Careful! Undead on the way!

Hello guys,

firstly, I'd like to thank everyone for checking the blog as I've reached 1,000 views. That is really something, next, we go for 5k! :D

Also, I got some WIP pictures of my first 3 zeds, which also happen to be my first 3 28mm miniatures painted.
They need bases fixed, which I'll do with drybrushing gray (and by that I mean grey :P) over the black to give it urban feel. I was thinking about leaving them as they are, that is, much dilluted black paint over the white primer. Doesn't look that bad at all. And I have to paint the rim of the  bases. Last thing that needs fixing are the zeds themselves. I will probably mix some dark red and paint the areas that will eventually get blood on them, so I can seal them with matt varnish and they're good to play. When I get my hands on tamiya's clear red that everyone loves, I'll put some blood on them. I got to keep it little, I've decided, so I can paint my ragers covered in blood to make them visible from far, hehe. I'll use mantic zeds for ragers, but can't have 30 of those, can I? :P

So, to the zeds.

I've decided that I should name them all. Just for the character. Those poor souls used to be humans back then and I am sure they have feelings, too! We could just give them the right to vote!
Names are not decided yet, but every zombie will be either, for example Ex-Bob or Was-Bob. Any suggestions?

Back to the painted examples.
Trio is from WGF zombies. For skin, I went with german fieldgray undercoat and then mixed dead flesh, ended with pure dead flesh (I use vallejo colours). I never been fan of green zombies, but I quite like how it game out, actually. The details on the zeds are really bad, so it was hard to make much of them. They looked weird before I got clothes painted, but I think its good enough for the table as it is.
The first guy from the left is un-WGFish as he is "much" converted. He has army pants that I've painted (what I wanted to be) khaki, just because 3rd guy was all khaki. As I've said before, I'll paint them 3 at once using more or less same colours so it speeds up the paining and gives a decent variety. His shirtless torso was greenstuffed to make him wear a sweater and his left hand was repositioned, so he looks disturbingly cool. Blue sweater has no reson, I just liked  blue. As you can see its highlated more by the feel than any science, hihihi. Second guy could be an Ex-policeman or Ex-gaspumpshopworker, as he has blue uniform. Failed highlighting as with the first one, but again, up from far, it ain't horrible. Third guy is Ex, or Was, if you prefer, Steve. He has the most story behind him. To hint you, he wears (what, again, should be) khaki sleveless vest and khaki "adventurer" shirt. You can see he has nice semi-long blond hair. He's a crocodile hunter. And he is one of the 3 that I think, look better up close. From far his  khaki dress merges with his green skin and he ends up looking kinda naked. Actually, now that I look at him, its not too bad, but blue gives muuuch better contrast. He was most unfortunate, as you can see he caught a pipe while he was harmelessly shambling across the streets of (still) Unnamed city. Poor chap!
I've used "layering" and no washes, which gives them somewhat cartoony style. I've also used "NMM" tehnique instead of metal colors on the pipe. I must say I prefer them this way, gives them a humorous feel. Not the best models, but I really enjoyed painting them, listening to Alison Hewitt is trapped (thanks for suggestion  Zombie Chow, I wasn't aware of audiobook version) and thinking of a story of each unfortunate individual.

Thanks again for all the support and thanks for taking time to read,
Mathyoo

What's next?

Hello!

I haven't been prodcutive much, regarding the wargaming and I hope I will change this now.
I got my face colours and white primer yesterday, so I will start painting some zombies.

I've decided on white primer as I wanted it white to make colours somewhat bright. I've also got vallejo's bottled primer, that you apply with a brush. I've read so much about various spray primers, I've just decided to go "on foot".

I will paint 3 zeds at a time, to get variety of skintones until I could find "the one" and to paint no more than 3 zombies with same combination of colours, to make an overall variety.  The problem is, i only got few "normal" colors, the rest are earthy tones and other cammouflage. I will probably mix them up a bit, just too feel special :P.

