AHPC XII: From Mike W - 32mm Zombies

 I said never again...

Then a guy on eBay made me an offer I couldn't refuse, 20 figures for less than £1 each, a 3D printing company had seen me looking at figures online and although my bid did not succeed they came back to me with the offer!

The undercoated figures, they came without bases and had to be superglued to MDF disks

So I thought it'd be rude not to use this as my last post for this challenge. Remember the dead never sleep!

A whole new addition to the Herd

I'm relatively new to 3D printed figures, they looked nice online but I was even more pleased once I'd seen them after the landed on my doorstep - about three weeks ago. If I have one criticism, it would be that the resin used in this case seems a little brittle, almost immediately my clumsy fingers broke off an arm from one of the figures. No worries though a drop of superglue and I transplanted one loose limb to an appropriate stump on another figure and I'd created two new distinct figures.

Close-up of four figures, the one on the left has a distinct Medieval feel to it,
the rest are very contemporary

Another nice feature of this batch was that they were picked at random from a selection of 10 poses. These poses were produced in two versions - that is mirror images of each other - so in fact there are 20 different figures in the random pool that he group was selected from!

Left is a Blacksmith, in this group of four more Zombies,
second right had the 'broken' left arm added to her stump to give her two functioning arms! 

The figures were undercoated in white and then a variety of skin tones applied as discussed in previous posts, I use appropriate colours to 'dress' the figures before using different coloured washes to shade the skin and clothes. Blood was applied as I saw fit, Less is more in my opinion.

Another four completed figures in close-up

If anyone looks closely at the bases they will see I have continued with my concrete pavement theme but added some debris to the bases, again using the less is more maxim. I've now created a new job for myself to retro-fit this debris effect to my other figures in the collection!

Figure second right carries a pointy stick,
left hand figure is the one I snapped the arm off when opening the packaging...

As does the left hand figure here is the mirror images of the guy with the stick above

So this is my last post of this year's challenge and what a blast it has been - I didn't imagine that I'd be able to get so much stuff painted in the time period! This year I had prepared early and built figures and undercoated many - but even so I found myself running out of things to paint! My best tip - is to have multiple projects on the go at the same time!

Many thanks to Curt for again masterminding the event, thanks too goes to Peter D as my long suffering Monday Minion who had to endure my churn of posts and thanks to all the other participants and those who left encouraging comments on the posts! Roll on AHPC XII 😀

AHPC XII: From Mike W - Return of the Living Dead

Like all good Zombie films, the undead keep returning! However, this time (I promise) it really is for the last time...

The latest addition to the horde, 33 new figures

These guys were sourced from a lot I saw on eBay, once I'd gotten into painting-up my horde as part of this challenge, I couldn't resist a bargain and they would go quite some way to balancing the male / female split within the horde, add a number of less characterful 'run of the mill' zombies and increase the overall fear factor when players see such a horde advancing towards them!

First five guys in this batch

As can be seen the figures came with a 'Rotten flesh' coloured undercoat and about one half of their number were pre-assembled, leaving only arms to be added to the rest. Most of the figures were intentionally built as these standard variants.

Another five guys

As per other batches of these figures I have given them a variety of base flesh tines and then added colours to 'dress' them. That said a fair few of these guys seem to have had their t-shirts ripped off in an inappropriate manner - leaving a lot of flesh on show!

I gave the guy second from left a handbag, that he'd picked-up somewhere

On a couple of the guys I added a few extra details, just because I could, see the notes under the photos for info on these.

More Zombie guys, second from left has had entrails from the Warlord Project Z set added for effect!

The downside of these figures was that they did not come with a cast-on base, so I had to fix these to MDF disks and then build-up  the bases using a suitable putty, before adding on pavement cracks and the odd grass tuft. I may add some additional debris to all the figure's bases at some point in the future - but not now

The guy on the left has had a backpack added to his right hand

just because I had one lying around.

