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

Zomtober 2019 Week 1 With Bad Squiddo's Van Helsing

I think this qualifies for Zomtober as it kind of falls into that undead/horror category - anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it 😀 I have finally got my Van Helsing models from Bad Squiddo based and completed.

Sure Van Helsing isn't a great movie, but I have no problem admitting that I do like it a lot 🙂  I really like the filtered and muted colors that it is filmed in and there are several really neat sequences, like the opening fight with Mr. Hyde and the carriage chase just to name a few.

The three brides from the film are definitely a highlight - that sequence when they attack the town is really good and could make for a really fun scenario on the tabletop I think.

These vampire hunters I think are modeled after one of the old Hammer horror films, I could be wrong though.

Someone gets these guys a couple of garlic t-shirts and holy water stat!

This chap has a sword of D&D proportions! I like it 😀

I didn't realize that the two females were also vampires and mistakenly painted their skin like they spend their days at a tanning salon. Oh well, fixing that has now gone to the top of the to do list.

A close up of Dracula with Anna in the background.

And a close up of a couple of those lovely brides, well probably more deadly than lovely 😀

Here is the list so far - hopefully we'll add more to the list - of other blogs participating in this year's Zomtober

Simon at Brummies's Wargaming Blog

Rob at Four Colour Super Minis

Pulp Citizen at Eclectic gentleman Tabletop Gamer

Kieron at Cheaphammer!!!

Jayson at Doctor Merkury's Lab

Simon at Fantorical

Dai at The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted

Hugh at Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers

Terry at Miniature Mayhem

Azazel at Azazel's Bitz Box

Phil at Dizbusters Gaming Ephemera

Greg at The Wargaming Addict

Until next week, thanks for looking!
Ivor

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