East Street Games Survivor and Zombie

Hi guys,

I will skip the apologetic introduction and I will dive right in - Few weeks back I received a nice parcel from the good man Clint of  Anything but a one! fame. (Thanks again!)

Among other things he sent me were these two miniatures of a female survivor in a living and zombified form. They are from a newish company called East Street Games for their Zombie Apocalypse game called Bullets and Brains.

Unfortunately the page offers very little information at this point and I would wish to at least see the sculpts, but Clint has posted a lengthy AAR in his April posts...actually, just click Here and then check the newer posts for parts 2 and 3.

As far as the miniature goes, the sculpt is fantastic. I have an abundance of survivors with firearms, so seeing one with a melee weapon was a welcoming change. The survivor is not cluttered with the detail, but the jacket, for example, was nicely detailed, so it pains up nice and fast. This is just a personal preference, but I like it as it feels a lot like a gaming piece and doesn't give me nightmares when I am painting it.

I more or less copied the paints from the web page, but I went with Khaki shorts as and a hat as I felt the jacket was blue enough. I kept the same paints for both of them and the zombie was given the pale and purple treatment that I found I like the most for the zombies and undead in general.

 For zombie, things are more or less the same. It doesn't have the typical shambling stance I like, but it looks like it barely stands upright, so this is "zombie enough" for me. It is full of little details, little cuts, little gun shot wounds, I could swear I saw one eyeball dangling out and there are even some blisters. One of the legs shows some bone, so there was a lot of diversity on it. The only thing that struck me was the gun shot wound on the hat. Not that I mind it, as it looks good, but as we like to associate dead zombies with blown up heads, this makes it a Living Living Dead.

I apologise for bad photos, I blame it on the weather!

This is it for today, and I'll post again next week, if all goes as planned!

Mathyoo

More zombies!

Hello,

I got another four zombies to show today. The photos are a bit dark because the weather is bad, but I did made a step forward and used a white background this time!

There's 4 zombies, two from the Wargames factory female range and two from Studio miniatures plastic range.

Not much to say about them, really. I was mixing some paints to get the green blue colour and slapped it on. I went with "rotten flesh" look for their skin, which probably wasn't the best choice as they are not too decayed looking. I might mention the second female is heart breaking skinny, but I really like the broken ankle and the huge tight wound of the first one!

I only have 9 zombies to paint now, 3 of which are WW2 and 1 isn't really a zombie as it's a set of Mantic legs with a spine. Once I get those done, I believe a "horde" (group?) shot is in order.

Also, a quick shot of the special zombies with TCR. I know some times less is more, but when it comes to zombies more seems to be more and if it were for me, I would just slap TCR all over them!

That's it for today and I think I'll be back to modern gaming with my next post!

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

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

Zombies again

Hello guys,

I've been working on hobby related stuff quite a lot lately, yet I kinda feel I have nothing to show you. Following great weather, there is a downpour today, so I didn't want to take photos of the insurgents conversions I was posting lately. I have mostly all done by now, and of those some are more or less successful :P.

Luckily, this means I finally got an opening to show you zombies I've painted a while ago. They are not my best paint jobs, somehow I find zombies boring to paint lately.
They are the "usual" group of 4, with 2 vixens and two studio miniatures male zombies. Again, they all have mostly similar colour palette, which I figured should speed up the painting. While they may look too unified when put together, colours blend in with the rest of the "horde" (that's now betwen 50-60 zombies strong, if you were wondering).

I only got two photos to show you the front and back of the figures. Except for the news guy, they are all striaght out of the box, painted and with some blood splashed. There really isn't much to say about them.

Journalist is a ripped half naked zombie guy that got converted. I don't like my zombies looking all alike and if there's anything I dislike even more, it's overmuscular body showing from under a thorn shirt. Booooring. So, at first, I started sculpting helmet and body armour on him to make him a police man or a soldier...but that's quite boring as well. I was highly influenced by modern combat at the time I was painting those, so I remembered I could always do with a dead reporter. Someone has to risk his life to let the people know what is going on! So...that's it. Eagle eyed readers might notice he has his camera entangled around his feet.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

More zombies! Aaargh!

