What I did on my "weekend"...

I recently started a new shift pattern at work - 3 days on, 3 days off, 12 hour shifts. I actually love it! I previously worked 5 days a week with split days off, meaning I didn't really have time to see my family and friends whilst also having a bit of painting time. The new shift pattern works great! Here's what I managed to finish off over my "weekend": 

I finished off the Scabbs figure I showed the other day, as well as 3 bomber zombies for my WWWII setting, a halfling thief for Mordheim, a zombie-huntin, blood-splattered granny with a shotgun and a not-Serenity from Ground Zero Games. I also got some painting done on a pulp investigator from Reaper an a cowboy supporting his gutshot mate.

I spent yesterday finishing basing up this horde of miniatures - I fancied something new to paint and I'd almost run out of figures that were undercoated and ready to go. I wanted something a bit sci-fi/Rogue Trader to go with the wasteland/spaceport/shantytown terrain I've been working on. I pulled this horde of stuff out of a bunch of boxes - there's various aliens (Black Cat Bases, GZG, Star Wars pre-paints) and some random pulp/horror stuff from Horrorclix. I needed to base up some of them (with some pinning) and add sand/gravel to the rest of them. I then spray-undercoated a bunch of these with the not-Khemri Brown Humbrol spray. They're now good to go!

Back to the terrain shortly!

Weird WWII Nazi Zombies

A recent Painting-in-Progress - a horde of Nazi Zombies! Miniatures are from Secrets of the Third Reich and I bought them off a friend (they were surplus to his requirements). Not much left to do on them now!

Not dead, just restin'

Just a quick snapshot from my workbench from a couple of weeks ago, showing what will probably be shown next...

I've been busy with work as of late, but I will get some proper updates sorted soon!

Palleted Crates

More that I managed to finish last weekend - the crates and pallets as shown previously on the blog. Very simple to do, rather fast as well - I actually used a hairdryer to speed up the process! I added markings to them, that are meant to be fairly generic from a distance, but up close they're sort of arabesque squiggles...

Alongside the other crate/fuel drum piles, I think I have enough for my board now...

Nacht der Untoten! pt.2

Like Dr. Frankenstein, I have pieced together the remains of these Nazi soldiers...


On Friday evening I removed all of the heads, drilled out the necks and reposed, whilst adding sand and gravel to their bases. Last night I undercoated all of them with black spray. These should  be a nice little horde to paint!

Nacht der Untoten!

Because who doesn't love zombies? And Weird World War II? These arrived in the post yesterday, from a friend who didn't need them anymore - he'd bought them painted and in need of some tender loving care, so I rebased them all last night. They appeared to originally have been glued to their bases with PVA and the sand they'd been based with just fell off. Hopefully I'll be able to rescue them for my WWWII collection - I can see them fighting the repainted Hellboy 'clix I have too!

Evil Mastermind's Brain in a jar!

This is the "Brain in a Jar" robot from Black Cat Bases - nice little figure but it was not without it's problems. I may have gone slightly overboard on the murky wash on the jar itself - the brain is easier to see in real life, honest! The problem with the figure is probably due to the shape of the base/track unit - a lot of the moldlines obliterated any detail that was supposed to be there. Oh well! This would most likely be an objective marker in game - the bad guys want to capture it for nefarious purposes, the good guys want to deny their enemies this font of evil knowledge!

Weird WWII - US and British forces

I recently rediscovered a box of Weird WWII miniatures that I'd traded for from a friend on the Ammobunker forum which were to supplement the forces I've already done some work on. I also discovered East Riding Miniatures and realised that I'd already painted a German Officer from them a few months ago. I liked a couple of their ranges and ended up buying this British Zombie Hunter (although he seems more like a vampire hunter to me, perfect to face the Secrets of the Third Reich Vampire I finished last month):

Lovely sculpt from Jim Bowen and only £1.25! Very fast shipping as well - I ordered on the Friday afternoon and they arrived on the Monday morning! The cast was nice, although as you can see, the groin needed filling slightly with some green stuff...

I'm not entirely what company makes the NCO on the left, but the gunslinger is Wild Bill Donovan from West Wind Productions - a real person who helped form the OSS during WWII and later the CIA.

These are Berlin or Bust American GIs - these minis have a lot of character with some great poses. I've kept all of my WWWII and Pulp figures on the "lipped" Warmachine-style bases. I think they suit them and it helps me keep them all together.

Just a preview of what's coming up in the months ahead. I also have some other Darkson Designs Americans and a few Germans on the way, plus a Sherman I painted a while back that needs weathering up. Thanks for reading!

Hungry for blood...

Hey guys/gals/automatons from far-flung solar systems...