Nearly done, final group of five

And the last three

I did promise a photo of the whole horde, all the batches massed together - so here it is, plus a short video that will hopefully capture the massed effect a little better.

All of the horde together!

AHPC XII: From Mike W - Oh No! Not more Zombies...

 This was going to be the last Zombie post this challenge, wrapping up on the Zombicide figures and introducing some Project Z Zombie Vixens plus a couple of other odds and ends...

However, rather rashly I have just taken delivery of a batch of new zombie figures from eBay - so the last post will now be next week!

First of the project Z, Zombie Vixens. At first I was unsure of these models but they fit in very nicely with the Zombicide figures. Various poses and origins, on the left is a zombified Victoria Beckham, whilst in the centre is a former Waitress

Second group of Zombie Vixens, including the central figure in an inappropriate bikini!

Last two from the Project Z sprue, I'm only counting these as 1/2 a figure each due to their obvious injuries.
In game terms these count as Crawlers.

I was pleasantly surprised by the Warlord Project Z figures - I sources a sprue from eBay to see how they would work and they turned out well - in my opinion

A Surgeon and a Baker, both struck down at work.
These are possibly older Zombicide figures but I am not certain

Three Zombie guys, figure manufacturer unknown but suitably shambling in appearance

Three more unknown figures, two guys flanking a girl, with all of these I had to add a new base and model a pavement to cover their moulded on base.

Two Goths, again manufacturers uncertain

I'll leave you with two more Fatties, a long dead Cheer Leader and a Housekeeper 

When I get my last impulse purchase batch of Zombies done, I'll do a photo of the whole horde together!

AHPC XII : From Mike W - 28mm Zombies #4 and Survivors

At the risk of getting boring, I'm still plugging away at my zombie horde, but light is at the end of the tunnel, this week sees the end of my collection of Zombicide figures. 

A cross section of the latest Zombies in the horde, centre is a ballerina,
flanked by two walkers on the left and two runners on the right

Next week I'll move on to the first of some Warlords Project Z figures and some other generic odds and ends figures in my collection waiting to be painted, another 50+ figures, that I'll split these into a couple of posts, then hopefully I'm done. Well maybe - I'll still keep an eye out for a few character figures as they become available

Another group with a Zombie bride, second from left

By way of variety this post also includes a few Survivors, again these are Zombicide figures. Now whilst I love their Zombie figures, in my opinion the jury is still out on their Survivors. Mainly because I have very few of them and their expense is discouraging me from getting more. What I do like is that for most Survivors you can also get a Zombie version of the figure, in case they fall to the deathly curse....

The third set of zombies, just four here! Second left is an old lady with her cats.
Both lady and cats are now zombies

So this Zombie batch has a number of Fatties in it that by their nature are bigger models and I have thus been spending more time on completing these to a standard that I'm happy with. There is also the Abomination group of five individual figures, on one base - any resemblance to a well known 1970s Disco group is purely intentional!

Two Fatties, left a girl in a unicorn Onesy - which was really fun to paint and right a Wrestler

Each figure was given a white undercoat, skin tomes applied as previously described and clothing added as appropriate.

Rear view of the Fatties

Various washes were used to add grime, shading and blood splatter for such a gruesome group, before basing  on a relatively plain grey concrete sidewalk.

A good view of the Biker, the Cop, the Cowboy and the Construction Worker

The Soldier with the Construction worker behind

Another view, I assume Felipe Rose (the Native American)had already
'Gone West' when the band fell prey to the Zombie scourge

The 'Greenwich Crew' Abomination was difficult to get completed, the figures are so intertwined and the model is supplied as is, so painting one guy almost always meant causing problems on one of the others. Of course it didn't help that I wanted to be 'Historically Accurate' in their outfits and when I checked the internet for reference material, a lot of it was contradictory...

Five survivors, albeit two are the same model painted differently!
I usually avoid green bases but here they denote living game pieces - easy to spot at a glance

I settled on what can be seen...