I have also decided on my ruleset. I will go with Iron Ivan's No more room in hell. Brummie is my personal hero so if its good enough for him, its good enough for me :D. After I get the rules, I will also check Shelldrake's house rules too see what fits. And with the money I save on buying one book, I can easily afford most of the FOW matilda tanks that I will probably play.

As I only got 5 females with pistols, as far at the living go, I will probably order some survivors from TAG. I haven't yet decided, but I was looking for SWAT figures and some african militants with bolt rifles, pistols, smgs and such. I will probably get my army forces from Eureka's french line. They're what I found to be the closest miniature of Slovenian soldier.

As for the zeds themself, I am just basing them, as I forgot to do it earlier. As I've decided showing zeds with standing in a sandbox isn't too interesting, I haven't really bothered taking the pictures. I wanted to post some other picture, but there is something wrong with the blogger and it doesnt work....well, I'll save it for the next time!

Thanks for reading and hopefully, I'll have the undead horrors painted by saturday or sunday!

Mantic zombies - unboxing

Hello everyone!

Mantic are another producer of plastic miniatures. Their "Kings of War" range is meant for fantasy battles, but their zombies, that I am going to show here and probably also Ghoul regiments are good source of cheaper plastic miniatures, suitable for beginners as myself and probably for anyone who wants to bulk their horde with some cheap miniatures. I think they're pretty useful as ragers, as their poses are pretty offensive. But unless you need 30 (which is AT LEAST how many you get in a box) ragers, they can fill the job as the "ordinary" zombies.

Here is a box they come in:

And the back side:

Nothing special, as you can see, front is quite nice but the back side is somewhat poor, I guess. It does, however, show you some of the more interesting poses you can make, like a 2 zombies made from one by splitting it around a waist. I can imagine a diorama with upper half crawling behind lower shouting "Yo legs, Y u no wait?!"

Inside the box are sprues. As with WGF not protected or anything, just put inside. As I write this, I remembered I thought I read how they should come with a carry case or something. Well, anyways, there should probably be 10 zombies sprue as you can make 3 standing zeds from one sprue. I got 11, because I've been a good boy this year. There are also 3 sprues of 10 bases each, which I won't use because I've decided on using 25mm slotta bases for my figures.




Each sprue holds enough parts to make 3 standing or 4 mixed zombies. So, in a box of 30, you could actually make 40 if you wish. Legs are nothing spectacular, they're all wrapped in rags, which is bad for modern looking zombies, but somebody figured you could just paint them in white or light blue to represent patient's gowns. I can't find the author, but keep in mind that is not my idea. I do like it, tho. The rest will probably be modified here and there, for variety and modernisation. Three torsos are pretty dynamic, almost too dynamic. You will see at the 3 models I've put together how unlimited is my imagination and the ability to make each individual zed a bit different. Two of the torsos have only one arm and you can choose between three arms. The bad thing is, only one of those is "normal". One holds an arm, second a head (great idea, imo, but I don't want 10 of my zeds to carry something). There are 6 heads per sprue, which offers a great varierty. Then you get a spine and some guts for torso-less zombie and a round base to make legless zombie.

Here is a picture of two sprues so you can view both sides and bases sprue:

And Mantic sprue compared to WGF zombie sprue (keep in mind you need 2 mantic sprues to makes 6 zeds and only one WGF for same ammount):

Below you can see pictures of my assembled zombies and some scale shots of WGF zombies and urban war females:

Still influenced by the trip,

Thanks for reading,
keep calm and carry on! :D

Toys, toys, toys

Hello guys!
I am just back from "up there", had a lovely time, finally saw the city everyone keeps talking about and even got me some new toys.
Here is a picture of all the wargaming-related loot together:

