Infecting Mayhem City 11 (Victory Force Zombies)

Just a quick update to keep on the 'one a week' pace.   After a couple of fun weeks with Grekwood miniatures, I am back to trudging through my 50 Victory Force zombies.  The good news is, I am almost done with them, and all remaining VF zombies have at least been started in one way or another.   Here are another 6.  I believe there are a couple, maybe even three scuplts in here that are duplicates.  That is okay, I don't think most would be noticed on the game table, except of course, for the peg legged zombie.   One of those would have been enough!

The pictures aren't the best, I rushed a little big to get this out.   The far right zombie for some reason has a filthy green hair.  His hair is long, so I picture him having been some sort of old rocker, still clinging to his grungy hit days, nearly 20 years ago.  He is a zombie now.  Next to him is an older zombie with a serious belly wound along with a torn knee.  A pale colour palette on him came out nice, I think.   Next up, the only female of the group was at some sort of formal gathering when the Zed Apocalypse caught her off guard.  The next fellow, like the female before him, is missing an arm.  (I'm pretty sure he is a duplicate.)  Then comes the pegleg zombie, who while being very original, is not a scuplt I really like.  Do people even get peg legs in current times?   Then the final zombie is a young lad, with his hair dyed green.  Much younger than the old rocker on the other end, I picture him as a late teen, filled with angst and loving his pop rock music.  I believe this is the third of this sculpt that I received in my 50 zombies bundle.

Not a bad set, as I said.  I really liked the female zombie, but the one with the gut wound is pretty good too. The sculpt I received triples of is pretty good, so I'm not too upset about having so many of him.
There is also a not so subtle hint in these pictures to what has been taking up more of my time lately, rather than painting zombies.


QUESTION TIME


Currently, the police force for my city stands at a SWAT team: and a Detective (going all the way back to my first two miniature posts in August 2011.)

I have a bit of a question about what else I should pick up.  My initial response is the Copplestone police (both pistol and shotgun packs).  They are nicely sculpted, and scale wise should fit in with my mostly heroic 28mm.  They also have the benefit of being armed with a visible melee weapon.  The disadvantage would be that I am not sold on their slightly outdated style of uniform.  Perhaps it is not outdated, as the weapons seem modern, but to me, it looks like a pulp era style of uniform.

Another similarly sculpted, but with perhaps more authentic looking uniforms are the Foundry version (this time I'm showing only the shotgun armed ones).  My dislike with this set is how non of them are actually aiming their guns.  This is a common feature with a lot of Foundry sets.

The final set that I am considering is from Tactical Miniatures and is labelled Big City PD.  At first, I disregarded the set due to lack of police hats.  But I've warmed up to it alot as despite the hat being part of most cities police force uniform, it is the most commonly removed part, and definitely would be the first thing to go in any high stress situation.  An additional bonus to picking up this set would be that I would get two pistol armed cops and two shotgun armed cops in the same set.  Saving me from having to buy both sets if I chose to go with Foundry or Copplestone.   A disadvantage would be that I think these guys are true 28mm and will look a little small compared to most of my other heroes.

For the longest time I had been mostly leaning towards Copplestone, despite my minor issues with the uniform.  But lately, I think Tactical Miniatures will be the set to go with.   Another factor would be how often do I need 4 or more cops armed with handguns or shotguns at a time?  I may be able to save by getting just the one Tactical Miniatures set.
Does anyone have any advice or opinions on which set to go with?  Thanks all.

Infecting Mayhem City 10 (Grekwood Miniatures Zombie Patients)

Back again and keeping with both the hospital theme, and the Grekwood Miniatures updates.  The zombie patients complete my order from Grekwood, but there were also 2 other zombie sets I didn't pick up at this point.  Again, check out Grekwood Miniatures if you like these sculpts.

First up we have a female patient that was in for a simple broken or sprained arm.  Unfortunately for her, there was an infected patient in the same hospital.  Things don't end on a happy note.   Her most significant wound is her arm, but that came before the infection.  She has a few other minor scrapes, but nothing too bad.   I painted her up as though she fed recently; lots of good targets in the hospital with her.  The other female zombie is an even sadder story.  She is a heavily pregnant woman, and I like to think that her infection has spread to her unborn.  She has a bloody mess coming from that area.  A very great sculpt that I am glad to have and can't wait to use.  The first male zombie has a leg injury from his human days.  It's not slowing him down now and neither is the wound to his abdomen.  He also has a significant amount of gore on his shoulder and arm.   The final patient zombie is still draggin his IV drip with him.  He has some wound but nothing that looks like it would have killed him.  I really like the staggered pose for this guy.