AHPC XII: from Mike W - Zombies Part Three

 Another week and another instalment for my growing Zombie Horde. Don't worry everyone, at this rate I only have enough figures left for a couple weeks! But a Horde of some 120 figures should look pretty good on any tabletop set-up, especially if faced by but a few survivors!

This week's addition to the Horde

So this week I thought I'd concentrate on a few more of the characterful figures in the Zombcide range, to which end you'll get to see a Zombified Chinese Dancing Dragon, A Council Worker with  Grass Strimmer, a One Man Band and more.

It seems superfluous to tell you how I painted these little guys again so I'll let he pictures do the talking and add some comments as I post them.

Two Walkers flanking a Runner in a green tracksuit.

Three female Walkers, I missed a trick by not painting the central Air Hostess in Tamsin's blue uniform!
Instead I went for the classic Virgin Atlantic livery...

A One-man-Band Walker on the left, and female runner and housewife Walker.

For those not familiar with Zombicide, one of the concepts is that the Zombie Horde is attracted to noise (people moving, guns firing etc). With one of their own making a noise each time he takes a step, this could give a cornered survivor a break.

Two more housewife Walkers and a Shop Assistant on the Left.

Another Sandwich-board Walker, a central runner and a Council Worker struck down whilst strimming the grass verges 

Left a Runner, centre a Shakespearian actor and right another firefighter, this guy carries a fire axe.

Left a Chef, right a Walker and in the centre a Zombie that hasn't yet figured out how to escape from his coffin!

Front view of a Chinese Dancing Dragon

And the rear view of the back end of the Dragon

Finally two Fatties, left a Security Guard and right an unfortunate guy 

AHPC XII: From W - More 28mm Zombies

 Here is a second instalment of 24 Zombies for my growing horde! Again these are all Zombicide models and represent a cross section of different real life activities etc that these unfortunates were doing at the time of their demise!

Right hand side of Panoramic view of the group!

There is again a cross section of various Zombie types and a few characters that add 'colour' and interest to the horde.

On the character side I have done a former judge, a nun and a stage magician - struck down in mid act!

Again all figures were undercoated in white before appropriate colourings were blocked in. Skin as mentioned in the previous post was again randomly selected as being based upon a normal flesh colour, a rotting green colour or grey - depending on eth age of the zombie.

And the right hand side of the view.

On these models I think it is a little easier to see the way that I have done the bases, with a grey concrete finish to eth paving slabs, with regular lining for eth cracks between slabs and the odd tuft of grass on show - where they are becoming overgrown.

I am also claiming a Lady Sarah bonus for the nun, so that I can continue my journey on the challenge's star chart!

Two female 'Runners' and a stage magician 'Walker'

Three Walker: A hiker, a Disco Guy and a woman in a Mac.

Three more Walkers - two shop assistants and a former Judge.

The fisherman in yellow waterproof and wellies, is a conversion of the
sandwich board man in the centre, left a Fighfighter.

Three more Walkers, left hand figure is a conversion of the central figure - with impaled sign removed and arms repositioned. Right a highway patrol woman.

The figures are made of a plastic that can be repositioned, so they allow for minor modifications to be made to give repeat figures some individuality. Arms and legs can quite easily be altered. The Judge figure came with an arm missing, I was able to simply add an arm (from the project X frame) carrying a briefcase to the figure with superglue.

Three Runners: Left and centre variations on the same figure and right a male in tracksuit.

Left and Centre, two more runners, again same model in different colour schemes, right a business woman.

Two Fatties. Left a Sports Fan and Right a former Sumo Wrestler!

Rear view of the Fatties...

The blistering skin / boils effect on these Fatties was achieved by painting the raised blisters / boils Foundry's Phlegm Green (currently one of my go to colours), washing over this when dry with a very watered down wash of Citadel Imperial Purple before picking out each blister / boil in yellow.

The Zombie Nun

As a departure from normal - I have included a short video of these figures rather than a panoramic view!