What we got here is:
- A box of 30 mantic zombies, some pilles (remember how I cried about ruining a mini with a hobby knife?). I will do unboxing review for Mantic zombies shortly.
- Garbage truck (they had them in white, yelow and green, figured white is the best), I could also pick that other garbage truck with that huge dumpster, but this one is much nicer and I figured one is enough.
- Street cleaner truck. Those two trucks are 1/56 trucks, got them for 2 pounds each from Morrison's. Scale is spot on, heh.
- The rest is from Poundland, so pound per pack. Got two hummers that I also saw somebody else got on the blogs, but can't remember who. I've picked two as I've figured I wouldn't need any more. They're a bit small compared to rest, but I think they're great. Just need some repainting. I got pack of 3 police cars. Now let me make this clear. They're not the same! Those are patrol cars 911, 112 and 120 :P. I also got pack of 3 random cars, nothing special, but hey, one for 33,3333 sounds good. Lastly, I got myself two buses (hey, I had birthday and could afford!). Will probably only use two on the same table when I will play on maps with totally blocked roads that look so cool. Those cheap cars are nice fillers, IMO. Generally, the police seem a bit out of scale.

So what I got for you are some bad scale pics. If you want to see better ones, please let me know and I will shoot some tomorrow. I'm dead tired at the moment. But can't sleep so that why I'm writing that, heh.

So, various vehicles and some WGF and urban war minies:

 A garbage truck and street cleaner. Cleaner has 5th wheel that actually turns its cleaning "mops" while you move it and the garbage truck is fully move-able...just so cool. To be honest, I'd love to have them all :D

 Street car and a hummer:

 Same street car and police car. The police car doesn't seem that large after all:

One of the buses. It's a colossus vehicle, but I tihnk its pretty good scaled...it might just look funny next to my buildings, I tihnk:

 And not as much wargaming as zombie related, bloody hands you can stick on your window! Picked those up at -50% while visiting London dungeons (which I really recommend visiting, if you ever find yourself close by):

 

So, what now? Got to build my streets to occupy them, of course! I really got pumped while I was hoarding all the goodies. And my paints have finally been dispatched, so next week, hopefuly, I will be able to show you my very first painted zeds. Won't get sculpting tools tho, so I will still have to work with my old ones. The week off was nice, but I can't wait to do something hobby related!

Cheers,
Matevž
(watch me being polite now!)

Concept "art"

Hello everyone!

On monday morning, while walking to my faculty day dreaming (you know, the usual), I was mostly thinking about what survivors would I try to sculpt. I got this great fluff idea and after few minutes of drawing during classes, I've came up with 4 ideas I'll show you below.

But first, I want to make few things clear. No. 1, all 4 guys are based on the information provided on the blog spot, most of the fluff is made up or twisted. If anyone of feels offended, please let me know and I will remove / edit the text or the pictures. No. 2 I've picked my "models" because those are only 4 I saw pictures of. Mostly of heads, so the rest is all just what felt right. And no. 3, this whole might-be project is meant as a compliment. And lastly, keep in mind I am no trained ilustrator :D.

So, now that I've scared myself a bit, what do we got?

I've drawn them on 2 pieces of paper, because I drawn last hero two times. I was not happy with first attempt and I am not happy with this one, so sorry hopefuly-you-can-recognize-yourself. And scale-wise, they're just drawn bad, keep that in mind too.

So, from left to right, shall we?
First, we got Sailor Joe. With a full house back home and chaos it brings, zombie apocalipse and an anarchy it brings is like a joke to him. He proudly wears his NAVY T-shirt from ol'days and his sailor hat. As much as you'd want it, his choice of weapon is not some girly crossbow, but a heavy anchor. Just make sure where you swing it, sailor, you could pop someone's eye with that thing! (you see what I did there? :P)
Standing beautiful next to him is a Motormouth Matthew, wearing a baseball cap and a backpack, as usual. His choice of weapon is WW1 style truncheon, read stick with nails. Might not be the most useful weapon to fight of zombie hordes, but looks cool. Going down with style!
Third in a line is Renegade Joe. I was slowly running out of ideas, so what he wears is a gun-for-hire trenchcoat and shades. The breaker of the women hearts, he said to be so smokin', dead ladies get back on their feet. Renegade here, is defending from his fans with double 9mm.
Fourth survivor is Badass Bryan. I should really think better about him. First version was armed with a shotgun and a pistol, but I went for english(er) approach. Gentleman, as you can see on the picture, is armed with a deadly english umbrella and a cup of tea. Those hordes will have to wait until fafter five, to get what they deserve!