Hey guys,

even more zombies to show today. Same again, 2 male zombies from Studio Miniatures plastics and two female zombies from Wargames factory (okay, it's one and a half). 
Not much to say, they are all straight from the box (and probably last one like that, as I'm already converting some, more on that in one of the next posts!). I went for "formal" black and white colours. I've also put in another jeans as all I do is blue wash over white. I think lots of zombies will have jeans, which is odd as I don't own a single pair of those myself.

So, there is my least favorite sculpt there, the fit half naked male zombie and your ordinary office Joe. That has red on him and looks like someone everyone should know. There is simply no other way to paint a guy in a shirt and a tie.

Female zombies are a bit more interesting, one is a crawler and the other one is an office lady. Her right sleeve was actually painted on, as I've somehow glued a bare arm there. I got no idea, how I didn't notice that. It looks fine, however.
I've decided to put some extra blood on her for two reasons. First, Tamiya Clear Red is probably the single reason I enjoy painting zombies over painting anything else. And second, I figured it would look cool - is that a "smart" zombie, using an improvised weapon or the blood is old this woman was bashing skulls with her yesterday-so-important paperwork? Who'd knew!

In the background you can see some dollies as my moderns project is slowly gaining steam again.


Really nothing else I could say. I got a FOW tournament tomorrow. It should be a blast as I got my favorite army ready. It's not competitive and I haven't played in months but it has pionieres and Stugs, so I got that going for me! Can't promise any photos, but I just might take the camera with me for a change.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Zombies...gaah...

 Hello guys,

I was hoping I would post earlier, but I really didn't want to put in another filler post, so I have decided I would rather wait until I finish painting the four zombies (that took me way too long to paint).

What I am doing now is painting a couple of WGF Vixens and a couple of SM male zombies (thanks again Bryan :P) - so 4 zombies at a time. This will give me nice variety of male and female zombies and I will actually have something painted. Or at least that is the plan.

I went for red here, which is the worst colour you can paint your zombies in. No blood is visible! Then again, I picked red because of the bay watch zombie (that sucks).

 Not much to say, they are painted horribly, but I am happy I managed to finish them at least. They seem too red when they are together, but once they will be mixed with the rest of the "horde", that shouldn't be as visible. I went for missing arm on the Pamela there, as I would hate it even more if she'd be in a super man pose. The miniatures aren't too bad, honestly, very nicely sculpted. What I don't like is the shallow detail and limited options, so I have to admit the old WGF set is still my favorite. The sculpts are way worse there, but I somehow prefer them to any other plastic zombies I've seen so far. I might want to mention I like how WGF is listening to the comments, first they made females everyone wanted and when doing survivors, they've put a fat one in (is that offensive?). I don't like to have all models in my zombie horde.

One thing I didn't do was convert any, I'm pretty sure I've hit rock bottom on my hobby enthusiasm and I am pretty sure I will buy some cheap 6-10mm miniatures to get me back in, give me sometihng I haven't yet tried to try. I really can't decide on the period, so please do suggest some. I am currently inter debating between late romans (remember roman wall and that battle I was talking about?), WW1 (always wanted to do something about WW1 :D), cold war gone hot (pre-abrams, way more interesting. T-72 was a great tank once in the past!), sci-fi. I don't really expect to game with it, but I would like to do something. Something is fun :D. Now I just can't decide if massive red tide would look better than ranks of sword swinging hordes. I can't even decide between 6 and 10, tbh. But I would like to have a huge miniature town one day. For some reason.


Well, thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

Meet the reanimated!

Hello,

in my last post I've shown you mister reanimator, today I represent you the reanimated. I was about to write zombie, but that word used so often on my blog, it wouldn't feel special enough!