All in all these are really good sculpts and I'm glad to add them to my collection.  There are a lot of unique features on the zombies (casts, pregnancy ect) and they make so much sense to be included with the outbreak. 

Thanks for reading, and comments are always appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem City 09 (Grekwood Zombie Doctors)

When the zombies begin to overrun the streets, many of the infected will wind up in emergency clinics and doctor's offices.   That would result in doctors being among the highest at risk for infection. And that brings us to this week's zombies from Grekwood Miniatures.  

                                   

Starting on the left, we have a red haired female doctor.   Stethoscope still around her neck, she has only minor wounds, so I upped her gore by bloodying her hand as though she had ripped someone apart.  The blond female doctor looks pretty unscathed from the front, though I bloodied her shirt up anyway.  But from the back, she has a minor wound in the buttocks, but quite a gaping on to the back of the head.   It wasn't enough to destroy the brain, as she is still walking, but her hair has been ripped in that area, leading to a lot of blood loss.  Who knows, maybe the wound was from before she became a Zed.  The African American doctor has also been feeding, and bleeding a lot from the head.  He also has a stethoscope but it is mostly obscured by his blood loss.  I am a pretty big fan of his head tilt, as though he has just heard a sound giving away the location of his next meal.   The final male doctor is virtually unwounded, but has fed recently, and is looking to do so again.

As a group, I really enjoy this set of Zombies.  One can never have enough zombie doctors, so while these aren't the most original concept for zeds, they fit a role that every zombie gamer needs (and needs lots of).  These doctors are well sculpted, with great little details like lots of pockets, doctor gear and the African American even has a neck tie.

So I highly recommend them, and you can get them at a good price from Grekwood Miniatures.   It's a new company, so we should all support them (Though I'm sure many of the people reading this have already heard of them/ordered from them).  The end result will only be more zombie related sculpts!

Comments are always appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem City 08 (Victory Force Zombies)

Just another quick update on my ATZ preparations.  The excuses I had for slow  painting in my last blog update (no Dhenub Stone or washers upon which to base the miniatures) have both been rectified. I have six new Zeds to add to the horde.  The pictures are a little darker than usual, but I was a little rushed, so I did not go back and retake.

The first trio is made up of the same sculpts, which is a risk you run when buying VF's zombie deal.   I didn't mind so much as it is a pretty good sculpt, and its not like I would use them side by side in a game.  Spread out on the board, one would not likely notice.  In hindsight however, I probably should have taken the time to paint at least one with African flesh.  Anyway, these are big, tough looking zombies with more than a few visible wounds.  They are still quite intact however, and look among the more fearsome zeds in the VF group.

A bit more variety in this trio.  They are a bit sloppier, and I blame some of that on the lousy spray paint I used for primer.  It had a satin finish (I think) and paint did not adhere well to the mini at all.  I really had to lay it on thick, which went a little less cleanly than I would have liked.  But in the end, they are zombies, and I feel ok with a little dirtier paintjob, especially when I can just bloody up the worst areas.

Well that is 6 more down, and I will admit that my lead pile is getting quite small.  I have a few more updates of VF zombies, but then I will be all out.  I have placed an order for Sarissa buildings, so that will be my next  project.  And since I have some WorldWorks roads to print, I may not be too far off of getting a game in, which would be a nice change.   Hopefully some battle reports would be of interest.

Anyway, until next time. Enjoy your weekend

Comments are always appreciated.

Infecting Mayhem CIty 07 (Reaper Urban Zombies)

Here we are with another update.  Before we get to this week's walkers, I'll give a few updates one where I am at with working on my All Things Zombie project.  First off, despite the name of the the majority of the posts on this blog, I doubt I will be making an actual "Mayhem City".  Instead of using World Works games cardstock terrain, I will probably bite the bullet and pick up the Sarissa Precision City buildings.     They do have a bit more of an initial cost vs World Works terrain, but once you factor in cardstock and many ink cartridges, I don't think it will be that big of a deal.  Plus the amount of time it will save me may allow me to actual get a game in this year.   I will probably use some cardstock terrain as well, especially some of WWGs interior terrain, since I already own multiple sets.

