Plague Zombies

I wasn't planning on painting any more zombies, but while I was making an order with Noble Knight at the end of August did some browsing and a pack of Copplestone Plague Zombies caught my eye.  Many zombie rules require some distinctive zombies and these would fit the bill. They are pretty disheveled with a lot of wounds, bite marks, and a bullet hole or two.  While I am working on some larger projects, I quickly slipped these into the painting queue.

As I mentioned, I wanted these to be visually distinct from my other zombies.  My friend Mike has been adding bricks to some of his bases recently and I liked the way they looked.  Since I don't have any ready-made, 3d-printed bricks, I cut up a piece of mdf from the leftover frame of a building and they were close enough for me when painted.

I painted the skin with GW rotted flesh, then applied a thin wash of AP Alien Purple.  This gives some detail to the skin, pools in the numerous wounds, and gives a bruised look to some areas.  I added a thin coat of Ral Partha Blood Red to the wounds to make them look more disgusting.  They were very quick to paint up.

I think the tall one with the long hair on the left resembles Neil from The Young Ones.

        

I really like the various wounds they have, these zombies aren't easy to kill.

Zombie Reinforcements

 I started painting 28mm zombies back in summer 2020 with a group of 14.  I have added more over the years in small groups and my shambling horde numbered 42 as of 2024.  

My friend Mike started playing zombie games in 2024 using the rules set Zombie RV (available on Wargames Vault).  He added some mechanics for a larger game that I was interesting in trying.  But I needed more zombies.  Additional motivation was provided by Mike's collection of 75 zombies.  I was in between painting projects so decided that I would seize the opportunity to regain zombie supremacy.

I started with a batch of 14 Studio Miniatures plastic zombies.  I got a bunch of them as free rewards to a long-ago kickstarter and had painted a few in the past, also converting one of the bodies into a living biker for my motorcycle gang.  They come on sprues with 4 different bodies, 8 heads and various arms.  I had some left-over heads and arms from the Warlord/Wargames Factory male zombies, so used those to add more variety.

I have grouped each of the body types together.  I experimented with some different methods of doing skintones to add more variety.  The first picture has, left to right, rotting flesh, light gray, and blue, all lightly washed with purple.  The blue-ish ones didn't turn out like I had hoped at first so I added a light drybrush of light gray.

I wanted to do some different miniatures next, so I checked ebay and found a set of the Warlord/Wargames Factory female zombies along with 6 of the original Wargames Factory zombies for a good price.  The original zombies were made before the box sets that Warlord re-released.  They are definitely cruder sculpts than the later versions and have 6 on a sprue.  Unlike the later ones they have separate torsos and legs.

I already had a set of the female zombies in my collection, but thought I could make these different with a combination of different heads/arms/painting.

I was still 2 short of my goal.  Then I remembered that I had 2 metal zombies from Studio (also free from their kickstarter) that are larger and more disgusting than your average zombie.  I dug them out of storage and voila!  

With the 34 new zombies, I now have a total of 76, 1 more than Mike.  I retain an undisclosed number of the plastic Studio zombie sprues in case of emergency.

28mm Modern/Post-Apocalypse

This week I took photos of two batches of miniatures I painted in late 2022 for my modern/post-apocalypse games.  They are all from Hasslefree and were purchased in 2021/2022.  These are the last miniatures that I have from them, so I can move on to some other sections of the lead pile.  One thing I really like about Hasslefree is that they portray different body types (male/female, height, weight) while also making them suitable for handling in games.  I have bought female miniatures in the past from other manufacturers that were so thin and fragile that they were unusable.

Photos were taken on a warm March morning.  During the first attempt, there was a lot of pollen in the air and it got everywhere.  After a thorough brushing-off I tried again the next day.  The descriptions are from left to right and the names are from the Hasslefree website.  Paints used were a mix of craft paints, Vallejo, P3, Ral Partha, Army Painter, and GW.