Zombies for my zombie campaign use grey bases, so I figured I'd build special zombies for my Strange Aeons games. Now, mind you, I don't care much for how the bases look like, but as I got plenty of spare mantic zombies (not much to variation, when they're all clad in rags, right?), why wouldn't I make them SA specific? Well, any horror, but modern, genre specific. As I didn't want them to be  the same as my other zombies, except for the bases, I've used "linen" cloth that I won't be using on any other. I've also did some conversions and above all, painted their eyes. And glowing! (Sounds of people cheering)

 The conversions are minimal. First guy has now chopped arm (actually a very old conversions, about a year old now...time does go by fast!), but I've added some more hair to his head. In 1920's fashion! Second guy has nothing done and the third has a piece of cloth thrown over his shoulder. Nothing special, but it is something! They're all bloody as I do love smell of Tamiya's clear red in the morning!

My motivation still holds and I will continue to show my SA pictures, hopefully until I show all I got.  I will also continue converting Mantic zombies and have so far converted two for ghosts (more on that later, but lets just say that zombie reaching forward really looks like a ghost!) and I will put some armor on one of them to make an "ancient warrior". It does let me convert, which is one of the reasons I was attracted to this hobby, lets me use all those plastics diversely and saves me money - whats not to like?

I do wish to thank you once again for reading, but above all the support you're giving me trough comments. It is really motivational!

Oh, I've almost forgot, with the help of Brummie the instructor and Vampifan the warehouseman, I've been able to secure some nice deals for vehicles on E-bay! I'm a miser so I include postage in the consideration, but I've managed to get 8 vehicles for a bit more than a pound each! So, thanks a million! I will show them once I get them, so don't expect them before May :D

Board of the Living Lead diorama contest

Hello guys,

I had quite a busy for quite a few weeks, that have ended yesterday by what I hope to be my last exam!

I still wanted to show you at least something, so I will repost some pictures of my entry for Board of the Living Lead forum's competition.

The entry is pretty simple, it represents an encounter in an underground. Nothing special when you look at it now, but it took me quite some time to build it. The miniatures are separate so I can reuse them, and scenery can double as a background for shots of newly painted miniatures that way.  I might have mentioned that the male miniature is from Urban war (I bought female militia and he was mistakenly in a pack!), with his left hand cut of and swapped for a reaper's revolver. Looks way cooler than a clutched fist! Zombie is from Mantic and had a wire struck in his head and then clump foliage glued on to represent heads insides bursting out.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo

3 zombies

Hey,

nothing special today, 3 very sloppy painted zombies. Last three from WGF I got built...still got 1 or 2 sprues left for "someday". One is wearing tactical vest I've sculpted but I've really painted them all in no time.

Cheers,

Mathyoo

Strange Aeons AARs

 Hello,

last week, me and my brother sat down for three games of Strange Aeons. I played the Treshold Agents all games while he took over the lurkers. I made pretty basic list and was hoping for 5 wins in a row, which would allow me departure in the jungle on a special mission. Thing turned bad....


FIRST GAME

Treshold squad consisted of:

Character John Raymond Legrasse
armed with dual .45's and a bowie knife

 Agent Charles Fort
armed with .45, bowie knife and a shotgun

Agent Walter Williamson
armed with .45, bowie knife and a tommy gun

Civilian Howard Philips Lovecraft
armed with .22

First mission was Escape...into danger!
Treshold agents were on a reconnaissance mission, investigating reports about haunted graveyard. Once they were engaged with strange old man...a high priest (had 2, 3 and 5 evil spells), their mission was to leave the area and report back to office.

They were not aware of great knowledge the old man possessed and tried to eliminate him. Below, you can see the scene just before contact. We got old man lurking behind a crypt on right side. Above crypt is agent Williamson with tommy gun. Left of the crypt is Legrasse, below are Fort and Lovecraft.

The old man has chanted two spells, giving his cold hands a touch of death and eldritch barrier making sure he gets hit harder. He shot a fireball straight into Howard Phillips who instantly suffered a minor injury (has left the table but was okay next game)

Then the old man charged straight for Legrasse, dispatching him with touch of death. Williamson was ineffective with his kugelspritze and he has suffered the same fate. Eventually, even agent Fort suffered the same fate.

After the game I've thrown the dice to see what happened to our heroes.