Been a short while since I've updated, for various reasons - real life got in the way slightly with work and socialising, I got a couple of brilliant games for the Xbox360 (Assassins Creed 2 and Red Dead Redemption) and I spent a little bit of time building various miniatures. I'm currently involved in a painting challenge on The Ammobunker forum (where I am also a moderator) which is a monthly paint-as-much-as-you-can-for-your-assigned-team type of affair, so in the past week I've been trying to get a few different miniatures finished. This here is the first...

This is the Nazi Vampire from the Westwind "Secrets of the Third Reich" Weird World War II line. My friend gave me a link to it a few weeks ago and I picked it up with some spare Paypal funds. I love the feel that it's actually an integrated part of the Nazi forces, rather than a fantasy vampire tacked on to a sci-fi line. The paint job is pretty basic - I couldn't really do much with the trenchcoat. I'm very happy with the way he's turned out though, and I'm a big fan of the miniature.

I have a bunch more miniatures finished and photographed so expect a few more updates in the coming days...

American Gangster

Rather basic paintjob on this gentleman...

Does anyone know the range this mini comes from? I've had a browse around what I thought would be the likely suspects without luck. He's for my pulp/WWWII setting, aiding and abetting Nazi agents in the US homeland no doubt...

Sniper, Doktor, Scientist...

Three more miniatures finished this month...

Heresy Miniatures new sniper ganger - for use in various different systems.

Darkson Designs Nazi Doktor. The type of guy that can pump you full of super-soldier serum on the battlefield...

Rattrap Productions Mad Scientist. He'd be a Scientist working for the Nazis, perhaps creating War-Robots? Hence the controller...

Scavenger and what's up next...

Another miniature done...

The em4 Miniatures "Road Hero" - another "decent enough" miniature, but I thought his weaponary was lacking in detail and a bit underpowered for someone who is meant to be a "hero" in my game, so he got the silenced pistol and assault rifle.

I do rather like him, but can't help but feel that he's somewhat lacking...

Finally based up this rather random Orc character - I'm used to Warhammer Fantasy's Orcs, so the noble attire is something a bit new and interesting to me! I'm not sure how he'll be painted up, blue and yellow spring to mind or the dark green and red of my Mordheim human mercenaries...

This bunch is what I currently have on the workbench - an Ogryn for Necromunda, the Anti-Pope from Spinespur, a Techmarine and several servitors, a Scaly/Big Mutant (in the yellow - he's going to be painted Fallout 3 Big Mutant style), a Sabertooth Tiger man, some WWWII Nazi scientists and some Darkson Designs "emaciated German troopers". Quite a mixed bag!

More Weird War

Got this lady finished tonight...

I had thought I'd finished her paintjob a couple of evenings ago, but when it came to taking pictures tonight I saw a few bits to sort out. I'm still not very happy with the miniature as a whole, but she'll do. She was bought in a couple of pulp job lots on eBay a few months back (with money that I shouldn't have been spending on miniatures...as always!) - I doubt I'd have bought her otherwise. The sculpt is just fairly bad, the head was huge in proportion to the rest of the miniature, one arm is rather longer than the other. I was lucky to have a spare head that worked well enough! Enough complaining... She's obviously for Weird WWII or Pulp games, both genres I love but struggle to find opponents for...

This guy also arrived in the post - Heresy Miniatures new sniper ganger. He's going to be an Inquisitorial agent in 28mm Inquisitor games, possibly a Vindicare if I ever use the Daemonhunters rules in 40k or a ganger in games in my post-apoc wasteland or Necromunda. I spray undercoated him black then gave him a basecoat of Khemri Brown, I'm not sure where to go now...

Comments and criticism are most welcome, I love to hear what people think about my stuff and it's usually a bit of a kick up the backside to make me paint more :)

German Officer and Scavenger

Managed to get a couple of miniatures finished tonight...

German Officer for my Weird WWII games - lovely sculpt, shame about some of the cast though - for example, in the front of the coat, the tops of the boots are very rough. Something to do with the depth of the mould I'd guess.

Did some burn scarring on his face, partly to suggest his veteran status and partly to cover up a slight defect on the face. Also adds a little extra weird to a straight-laced mini.

Scavenger for various settings (post-apoc, post-apoc zombies, Necromunda etc.) - I really love these sculpts, super-cheap too - they're £1.25 each from em4 Miniatures! Once again I did a bit of scarring - well, more eczema really. Had the paint mixed up from the burns on the German, thought I'd use it up a little...

I'd originally only planned on finishing the mostly-finished German tonight, but got caught up in the second season of The Shield, so here I am in the early hours of the morning...

The Next Batch

Just picked these from the selection of stuff I have WIP - 4 em4 Miniatures Scavengers (I love the one with the hat!), a Nazi officer and a US Rocket Trooper for my Weird WWII project. The female rocket trooper was from Rattrap but had a huge ugly head. Thankfully I had the perfect head spare from the Darkson Designs female engineer!