Every post-apocalypse movie needs a kid.  Or three.  Peter, Katie, and Young Amoy are doing quite well even though civilization has collapsed.  The younger two have fashioned weapons out of everyday objects, while Amoy wields the family sword.

Punks Joanne and Joe are ready for some mayhem.  They would fit well in a game of my friend Mike's rules Mean Streets, which cover gang warfare.  

Jim is an army veteran/urban revolutionary.  I really like the pose of Taylor mini and when I saw it on sale I bought it right away.

Foxtrot comes with an alternate head and arms.  The other head is a Imperator Furiosa look-alike from Mad Max:Fury Road.  I already have one of those from another company so I used the gas mask head.  Pulse is one of my favorite Hasslefree sculpts and is usable in various modern settings.  These are both taller figures.

Shotgun-wielding Madge and office worker Earl are ready for any trouble that comes their way.  Looters beware!

Police officer Ken comes with alternate arms holding a shotgun.  Firefighter Levon appears to have learned that an ax is an effective anti-zombie weapon.  These two are also taller figures.

Il Capello bears a strong resemblance to Walter White from the tv show Breaking Bad.  Police officer Nick clearly means business.  He comes with several arm options.

Jess is a former hockey player.  The last time I was painting zombies I missed Zombie Ray so I  painted him with this batch.  I like the half flesh/half skull look.  HF also make a living version.

Is this illegal toxic waste dump where the zombie outbreak started?  I do not know the manufacturer of this resin terrain piece as I took it out of the package several years ago, primed it, and promptly set it aside and forgot about it until recently.

All 17 miniatures together.

Four of our chickens.  They surrounded me while I was taking the photos because they were hungry.  I promised them food and internet fame.

28mm Zombies and Survivors

This a group of 28mm miniatures from Hasslefree Miniatures.  Their website is currently being renovated, so I am not including the catalog names as I normally do.  I purchased these in November 2021 and May 2022 during their sales and painted them in two batches in spring and summer 2022.  I still have a few left that I intend to work on between batches of ancients for Saga.

A father and daughter who have managed to survive the apocalypse.  

A couple of miniatures for my 7TV games.  A civilian bystander; a heroic strongarm who has a Captain America look to him, so I used blue and red with a lightning bolt symbol instead of a star; and a new member of my biker gang that has been separated from his colleagues.

Now on to the living dead.  I experimented with some different skintones this time to add some variety to my zombie horde.  A zombie school girl on the left and a zombie surfer on the right who just isn't ready to leave his board behind.

A fresh zombie who isn't ready to let go of her pistol just yet, and my favorite of this batch, the zombie mime.  One of those miniatures that makes me smile every time I look at it.  Deadly because he can sneak up on you without making the usual zombie noises, the quick-witted survivor can save themselves by using the Invisible Wall technique.

Zombie doctor bitten by a patient and a zombie who appears to be very upset about her current state of existence.

The obligatory group shot.

Quick 28mm Zombies

 After painting my first batch of zombies in June it didn't take me long to get out the rest of my plastic Warlord (ex-Wargames Factory) zombie sprues.  I had one sprue each of the the male and female zombies, minus the 6 I already painted.  I also found 5 sprues of plastic Studio Miniatures zombies (4 per sprue) I had gotten as a bonus from their Turf War Z Kickstarter in 2018.

After some quick assembly I had 16 zombies ready to be painted.  I again used a mix of GW contrast paints and my normal paints as I thought these would be a good batch for a second experiment with the contrast paints as I wouldn't be disappointed if something went wrong.

I started on a Saturday morning and about 7 hours later (with plenty of time doing other things i between painting sessions) I was done; significantly faster than my normal painting speed.  The detail on these miniatures is fairly shallow for the most part but they accomplish their purpose of serving as cannon fodder against survivors of the zombie apocalypse.  I do still have a few of the Studio Miniatures sprues left to build but I think I am done with zombies for the foreseeable future.

My favorite of this batch reminds me of the Tall Man from the Phantasm movies (though he is missing his jacket) so I painted him accordingly.

The whole batch.  The Studio ones are on the left side and are less animated.