If you got the book, you can see that:
Williamson was dead.
Legrasse became claustrophobic (has to roll on insanity table when he enters scenery)
Fort suffered from ballistophobia (has to pass resolve if he wants to shoot)

 As Williamson died, I got a chance to reequip my agents. Legrasse took hollow-point bullets for his dual .45s. His range decreased, but damage increased. Fort felt he is more than uncomfortable with his shotgun, so he swapped it for a meat cleaver he got from butcher's shop. Williamson was replaced with James Woodville, armed with a bowie knife, .45 and a bolt action rifle.

Here is a closer picture of an evil doer!

SECOND GAME

Second game was a monster hunt. Straight forward scenario where our reequipped team faced a Dimensional Shambler (with bunch of skills that made him virtually indestructable)

Here is a table:

 Long story short, I couldn't really hurt him and I should've fled the table (a  loss and everyone suffers a minor injury)

A highlight of battle was when shambler threw Legrasse into scenery (forest). Legrasse got so paranoid, he immediately  lost his consciousness!

 Seeing all his friends dead or seriously hurt, greenhorn Woodville fainted. He was charged by a shambler and removed as a major injury.

 Here is the outcome:
Lovecraft suffered a minor injury and was okay by next game again. As he is a civilian, he can't get phobias, but would be okay on a roll 4-6, dead on any other.

Fort got lucky this time and came out without any permanent effects!

Legrasse got unlucky, his injuries were severe and he got D3 injuries! (I threw 2, so 1) - but he got lucky and is now a basket case - immune to psychology!

As Fort, Woodville came out untouched.

 Last  game was a bag man. Lurkers were easy this time, a buffed Herbert West and two zombies. The plan was to insert serum into uneads and make them grow!
Reality was worse, one zombie died (even with reroll!), the other got super fast.

 Long story short, they almost eliminated Legrasse, who was my bag man (he had 25% chance to guess who is it!) He has dropped a bag but Fort charged in and killed a zombie. West was killed when he charged Fort last turn.

Quite a fast win for the Treshold. As they were all still on board, I rolled 4 dice for map pieces and fount two!

We ended after this game and I really hope he will play more cultists so my .45s can actually hurt someone! 4 more games and we're off to jungle, wish me luck!

Zombies....braaains...braaaains!

Hello,

today, I've got some pictures of the (satin! :( ) zeds I was talking about.

They're, again, nothing special, another 6 of WGF zombies. They're a rush job, actually, I'm using washes on them more and more. I didn't even bother with painting bare chest of the "corporate" one. Not too proud of them, to be honest. Well, they're fillers and here they are:

 The one in a red robe is supposed to be in slippers, he has just waken up, put a bathing robe over his pajamas and went to check his COOL NEW BLUEBERRY PHONE (no, that is not kind of phone I use. My is (by sheer luck) recylced and worh 1 euro and a year of subscription, I really don't need anything more than ability to call and send messages around). Well, he obviosuly got bitten and now he stares at his phone, not knowing what the thing is about. He's a zombie, after all! And no, I am not satisfied with his red, I should use some other color.

Below are some close up pics on the tattoo from the guy I've shown last time.  I took some shots with old couple from the Hasslefree, to show off brand new 20mm bases I've got from Carl. I've also got some bigger bases for my monsters and some ball bearings for the sculpts. He kindly added few extras and today I feel special again! :P 

Well, I got lost again...here are the pics:

As you can see, there is really no art in it. I've just drawn some lines with "german grey" mixed with base colour for skin, and then used skin colour again to "fix it". Up close it looks like a blob it is, but from further away, I think it looks like a tattoo would look from that distance. I was planning on doing one little motive, but figured whole tattooed arm would look a bit cooler, to add to the contrast a bit.

I've also taken pictures of some pillars I'm making for Strange Aeons and a progress on Shantak (well, more like "progress", all I've done is cut his legs, replace them and sanded his wings), but I've figured I should seriously make my posts a bit more thematic and more frequent instead of posting once a week and just throwing bunch of things in the posts.

Well, let that then be it for today,

Mathyoo