the thin clear base that meant I had to cut them off their resin bases.

Oh my days, what a chore that was! I had to use my jewelers saw as the Xacto knife wasn't going to cut it - the jokes just write themselves folks :)  I broke like three blades, but finally did get them all done.

A zoomed in photo of some of the prone figures in action. And Negan being Negan to the poor lad kneeling on the left.

I moved to another corner of the unfinished board for this final week, as I felt the loading dock of the factory would look way too similar for photos two weeks in a row.

Even though I have 73 walkers it wasn't nearly enough to fill up the intersection. I guess I need to buy more undead figures :)

I'm extremely lucky to have an entire room dedicated to nothing but my hobbies, but it is frustrating that the ceilings are so low (about 6'1").

That means that the lights are literally right on top of the tables and it creates shadows all over them, as you can see above. Definitely a bit frustrating.

So a pretty successful Zomtober 2018. Thanks to everyone who participated this year, there was a lot to be inspired by and I got to follow a few new blogs along the way. I also want to take a second and say "thank you" to some new followers of to the blog as well :) - myincubliss, Steve Hamner, and Doctor Merkury. Appreciate you following along!

I'm ready to go back to my favorite genre of gaming next, pulp. I've started working on a one off Jonny Quest adventure featuring that temple I worked on earlier in the year, with some of the new Kickstarter dungeon tiles that arrived from Germany a few weeks ago. It's been almost two years since the Quest gang was out on the table. That is way too long, and it's definitely time to see them again.

As always, thanks for looking!

Cheers!
Ivor

Zombtober Week Three - More Survivors

I felt I really needed to move out of that corner of the board where I've been taking group photos of the zombie apocalypse over the past year. Every time I would add more figures I would just throw them in that same corner and move a few things around. Pretty boring really, so apologies! But honestly, because this board is no where near finished, I still feel odd trying to set up these staged photos even though I do think they look better than just the light box photos. Anyway, over to the trackside factory I went with the resulting zoomed in splash photo above.

I imagine that this was a supply run into the factory that has gone horribly horribly wrong!! This is the original photo - where clearly the author of this blog shouldn't have included it because it actually shows in full color detail just how much work still needs done lol

Ten more survivors were based this week, with a large number of walkers started for next weeks grand finale. Here are the first five - three Mantic figures and two from Studio Miniatures.

The first is Herschel Greene from Studio Miniatures. Obviously this version is from the television show and not the comic. Having only ever finished the first volume of the comic book series, I'm only familiar with Herschel as portrayed on the show and I quite liked that character a lot. When I saw this figure I had to grab him.

Next is Darrel Dixon, again from Studio Miniatures and another television show only figure.  Darrell is definitely a favorite of mine on the show, and just like with Herschel, when I saw him I absolutely had to get him into the shopping cart too.

Darrell's vest has some fantastic detail on the back with the wings. Overall the details on the SM figures are just amazing. The only thing is, as you can see in the group photo, they are a bit smaller than the Mantic figures. For me though it's nothing that isn't going to prevent me from mixing them in with the Mantic line of figures.

Patrick. Baseball bats seem all the rage with early figure sculpts.

Arnold.

And last in this group is Glenn.

This next group of five has Michonne, Tyrese, Andrea, Negan, and Chris - all from Mantic Games.

I know Tyrese is supposed to have been a former football player, but this particular sculpt has always bothered me - his shoulders just seem a bit too big, though in this particular angle he looks ok, the group photo not so much.

Chris.

Michonne.

Negan.

And last, Andrea.

Until next time, when we'll close out this Zomtober with a boatload of walkers, thanks for looking!

Ivor

Zomtober Week Two - Atlanta Survivors

This week I decided to stay away from the undead and get some survivors completed.

Five survivors from the early days of Atlanta got put onto their new bases an immediately placed on Main Street :)

And a close up of the horde about to overrun them!

Here is Lori, Morgan, Jim, Carol, and Liam.

Jim is my favorite figure of the lot. The sculpt really captures the terror of being in a zombie apocalypse.

The Liam sculpt is another favorite. I like figures that aren't armed to the teeth so a majority of this group falls under that heading. What I really like is that this particular sculpt captures a moment when Liam was clearly caught off guard.

Carol.

Morgan.

And last, Lori.

I also worked on one of the trucks from the All Out War scenery set. It's a great set and highly recommended if you don't have it.