Also, my updates have been rather slow lately and I will put the blame on two major factors.  One, is that for 3 weeks, I have been unable to locate the washers I use as bases.  When I finally asked, the Hardware Store said that the washers are stocked independently by the washer/nut/bolt company.  So I am still waiting on those.  I do however have some miniatures already attached to miniatures, but still I am unable to complete them.  This time, it is due to Games Workshop switching their paint system.  I ran out of Dheneb Stone foundation.  I thought I would just order more online, but due to GW switching the paint line up, they only accept preorders online.  I dropped into the local GW and they were out of the old Dheneb Stone and wouldn't be restocking until this Saturday (tomorrow) with the new paints.  So hopefully I can grab some more tomorrow.
Blah, enough with the excuses, let's look at this week's Zeds.

These are two of Reaper's Urban Zombies.  I will be honest and admit they were not the Zombies I was expecting when I ordered.  Due to an error in ordering, they were what I received when I meant to order a more modern set of Reaper Zombies, including a police officer.  Instead I got a pack of three, armed with weapons and looking from a different era.  I clipped the weapons, and only decided to use two of the three. The third was just two out of place, and will probably get mangled into a corpse marker at some point.

The two zombies I did work with are full of character.  First off, they are both very large.  If the average miniature I have is approximately 6 feet tall, then these two brutes are much closer to 6'10".  I'm okay with that.  Despite liking most of my figure to be in scale, I to like the variation of a few shorter and a few larger to not make things like too uniform.  The thing that can ruin scale creep for me is when equipment like guns seems overly large or small, but that isn't an issue here.
So the Zed on the left looks like he may have been homeless before meeting his end.  He wears an over sized trench coat and dirty, torn jeans.  He also lacks shoes, which result in him leaving a trail of blood when he steps.  I really liked that about this guy.
Zombie on the right however was a young, up and comer in society.   I like to picture him as a sleazy politician or something.  Regardless of where he was going, he didn't end up any better than the homeless fellow.  He looks good in his blood stained suit however.

So as mentioned, these zombies are huge.  I would like to use them in some special circumstances when alot is on the line, like a boss battle.  It would also work very well for a single survivor without firearms had to deal with one of these guys.   The pic above really shows how intense that could feel with the size difference.   These zombies are a great addition to the collection.
Comments are appreciated.

A Small Update

Hey all.  Things have been a bit slow for me in the hobby front.  I spent a week in New York City, and then spent the following week catching up on work and other things (One of which was re-watching Season 1 of Game of Thrones in anticipation of Season 2).

So I don't have anything new to show so far as paintings go, but hopefully, next time I show some miniatures they will look a little better than before, as I have invested in some skill building materials:

The Foundry Painting guide focuses on layering with the Foundry 3 Colour system.   It appears to be a somewhat easier method for achieving much better results.   I don't expect to become some sort of great painter, but the techniques in this book seems easy enough to tackle, and then produce miniatures that should look really good on the table (even if they don't look so good when zoomed in and photographed).     I guess time will tell on how well it pans out for me.

I'd also like to take this chance to promote a friend's blog.  He started it shortly before the end of 2011, and has hit over 130 posts.  The theme of his posts focus on his very expansive toy collection.  So if you have any interest in toys (especially of the 80s and 90s), GI Joe, Transformers and other nerdery, stop in and leave him a comment, I'm sure he'll appreciate it. 

Thanks:

Click here to go to Mike's Collection

Invading Mayhem City? 01

Alright just keeping in the theme of naming my blogs as something to do with Mayhem city.  The following miniatures are actually quite unlikely to be used in any city themed gaming.  But they are among my first ever painted miniatures, and since I haven't had time to do any real painting this week (damn flu) I thought I'd show some old ones.  Here they are, my Space Hulk (3rd Edition) Tyranids.

I don't think they are fantastically painted, but they're not bad considering I had pretty much just jumped into the hobby with both feet.  In retrospect, I wish I had practised on a few models first, but its too late for that now.   I'm particularly proud of the finger nails.  I followed an online tutorial to achieve such an effect.  The official Space Hulk tyranids were of a blue and purple scheme that I was never fond of, so I went with something a little darker (and probably easier, in the long run).   I still like them better than the official colours.   Space Hulk is the only GW product I've ever played or purchases, so I wasn't too versed in the history of the tyranids anyway.   

I won't likely be around to comment or read everyone's blog this week (starting Sunday) as I'll be vacationing in NYC.  I'll try to catch up next week. Hope you enjoyed the Tyranids and when I get back, maybe I'll post the Space Marines.
Comments are always appreciated.