That is it for today. When I was thinking about it, it seemed a bit cooler, lol. Again, no offense intended. I was seriously thinking about fixing them, giving everyone a firearm and a melee weapon or something, and add another survivor or two. I've heard Serious Simon is holding out somewhere, too :P. I must say I really enjoy the idea of "Team Bloggers" or something, for a campaign, hehe.

And I might add, I won't be around for a week now, I'll go check if London is really as nice as people say it is, hehe.

Thanks for taking time to read trough it all, I am really trying to tell the things on short!

(Not much of) an update

Hello again guys!

I don't have much to show you regarding my zombie gaming, and I saw on other blogs people like too see something else now and then too, so today, I've took some pictures of my FOW stuff.

I've also decided, I will probably postpone purchase of ATZ trilogy, because it is simply too expensive at the moment (and Im reconsidering buying some matildas for FOW, as I don't have an Early war period army yet :P). Not knowing what to buy is eating me up, honestly, but I guess that is every gamer's problem.

So, firstly, here are some pictures of progress on my sculpts. It doesn't seem like much has changed, but believe me when I tell you, I've spent quite some time doing that.  Maybe I understood "a little blob of putty" wrong and Im putting up too little blobs, because I got this strange feeling nothing has changed! To fix that, I've sculpted some "clothes" on my first two minies, to make me feel better. And I won't do any armatures from sprue anymore, because they ain't good enough. And I should spend more time on measurments (I used my eye and "good judgment" for the lenght of the legs and torsos on those :D). I will finish them, because I've read sculptor should finish every miniature he starts, just to practice. And I agree with that 100%, so if I planned on making zeds and I will get some teenage zombies, thats what I'll have. As much as I want to sculpt SAS black kit entry team, I will probably buy some weapons with TAG order and try myself at sculpting some survivors first. Could have me done as a present to myself for a christmas, lol!

Here are the greens so far:

There you have them, all lined up:

 A close up on the first two. Keep in mind I got one leg on each one stage before the other.

And a close up on the rest, same progress with legs. Still not sure what to do with torsos. As you can see proportions are somewhat bad but well, got to make some mistakes if you want to learn from them, no?

Talking of mistakes, as you can see, I've based them on a foamcore. Dont do that. Water ruins it and its just bad. I had no cork plugs and cork I build my terrain from wasnt working the way I wanted.

As for FOW, currently I got US paras, US armoured recon and german pioneers. I haven't played much with the pioneers yet, but I really love the idea of them. Keep in mind im a lousy gamer, so I keep losing, but they're just sooo cool. As you will be able to see on the pictures, I am also not much of a painter, but I am proud of all the ideas I had, hah.

Here, I've set you some of most interesting pieces of my army.
In top row, we got pioneer supply wagon. its a horse drawn wagon and thats just nice. Next to it is company commander with his german sheppard and some dead adversaries around him. Next to him is captured KV-1e tank. You can see I left wheeles in green, dont know how realistic that is, but I wanted to make it look as if it was overpainted quickly so it could be used in battle as soon as possible.
In the bottom row I've set some of my pioneer teams. I love the models. They're moddeled as if they're assaulting in the ruins of Stalingrad. There is someting about german assault pioneers that attracts me. I admire them so much, I'm devoting my diploma to stromtroopers from WW1, if I may bragg a bit.
First stand is a flamethrower team hidden behind a wall that says something that should be (not a german speaker, that was translated for me :P) "Ivan, we're coming to get you!". Second stand is another flamethrower team, it is supposed to show flamethrower in use during an assault, so I've added a fallen soviet soldier which I modeled some flames on. The flames' colours provide a nice contrats to otherwise dark bases. My friend said they look too dark, like half-done. I made them that way to somewhat represent the grim reality of a city-fight. Almost every stand has some dead soviet laying around, as if the assault would be happening as we speak. Third stand has germans advancing with a soviet soldier rushing from corner just to get himself stopped dead. Fourth stand is just a HMG stand, nothing special here.

