Special zombies!

Panic! Panic! Panic!

I have been painting zombies again! Not just that, I have finally decided to paint some more Mantic plastic zombies conversion. Most of them were done back in the early days of this blog, but as I had no real use for them, they were never painted. Until now!

I used NMRIH book for them as it has those profiles available, but I'm not sure if I'll ever play game using those rules again. The rules really got a lot of stuff covered, but they just don't appeal to me for some reason. I might mention I took photos before I remembered they need some TCR, so that's what's missing!

From left to right we got:
Tongue guy, Howler guy, Bloater guy, Batman guy (not a special zombie :D)

 I have decided to go with pale skin with some purple washes. It's more suitable for vampires than zombies, as it's not rotten, but I really like the effect. To be perfectly honest, I did start by painting rotten flesh on them first, but it got all covered up. As mantic zombies are made for fantasy games, they are all in rags. I decided to go with orange for all of them, saves me trouble of deciding which paint to use and as they are clearly mutated they just might be some unfortunate prisoners, victims of some madman's tests?

 The Tongue was pretty straight forward, I stuck a wire in his mouth, coated it and resculpted lower jaw. I am sure I could do something a tad more elaborate if I would do it again. I'd prefer a more dynamic and a longer tongue, but this works fine for a miniature that's not going out of a drawer anytime soon :D.
Howler's abdominal area was cut and reversed to make him stand upright instead of crouching forward. Back then, I figured his hands look like he is struggling and his muscles are tense - his howls must be very loud!

 Bloater is not at all what I was going for, but he is a bit larger than the others, so I suppose it works. I build it from legs up, so for an early effort it might not even be that bad. I was really reluctant to paint it but it came out okay I suppose.
Batman was the latest conversion of the group, and I really like it. Not much else to say, he is clearly not a real Batman, or he has...err...left himself go somewhat.

 See, had a pint or a cracker too many:

I have to say I quite enjoyed painting those after such a long break from them. I'm now painting another batch while I'm waiting for the guns to arrive before I start proper work on the soldiers.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet the Cave men!

Hello,

yet another Mantic zombies conversion that I've done quite a while back but never really got to painting them. While I haven't played any games in months, I always knew I'll need some cave men for my jungle expedition campaign in Strange Aeons. I was on the lookout for miniatures I'd like but never could find any quite suitable. I suspect the reason lies in my lack of interest in those kind of miniatures in general more than on any holes in the market.

As with many other miniatures so far, I've decided to simply use my mantic zombies for them. I don't really like the original miniatures as zombies, so I've decided to use them for as many other things as I possibly can.

This was quite a straight forward conversion. I've put some fur on them and some got various weapons. I haven't really cut them up much, so none of them really grabs a hold of his weapon.  They were all hurried up to reach "good enough" status while being converted and painted.

I made sure two stand out of the crowd - grey guy is a tribal leader and guy in grey fur rags is tribal shaman. They can obviously all be used as a normal grunts. As a group, there are two clubs and a bow. I couldn't resist painting some woad on them. Now, this is as realistic as finding monsters outside, but I really, really wanted to do that. And it even came out pretty well, too! :D

A mandatory (un)lucky explorer shot below:

Other than that, still dry "season" in my hobby and I got no idea what I could show you next time. I do think and plan a lot about the hobby (researching late roman armies now for some reason :P), but even my sculpting is turning out too slow now. I suppose I can blame my master's thesis, for which I need to hunt down some people for signatures and I can put it in print, so I really aren't slacking!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet the Degenerate!

Hello,

yet another Mantic conversion, I present you degenerate. In game of Strange Aeons, it is represented with a quote from Robert E. Howard's Black stone. It is not called "degenerate" there, but it does represent a wild man, wearing goat furs and wolfs head as a mask. I figured it is an entertaining representation for a model, so I went with it. Honestly, any weirdo would fit the description.

At first, I wanted to sculpt my own from a scratch, this is how far I've came before my enthusiasm vanished and it sat on my desk since. After I did my ghosts from Mantic zombies, I've figured I could do a degenerate as well. Its rags were turned into a fur and I've sculpted a mask over its face.

