Bikers

These are the final figures from my paint-tray - a biker gang and what a well armed bunch they all are.
They are of course from Black Cat Bases, bought over two years ago and finally painted up save for their accompanying dog who joins all the other mutts I'm slowly collecting.

They aren't "named" like so many other ranges of figures, but the second chap from the right looks remarkably like Paul Teutul Snr. from "Orange County Choppers (and was painted up on BCB's site as such).
They're comparatively as poorly armed as the the other gangers I've recently featured, with pump-action shotgun, Bfg 9mms, a chain and an  J7-Omg - machine pistol. They're wearing typical biker gear of denim, vests and not much more of course, with red bandanas for those that have them.

BRV©

Their Nemesis, the Perdition PD is lead by this chap on the right whom I am sure probably started life out as an Army general or something like that. His providence eludes me as he was a gift from #1 son, who new I was looking for a figure to represent the Chief of Police (or equivalent) With the usual skill shown by my photographer (poor at best), it's quite difficult to make out his row of medal ribbons above his left chest pocket and I've painted his hands as wearing brown leather gloves, (as can be seen in the Boring Rear View ©).
I really do like this figure a lot and as I painted him up he started to look very much as I remember my dad strangely enough, down to the row of medal ribbons and even the figure's facial features, though the "chicken guts" on the cap peak did elude him.
This batch, like the two previous just need to be varnished before they are stored away.

With my painting table all but clear now I've all but completed my two dolls' houses and I've started on another fence building project, it's been a long time since I put my ample supply of coffee stirrers to use.
 My gaming table is out of commission until it's tidied up, a job that at least I've began to start on, but hopefully next week will see my first post on the houses I've been working on.
I have one new follower to welcome Hunterpest whom I'm sure many of your will already know. He runs the Project Zeke line of miniatures, which are well worth a look.

 That's it then for another week and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated, after all, I'm sure they're what keeps most of us blogging

Los Chicos

Here's the male counterpart to Los Chicas of my last post.
Once more they are from the now unavailable gangster range from Obelisk Miniatures that I got from Black Cat Bases and all that's missing from the complete set is the accompanying dog.

I like these figures a lot and hardly do justice to them with my inept painting skills

They do loosely follow some form of gang colours, dependent upon what clothese they are portrayed as wearing.
He's probably the best armed of the lot with some form of machine pistol.

The "knife-fighter" is the least well-armed of all this set and has only the barest gang-related "colours".
With his jeans and vest he could just about be employed as a bandito in a western game.

Trainers, loose fitting shirt over a vest, cargo-pants (?), and bandana, in my mind typifies an urban ganger. (I do think though that I've probably been influenced unduly by TV and Hollywood.
He carrying the archetypical urban heavy weapon an ID 10 T pump-action shotgun.

Another figure that hardly bears any resemblance to the rest of the gang save for him wearing a white vest and opting for black "sweats" rather then the pants of the others.
He too is relatively lightly armed, with a baseball bat, but I'm sure he is meant to be holding another weapon such as a pistol behind his back. Unfortunately the poor molding coupled with my crap attention to detail meant he never did get a second weapon.

For some reason the photographer (who is on a last warning) missed taking a frontal single photograph of the final figure in the group.
The reason he is in such a strange pose is that he's the one meant to be holding the dog at bay (it's either a Mexican Spitz or a Bitzer) - the dog does actually come with an attachable leash too !
He is armed with a pistol and rounds of the relative light and diverse firepower of these chaps.




Next week I'll be once more showing another gang of five from this range - the Bikers, so that's it then once more except to say, as always, that your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Los Chicas

Having just arrived back from my short break I had to photograph these figures for this week's blog, rather than just having to press the publish button just before I left.
The photos were a bit rushed and the figures themselves hadn't been varnished so they do appear a bit shiny and bright.

The figures themselves came from Black Cat Bases, but are unfortunately no longer available on their web-site.