 A close up on a flamethrower team. Germans were painted with base colour and just washed. I am actually afraid of drybrushing them with some warmer colours as I don't want to ruin them.

 and a close up on the third stand. You can see on german throwing a grenade while other covers him and to the right, there is one with a hand grenade ready and covered by german soldier that just shot the soviet.

So, from the rubbles of once mighty city, here is an american patriotic jeep. That flag is one of my first greenstuffing attempt and if I'm correct my first free-hand attempt. Looks quite nicely...nothing like the mould line on the driver's helmet *blush*.

 Here are some american combat engineers. Yes, I've got engineers in every army I play. Not that they're over useful, but I just like the idea of the engineers. The jeep I've shown you on top actually belongs to them.  They're painted for Africa, as Im using my cavalry recon for North Afrika battles. I've made them so they make a semi-diorama when bases are put together.

And for the end, here is a picute of my paratroopers. They're my first FOW army and my first gaming army. They're based for Africa, as that  was what we were playing when I started, but I only use them for late-war games now. So, D-day and on. I've kept sandy bases so I can use them with rest of my american troops. If anyone is bothered by the bases, you could always imagine those are the 82nd' troops that missed D-day because they were busy on the beaches of Anzio.

I will probably have nothing nice to show you in wednesday, so you might prepare yourself for blabbering about miniatures I'd want to buy to represent this or that...or something.

Oh and I think I will still invest more money in zombies, to be honest...decision decisions :(

Urban war Militia females with pistols - unboxing

Hey everyone!

Yesterday I went back to my WGS to try and pick up Urban war miniatures I've ordered. This time, I came later in the day, so I didn't have to wait for a guy being late, and there was this nice girl on the counter and I even got my pack at last, heh. As told before, I got it with -50%, but with 20% charge on top of that, so it was -40, but that is still good enough. Urban war range is more sci-fi than modern, militia males, for example, are too futuristic. But girls are okay.

Here is the blister as I got it:

(the price seem to be old, 8 pounds dont equal 12 euro for a while now, heh)

In blister, there were included 5 lipped 30mm round bases. I much prefer the look of those bases compared to regular 25mm slotta bases, but that 5mm is simply more place taken. If you're reading that Joe, since you're using them, let me know when its your birthday and Ill send you a gift, lol. Or maybe the birthday after, so I can accumulate more of them, hehe.

So, to the miniatures. Here are all of them raw, together. The guy is top row, first from left. 

Again, keep in mind those are now my first metal 28mm figures, so I might be too harsh or too light on comments. One thing I've noticed with figures was the ammount flash and everything. Below is the worst of them. While I was cutting the flash around her face, I accidently put too much pressure to the knife and chipped one of her glasses. I feel horrible, shes a nice gal. I should add, that my biggest problem was removing that fat blob you see on upper picture, lower row, left figure (in a coat, at her right hand)...that was a thick one and took some time to get rid of. Plus I had problems around the fingers afterwards. On this picutre, you can see the tibia guards she has on her boots. That is what most of them wear and it is the only thing that suggest they're made for sci fi, I guess, not a problem.

On the picture below, I've set them in a row. Nothing special here, just to show you how they look. They're from militia with pistols pack, so, obviously, they're armed with pistols. Some of them carry a bigger calibre, a desert eagle wannabe, so, in THW terms, a BA pistol.

And some comparison pictures, compared to WGF zombies and my zombies-to-become, to give you idea of scale:

Got Bonnie and Clyde shooting for their lives here:

...and Obvious Blonde shooting a zombie in his heart. Somebody here was too cool to listen to the zombie elimination classes.