I have painted it blue because I felt an urge to paint some body paints for a while now...I think I went quite over board with it on this one, but well, at least it pops out. The model holds a pine branch, as per story, if I got it right! :P

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet the Scrawny one!

The "scrawny" one is another lurker for my Strange Aeons games. It is inspired by a demon of the same name in Anthony Boucher's short story The scrawny one. If you're interested, you can have a read here.

In SA, when a human model (so, a crazed cultist) commits a suicide on one of the three pentagrams, a demon is spawned. Its special rule is, that it can swallow a model as a whole, which means a model suffers an instant death (compared to injury if removed from play any other way). If it gets lucky and eats your main character, your campaign is finished!

Inspired by Uncle Mike's Worldwide scrawny ones. I love the one swallowing poor treshold agent!

I've used my Mantic zombies again, this time a crawler. I've turned torso 180° from how it was "supposed" to be and built the demon around it. I had no idea how I would want to make it look, let alone paint it. I kept in mind that it was supposed to be scrawny, but it would enlarge...like a snake. I went with some tentacles, preventing victim the escape...it is not eldritch until it has tentacles! And many eyes, everyone likes eyes! I went with pinky green colors to make it stand out from my mostly grey and "skin" colored monsters.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet a Poltergeist!

Poltergeist is last of the ghosts for Strange Aeons. This one is special as it can use kinesis to fling debris at its targets! Yet again, I've converted a Mantic zombie, this time to appear he is using his mind to interact with objects. I was thinking about adding a piece of debris but I couldn't think of a way to make it look good enough...perhaps a separate "fly" base to let me know the miniature can use Kinesis.

I might mention that here, you can see the reason I like to work with plastic miniatures...it holds great potential for conversions! This particular one was just cut a bit to make the position work and clad in putty to make the simplest robe you could think of!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet a Restless Spirit!

Hello guys,

another ghost for my Strange Aeons game. As others, this one is converted from Mantic zombies. This one is special because I really, really wanted to use the hand with a head on it as if that head would belong to the body that holds it. So I've made a headless spirit that haunts the graveyards!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet a Mojo!

Mojo is last of my mantic-converted-to-ghost miniatures. Banshee was converted from female zombie conversion, so Mojo is actually first time that I've got an idea to start converting Mantic zombies and making them useful for more than just what they are!

Mojo is an evil ghost that possesses people, so I've got this great idea of making it looking like he is just leaving his victim. There is next to no conversion work done, just a body stuck in another body + some putty for hair and clothes of the poor confused victim.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet a Banshee!

Before I start, I'd like to wish everyone that has it a happy holiday! Either you celebrate it for what it is or so that you can dye some eggs or just stay home and work on your hobby projects!

So...what is a banshee? She's a ghost and a screamer. Not the pleasant one, I am afraid. We're talking about a haunted soul, horribly trying to make life for other as desperate as possible! In game of Strange Aeons, Banshee can unleash a devilish scream, driving people so mad, they try to end their own lives!

Mine is a converted Mantic zombie, simply painted white and washed green.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet the Ancient Warrior!

Hello,

I've got 5 miniatures ready to show, all converted Mantic zombies, as I've mentioned before. Each  miniature represents a different profile for Strange Aeons, so I will post them separately, but apart from this one, all 4 are somewhat similar. I will post them in 2 days intervals as I won't be home much in April and if I will be able to post one last time before my flight up to England, I'll gladly explain why these year's Salute theme - Jason and the Argonauts - feels so close to me!

Ancient warrior is your ordinary skeleton warrior. Mine was made from converted Mantic zombie. Was kept pretty simple, ingame it is armed with "claws and fangs", so mantic zombie came in handy. I've sculpted upper body's robe and a helmet. I actually forgot to sculpt chainmail on hands and such...for a taste.
He is not strictly skeleton, but was painted "old"...except for his brass helmet that somehow still didn't turn green :P. As an interesting fact, this was first time I've used my metallic paint for not-FOW miniatures. I much prefer NMM because of the composition of metallic paints and the "arty" feeling the non metal metal (NMM) leaves...had no idea how to do brass though!