There were 6 different sets in the gangster range each of five figures and an animal (all but one were dogs) and this set compliments their male counterparts.


They're meant to represent some form of Hispanic gangers and I've painted them as such.
I've adopted a light blue as the main gang colour and it features  with the males too.

All the figures armed to varying one degrees,  pistols, pump action shotguns and a machine pistol all feature.

This figure was intended to have a machine pistol, which came as a separate piece (with attached hand) and would need gluing on.
being the spam-hands that I am, I of course, lost it.
It was replaced with a pistol and hand from one of the plastic survivour figures.
The gun itself is at a strange angle (as is the rest of the figure) .

With their somewhat limited firepower they will of course be usable as typical street-gang types at the start of the apocalypse  ans either as survivours post apocalypse and they will of course also make excellent gangers to oppose survivours too.

This is another one of those figures that have been affected by Hollywood stereotypes,  that of the shooter with two pistols. Luckily they are at least down by her sides and not in that other seemingly favourite position of sculpters with one of the pistols over her head !
Anyone who has handled guns will soon realise their weight and the impracticality of wielding two of them, let alone having one of them raised over your head for no apparent reason.

There was quite a bit of flash and mold-lines on these, some of which I didn't spot until after priming and some not until I'd started painting them. There are some great bit of detail on the models though, bracelets watches, necklaces and such, which I find a pain to paint.



Next week I'll be showing you the male counterparts Los Chicos, (though they were actually called something like The Nortenos when I bought them).
With these completed (except for varnishing) that leaves just another eleven figures on my painting tray to blog about over the next two weeks, by which time I'm hoping to have finished the two doll houses I've been working on.

That's it then for this week except of course to welcome my latest follower Toni Morey who makes both 1/35 scale and 28mm survivours.

As always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

Protestors

Mixed in with a few armed and unarmed civilians, we'll have a riot

 These have come about because I received a partially complete box of the Wargames Factory survivours and couldn't face having yet more armed civilians.
I've made these figures up from various plastics that I have, namely the Wargmes Factory Surviours (men) and the WF male zombies, though there is a single head from the female vixen's sprue (the girl).



It will be noticeable no doubt that there are no women in the ranks of this protest, but if I ever come across a sprue of the female survivouors, I will no doubt add to the masses.

Moe, Larry and Curly

 So in batches of three, here's a few close-ups as I know you'll be more interested in reading the signs than looking at my painting efforts.
Just in case you can't read the sign on the right it says "LEGALIZE MARIJUANA. Quickly before they search my Fanny pack!"

Obligatory boring rear view.

Winken, Blinken and Nod (solicitors)

There not that many of them armed with anything more than an improvised melee weapon, but I'm sure the 2 x 2s of the placards can be quite effective.
The right hand sign has the word "I'd" covered by the central sign making it read "I'd make my car...etc."

Rear view (obviously)

Two and a half men (not soliciting)

The signs themselves were all taken from the actual protests on the Interweb and photoshopped to a usable size.
They were glued onto some thin card and the back were given a quick wash of paint in an attempt to mask the card.

The 'boy' has a head from the vixens box !

Chico, Harpo and Groucho

The rough looking 2 x 2s for the signs were filed down matchsticks (into a rough paddle shape for easy of gluing the sign onto).
They were cut to size after the signs were allocated to them.

No coffee stirrers were used in this production

Hank, Bruce and Brian

Gluing the wood matchsticks to the plastic figures was a real pain, as was finding sufficient left or right hands that didn't already have weapon in them.
As these were plastic figures I cut my own very thin plastic bases for them, for ease of gluing, rather than the normal washers I use.

Note the "lack of detail" painting technique I used

There are scenarios for mobs in ATZ (Haven) and mixed in with a few rioters (molotovs, etc) these will at least help 'bulk' them out.











That's it for this week, as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated, but as I'm away on holiday for a few days responses to any comments may be delayed until I find internet access.