And two brave girls defending from the attack of headless green ghouls down below:

Last picture shows you my sculpts, which, I may add, got some more shape since last post. Will work on them in the next few days a bit too and will show them on saturday. I've noticed Im doing something wrong, the height seems okay overall, but legs seem a bit short. That patient green has his legs finished and he looks like he hasn't ate in ages!

Thats all for today, I am satisfied with the miniatures, will use them as either survivors (and I count armed civilians in that class) or gangers. They're really nice and as with my first "unboxing" review, the main purpose of this post was to show you how they look when you get them. I got the idea of that kind of posts because I didn't want to make miniatures look bad if I won't paint them good enough and to help people see how miniatures look before paint hits them, in case anyone is ever interested.

Thanks for taking time!

City on the horizon!

Hello guys, today, I've got some bad pictures for you. I am sorry, but the sun was shining trough the windows in the dining "room" and I couldnt do much better. Well, looking at the pictures now, I could at least put the chairs away.

However, last few days, I've been toying with cork again a bit. I had some problems realising my plans, but that is just how it goes when a man plans on one level and builds on a different one.

What I got new are two little "row houses", each for one family. Floor plan is 10x10 cm (roughly 4x4 inches, i guess) and it ain't enough, heh. They look nice, will be nicer once I make the roofs, but I think I wont build second floor, because I dont see any good spot for staircase. Then again, neither i see it on the first house I've build, so i might leave it out all together. I think I could use them as small houses in suburbs or a motel in more urban table...theyre big enough to represent a little rooms, no?

The second building is horrible failed apartmen building you see next to them. I wanted to go with half-apartment on top, to make a terrace, but that would give me 15x7.5 cm floorplan and I went with 15x10, leaving next to no space for the terrace. You can see there are almost no windows in the building. That is because i've failed to decide how the staircase will run (plan is to make each floor a 15x10 apartment and leave 5 for staircase / hall).  The third, and last, for now, problem is that floors in every buildings are 7.5 high, which leaves my "small urban house with a garage" looking too large. I will fix that by painintg it darker colours and probably not using it too much wih my apartment building(s), hah.

Here is a quick layout I made after I got hit today in the morning, that I must see how much can I fill my table. What is missing  in the corner is a "box" retail store, something like Lidl and Hofer here, I think Wal-mart is built on the same prinicples. It is practicaly a box that looks like a warehouse on the inside, sells mostly its "own" products pretty cheap. When they've became popular in Slovenia, people counting themselves "high class" avoided them, as if those are stores for the poor, but that is pure bs, because much of the stuff here is the same as in "better" stores, except for nice packagin. By "same" I want to say they're produced by same company, same product in different package. Well, back to the table. I've put some cars on the middle of the board to show you where I've imagined a road to be in this certain setup. Then I've parked some cars on the parking space between apartment block and (planned) store and some in front of the houses. I've learned parking space is a) a cruel reality and b) nice filler.

 Below is a different angle, I, again, apologize for the horrible pictures. It wasnt that dark inside in reality :P.

I've also built some extra miniatures, this time leaving arms off altogether. I will simply pin them once I sculp the body.  I've bent those wires in most unrealistic way...I don't have any feeling for scales at all. But well, that is why this is called a practice, no? Oh, and they're zeds-to-be, call it a broken bone and we're good. Will draw some concept "art" now probably, not that I could possibly follow it, and not that I draw that nice (I, alike Bryan, only TRIED to be a graphic designer, but more about that some other day, hah), the purpose of my concept art will be more to give me some rough points of what I'd want a finished miniatures to look like. From far. And with a fast glance.

 While I was making the armatures, I've figured I could also use a ruler to actually measure them, not just build them by the eye. My "patient zero" is 28mm tall, as you can see. And he is still missing a head. Not too bad, should probably sculpt him as a basketball player to fix it, lol.

 The patient-to-be is 25mm high, which is much better. You can also see I've not cut the arms off, I will just try to fix it as I go, if nothing else, to remind me of doing it next time.

Thanks for taking the time to read it all again, lol. Talking too much and jumping from a topic to topic is my RL problem as well...but nothing I can do, it all just relates!