I decided to think way outside the box and went with red as my color choice for the truck.

I think the weathering turned out ok, definitely need more practice with it though. And I didn't realize the lights on the roof looked that bad until I started to put this post together. Oh well, I have another truck to hopefully improve on.

And to wrap this post up, I was able to snag last years event exclusive set from Mantic off Ebay for the bargain basement price of $27.00 - which included the shipping! Can't wait to start on this one :)

Until next time, thanks for looking!

Ivor

Zomtober 2018 Week One

So begins another Zomtober October - and it's a nice coincidence that it is on the same day as the season premier of The Walking Dead! I figured I may as well go with a money shot right off the bat with the 11 walkers I painted this week along with everything from last year.

And a bit of a zoom in on the photo gives the horde a much more impressive feel, especially with Rick all by himself on the other side of the police car. I am currently sitting at 44 painted and based zombies.

I decided to go ahead and prime the remainder of all my Mantic walkers for this month's challenge.

Well, what I thought were the remainder of all my walkers - I've found about 6 more that will need to see the priming can.

I've struggled with the "right" skin tone - in my eyes anyway - on Zombies since my very first one over a year ago. After trying something completely different this time around - many layers and actually starting with a flesh base - I think I've finally found the right recipe.

And the first 11 for this go around, on the new and improved clear bases. I've decided not to go overboard with the blood this time around as well. The casualty figure is from TT Combat - I wanted to try to paint up one to see how it would look. I think they will add a lot to the narrative of a board. I do have two boxes of Mantic's prone figures, so I hope to get those done this month as those are much more detailed and look much better overall.

This close up shows the new skin tones. The model on the left is literally a beast and quite menacing. The one on the right I thought I'd paint up like Shaggy from Scooby Doo just for fun.

I went back and pulled all the Litko clear bases off of last years completed walkers and changed them to the new thin clear bases. I threw them all on the mall tile for their glamour shot. It's just amazing what a difference the new bases make.

Here is the blog list for this years Zomtober Challenge - hopefully I've got everyone, if I've missed you just comment below and I'll add you in.

Simon - Brummies Wargaming Blog
Pulp Citizen - Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer
Rob Bresnen - Four Colour Super Minis
Kieron - Cheaphammer!!
Terry Silverthorn - Miniature Mayhem
Bryan Scott aka Vampifan - Vampifan's WOIN Blog
Colgar6 - Colgar6 And The Infinite Legion Of Toy Soldiers
Clint - Anything But A One
Phil Curran - Dizbusters Gaming Ephemera
Dai - The Lost And The Damned And The Stunted
Myincubliss - Dead Lead Project
Greg - The Wargaming Addict

The rules for the challenge are simple - to take part you just need to paint one zombie or survivor (or more!) each week in any scale you like, posting it to your blog by that week's Sunday. So that means posting each week on or before the 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th this year.

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Atlanta Survivors

Horses. Horses. And even more horses. It's quickly becoming very clear that I'm not going to have any free time anymore in the summer months because of... yup, you guessed it, horses. So that is why the blog has been quiet, and why I haven't commented on any other blogs recently - apologies to all! But I finally did manage to base a few of the main survivors for Mantic's The Walking Dead All Out War game.

Carl Grimes.

I'm not familiar with the comics - which the game is based off of - and I've heard the character is completely different from his television counterpart., but this looks like a neat character to add to your group for the game. His hat has a special rule that looks a bit fun :)

Rick Grimes.

I went back and rewatched the very first episode of the television series while working on these guys, and I think I like season 1 Rick the best. He'll probably be a figure I use often - which is also why I wanted him done first.

Shane Walsh.

He was always kind of the good bad guy or bad good guy depending on how you look at it in the show. And the actor who plays him, Jon Bernthal, was absolutely brilliant.

As you can see I've got them all based with the new and improved clear bases - walkers still need converted. Shane's pose made using a 20mm base impossible so he's on a larger 25mm base. But the most important thing is now I actually have a few survivors to where I may be able to play a game of TWD using the solo rules. So fingers crossed that can actually happen.

I've got two Kickstarters that arrived this month so I want to do a post on them, and a week ago was the annual D-Day Conneaut reenactment that I've participated in for the last six year, so I want to do a photo dump on that as well. Next year will be the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings so planning has already started on that - though the event is so big already I can't imagine how much more they can actually do to make it better.

Until next time (which I hope isn't that long!), thanks for looking!

Ivor