Octzomber

OK I'm, not officially taking part in Zombtober, but coincidentally I was about to start on my next batch of figures, that included these eight zombies. They're are all plastics and are made from a mix of manufacturers' bits and pieces. I'm sure those of you who own any of the plastic zombie figures will be able to recognise their origins.

1st three front

All the bodies I've used are from Mantic zombies (the fantasy ones I believe) and the legs from mostly Wargames Factory zombie sets, though I have included one set of Mantic zombie legs on the female zombie.
It's nothing new of course, I've seen others do similar Frankenstein monsters from different kits.

1st three, boring back view

2nd batch

The heads were an assortment of Wargames Factory, Mantic and Studio Minis, with the single female's head from the W.F. Vixens set.

2nd batch rear view

They do vary in quality and size quite a bit and do look a bit strange on the 'wrong' torsos (as indeed do some of the torsos on the 'wrong' legs).









The final two both look a bit strange for many reasons, (not just the bad photograph).
The left hand zed just looks too animated for me, but it's probably due to the legs I've put him on (the mantic legs are all more squat-like).
The female, well, talking about squatting...

Still it's another eight zombies to add to my ever growing horde, bringing it close to about two hundred now, maybe I should take a head count ?



I'll take this opportunity to welcome my latest follower, Blaxkleric, whose blog Fantorical is well worth a look.
On the subject of blogs, I apologise if you have anything other than a straight-forward comment  box on your blog (atom, google+ etc), I'm very much a technophobe - I'm even reticent about replying when there is a 'captcha' request.
That's it then for this week except to say that as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

EMS

William Flowers and Benjamin Potts

The Emergency Medical Services that should feature in the early stages of every zombie apocalypse game, are sadly not represented by many (if any) suitable figures, (along with the firemen -US or British).
There are however British medical teams - available from Warmacre |Game (a very underrated range of excellent figures). They have two paramedics in the set along with four British bobbies for £6 !

Benjamin Potts

I therefore set out to make my own and converted a couple of figures from plastic "kits" that I have  acquired over time (the latest being two sprues of Wargames factory Survivours and a nearly complete spure of their weapons !).
The figure on the left though has a Studio Mini's zombie plastic torso and arms from goodness knows where, though I suspect they're from the Wargame factory zombies.
The case he is carrying is scratch-built from a central body of cork with slivers of cork for the end and side pockets. The handle is a very small staple, straightened out then gently curved and forced into the cork, as it's a very tight fit it didn't require any gluing.

Rear view.

A quick googling of US, EMS crews revealed that they generally don't look like our own green overalled  paramedics, but are uniformed with more in common to Amercian Police forces with a very similar uniform of black trousers and shirts. I did however find a couple that wore white shirts with their black trousers and plumped for that.
The Hi-vis vest is inherent in the Studio Mini though it's meant more of a college -type jacket. as I later found when painting it, but I think it does the job.
Blue plastic gloves feature a lot with paramedics and I thought it helped break up monotony of the figure along with the red medic case (also found by googling).

William Potts

For the second figure I used the torso from the survivours boxed set (intended for the cop-type character) with suitable arms  - Right handed arms with open hands are quite rare as most are carrying a weapon of some description or have shirt sleeves etc.

Rear view

I had intended to use both the cop torso I had at my disposal, for these but I'm pleased now I used the Studio one.
 Other than varnishing, I'm happy that these are as finished as they will ever be, they look distinct enough and are fit for purpose (well for my purposes anyway) and at least it's another two figures off my current painting tray.

State of play on the painting tray.

My gaming table is currently in a state of flux (OK, for in a state of flux read - "it's a mess) following the gluing, converting and basing of figures and as I continue to work  on the doll houses.

Sid's got a lot of work to do getting this cleaned up.

Whilst I may not be officially participating in Zombtober, these two may well keep someone from Birmingham bugging me (mentioning no names) and I may have some actual zombies finished by next week too !

Finally let me welcome my two latest followers R.A.E. Gingerbhoy and Arabianknight both of whom have very good blogs.

As always your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.