The leaf-like symbol is an "Elder sign", a sign of Elder gods in Cthulhu mythos. I've used it to fill the blank space and connect the miniature to Strange Aeons scene.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Modern survivors conversions

 I am neglecting hobby due to all the work I got with my study, but here are some photos of two conversions I've been doing lately:

First is TAG's riot policeman (4th guy from left here. When I've joined Board of the Living Lead there was a discussion about useful survivor's equipment. I am not certain who it was (think it was Brummie), but someone mentioned chainmail against sharks and talked something about a pike and a shield as an useful weapons to fight the hordes. That was the basic idea, the rest was just added as I saw fit.
He will have a riot shield attached, but so far, here is the list of modifications:
A visor instead of tactical glasses. Protect the face!
A baton turned into an axe. Hack it, don't smack it!
One hand got dressed in the chainmail, against the bites!
Lost a little radio on his back, gained sawn-off shotgun. Explanation needed?

 The second is a mantic-hasslefree Ken. I've got mine misscasted and replaced (with no hassle, good job mantic here). I was left with the miniature that provided a nice basis for some converting. I changed his G36 for F2000s our army uses. An "interesting" fact: Slovenian army was picking between G36 and F2000 at one point, deciding to go with belgian gun nobody uses instead of german field proven piece. It is a bullpup gun, but I think I roughly got the shape without it looking too wrong. To really make it F2000s (mind the S for "Slovenian", yay), I'd need to put a red-point aiming device on top of the rail. I did no further conversions for a long time, but I've lately modeled the back-pack and a face mask for some more variety.

Thats it for today,
next time, we can discuss all the good guys that bring presents to nice slovenian children in December. Yes, plural. No, not zombie related.

Cheers,
Mathyoo

Shelldrake's PBB Mini me

Hello,

I've been just whining and complaining for past two weeks and now I've decided it is time to get a grip and start putting things that belong here. So I present you my character for Shelldrake's PBB 2 game. I've started painting this fellow before I left and finished him yesterday. He is not as good as I'd want to, but well, not too bad either, concerning my skills.  Photos are much worse!

I've added two pictures of his front, none is really good. Ian, please tell me if they're too bad, I will take some more today or next weekend.

As for the miniature itself, I've decided for him to represent me as he is a bit shorter and kind of slim. His hair is awfully done, I just can't paint that. He carries G36C assault rifle, which will probably be my imaginary country's main firearms. Just need some eureka germans and more hasslefree, hehe. I've painted his buletproof vest in "olive drab" kind color, but I went with urban uniform. Main reason is, I wanted to get some contrast to him, all green wouldn't work good for me, neither would all black-white, as I will probably do my SWATs in greys, too. Don't like blue too much. So, if we go back to our man, he could be a reserve formations soldier, with limited uniform. This would justify woodland vest and urban uniform beneath it. He has full cammo pants (which I am very satisfied with, as I was somewhat scared to start it) and grey turtleneck, for cold days in urban enviroment. Its based on one color green turtlenecks we got at the army. It is not designed for use without full cammo shirt over it, but well, who has time to obey regulations once the dead walk the earth?

Painting him was a real joy. I love the fingerless gloves. I love the neck guard on the vest. Don't like the vest itslef much, but well, a man can't have everything! I will definitely buy a civil version of him, give him an axe and use him as me for my own zombie slaughtering campaign!

As for the campaign characteristic, he is conveniently armed the same way as the figure I picked from Shelldrake's list of choices. The only difference, thus, is, this one is really mine :P.

Here are the stats:

Grom (it is just an acronym from my first and last name - it means "thunder" or "thunderclap" in slovenian, I am bad to the bone! :D)
Guns 7 (30)
Fists 8 (21)
Guts 11 (18)
=69

Badass zombie slayer (30)
Gunslinger (5)
I would follow him trough the gates of hell (15)
= 50


Gear
The char no. 4, my choice, was armed with an assault rifle, body armour and a pistol.So is this guy. If you're interested, he carries pistol on his left-side ribcage area. Because it all adds over 50 points limit, Grom counts as having:
A body armour (20)
An assault rifle (30)


= 50

I will jump in the game in June, after I come home so people wouldn't wait for me for no reason, and we will see how Shelldrake delivers me, once we get there!




I am glad my wargaming blog is wargaming blog again and will keep it that way

Blast! I've copied stats from forums and now its all weird. Sorry for that, seems I can't fix it -.-




Cheers,

Mathyoo