Zomtober - Week 5

Final Week in Zomtober and probably my favourite mini of the month. This punk is from Hasslefree and goes under the rather unassuming name of Joe. The scuplting is so tipically smooth that I was encouraged to a bit more detailing than I normally do. I had a bash at a Union Flag on his t-shirt and an anarchy symbol on this back. The t-shirt doesn't bear up to too close scrutiny, but from the tabletop distance looks like its meant to, so result. Also the way his left eye had come out (from my variable painting) made me think it looked a bit swollen, so I've tried to give him a black eye showing he's been in a rumble and come out the other side!

The second of this week's figures is Cleaver Vine from West Winds sidelined Road Kill range. He is slightly on the heroic side of scaling, but the pose brings his height down. I always have trouble with faces and eyes and this figure was a bit awkward as his eyeballs have been sculpted almost popping out his head. But the cigar, haircut and dynamic pose are are winners.

All that remains is to thank and congratulate all the other participants in this years event. There have been some great and interesting models across the board. And also to finish with the customary group shot:

Gladiators Back On The Table

Just a quick note to mark two things. One is gaming back in the shed and the other is I've FINALLY had a game of 2nd Edition "Red Sand, Blue Sky" from Two Hour Wargames. I'd started playing a solo First Ed. campaign several years ago then 2nd Ed. came out, I bought it and the campaign ground to a halt. So thank you, MacSver.

And it was good. The movement is much better in the second version. It was very linear in 1st Ed. And the whole tactical play, from bonus dice to arena movement for catching breath. Great fun. We'll get the other Hlafiator types out next time. I think the tenses of having a Retarius throwing nets will be good.

That's all I have to say at the moment except MacSver wrote up a game review from the evenings play HERE.

Zomtober - Week 4

With the October break this week time was short for painting (was away with the family on a short break to South Ayrshire, Scotland), but a couple of simple paint jobs have seen me through!

Two survivors possibly from different ends of the social scale this week. First up is a business woman from Foundry's Street Violence range.

The other survivor is by ZonbieSmith. His rifle seems to have been damaged at some point, which obviously hasn't done him any favours as I painted his Zed version for Zomtober a couple of years ago.

Zomtober - Week 3

The original (not) Rick and Carl from Studio Miniatures. These two are earlier releases which are more comic book based. S.M. have since released a couple of excellent sculpts of a more serious vein as per their later zombie survivor releases. I won them on ebay without the Lori figure. Also, strangely, the Rick figure has two pistols, whereas the website has him holding a rifle in his right hand. I don't know if they come with weapon options.

The Rick figure is really nice to paint. The Carl one is a bit cartoony, or at least small for his age. Having said that the wide brim of hat hides the face. He'll also probably mix well with some of my other kid figures, once they get painted..

EDIT: After writing this post I got round to pulling out some of my Walking Dead graphic novels. In these early volumes Carl is indeed very young and the sculpt above is quite accurate.

Zomtober - Week 2

If you are wondering what happened to Week 1 so am I. It seems that week 1 of Zomtober was condensed into Saturday 1st Oct so I missed it!

Anyway we'll move on. Bigger woes to tell. I had planned to "catch up" with a raft of HeroClix touch-ups\repaints this week that I'd quickly based years ago to get gaming. But the first batch out on the table demonstrated the variety of detail quality of these sculpts. To cut to the chase I became too frustrated with them and the majority went in the bin! (I was a bit tired and cranky) HeroClix scale is slightly oversized, so in the long run I'll have a better sculpted and scaled collection.

 One of the two that made the cut were this young lady with her Uzis and face paint, who got a bit of a touch up and highlight. Not much but enough to improve her no end.

Second Survivor the this gent, a Detective I think originally. He's got a wonderful dynamic pose and, thankfully, defined facial features. The figure got a complete repaint in pretty much the same colours. Don't ask me what the point of that was, but he's better for it (and definitely counts towards the painting total as a result!).

And finally this grizzled Survivor from RAFM's USX line (Karl H. Unger to be precise) He's been sitting primed in a tin for more years than I care to remember so I knew he had to be done this month. I've painted his attire to match the red beret wearing militia I already have painted (as seen in the Filling Station post previously).

No time to rest though. There's a Police Officer and his young son calling for attenion.

TT Combat Filling Station

Real life is trying to weigh me down a bit, so it took a bit longer than hoped to get this kit to a playable state. It didn't help that the cheap red paint that I'd picked up was a real pain. It was marked "water paint" which I naively took to mean acrylic turned out not to be anything of the kind. Despite being dry for the best part of a week , any fluid, including neat paint, caused it to re-activate and smear. Fortunately repeated blasts of Matt Varnish Spray (I daren't have brushed it on) sealed it enough for me to continue.

There is still work to do. I didn't like the large "DinoGas" signage that goes on the roof so didn't add it. Haven't had time to fill the holes yet. Also I've not had time to do a proper interior yet past gluing down a printed out floor.

But it all stands as playable enough for the moment as I'm aware that Zomtober has started properly now and those participating have rushed out with the early Sunday.