Category Archives: Zombies

Monster May(hem) Week One: Skeletal Dragon

To miniatures hobbyists, Julie Guthrie is one of the most talented, prolific and well-known sculptors working in the industry. She is legend enough to have had her own line of Grenadier miniatures back in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I own more than a few hundred old-school, metal miniatures of that era, many of them from Grenadier, and many of them by Julie Guthrie. She still sculpts for Reaper Miniatures today.

I painted her Red Dragon way back in 2016, before Monster May(hem) was a thing. This time I decided to give this Skeletal Dragon the treatment.

Full disclosure: this thing was terribly painted once before (with Testors enamels, of course) but had been stripped for repainting about ten years ago. The reason I never got to it was because I couldn’t get the wings to stay on. I tried Gorilla Glue gel and regular super glue, they just wouldn’t adhere. I even tried using green stuff as an adhesive. No luck.

Finally, at age 50, I learned about the baking soda trick. Do you know about the baking soda trick? Because I sure as hell didn’t. Some kid in a Warhammer video showed me. Put some super glue down where you want it. Add a tweezer-full of baking soda. Join your parts, and watch as the baking soda instantly cures the glue and forms a rock-solid bond. Blew my mind.

Here is the end result. I used Reaper’s Bone Triad (Bone Shadow, Aged Bone, Polished Bone) for the skeleton, then used the Ivory Triad (Stained Ivory, Yellowed Ivory, Creamy Ivory) on the horns, along with some Brown Wash. The glowing eyes were done with Vallejo Yellow-Green, washed with GW Waywatcher Green and a dot of Dorn Yellow in the center. Then I scattered some rocks and twigs on the base and that was about it.

I considered making the eyes an eerie blue rather than a sickly green, and once the base was complete, I remembered I had a bunch of treasure piles I could have used instead of rocks and tufts, but…oh, well.

I have a few more projects to get to this month, not all of them monsters. It sure as hell is nice to be painting again.

Once again, the blogroll of participants for the month! Go visit their sites and check out what they’re doing!

I’m checking all the sites and I will update this list periodically throughout the month. Happy painting!

Monster May(hem) 2023

Monster May(hem) 2023 starts tomorrow, so let’s get priming!

Here is the blogroll so far:

Also, a few of my Instagram friends are joining in:

Don’t see your name here and want to? Drop me a line with your info and you’re in! There’s still time to join the fun!

For my own sanity, I will post Monster May(hem) updates once a week rather than try to keep up with every submission…but the blogroll is here for a reason! Drop by the sites and accounts listed here and have a look for yourself! Support our fellow hobbyists!

Apocalypse Me: Hungry Bertha

I’m used to storms here in New England. Unfortunately, sometimes they screw with my painting time. Since I had no power to Piper’s Painting Pit on some key days last month, I was unable to get my entry for Dave Stone’s “Apocalypse Me” challenge done on time. Here she is, better late than never; and no, she doesn’t look like me at all.

This lovely lass is “Hungry Bertha”, an OOP Horrorclix miniature from the Freakshow set. As many of you know, repainting and rebasing Clix is something I quite enjoy. So I decided to make Bertha look a little better, paint-wise, and a little more zombified. That way she could (theoretically) be my entry for Zombtober, too.

The lollipop stuck to her backside is a nice touch, as are the mysterious and loathsome slime trails emanating from her various folds. Lovely.

Anyway, I decided to add some gore to her base…a few GW zombie bits, some green stuff intestines…you get the idea.

Add copious layers of Blood for the Blood God, some gloss varnish on her lollipop and slime trails, and here is the result.

This close up shows that I should clean up her eyes a bit, methinks.

Upon reflection I thought it might be fun to make a diorama out of Bertha here, with her teetering upon a veritable mound of body parts and gore; but I was under the gun as it was. This will have to do for now. Still…it’s a thought for later.

Apologies for being late, Dave!

Buried on a Sunday…Born on a Monday…

I never heard, or even knew of, the Solomon Grundy nursery rhyme as a child. I think perhaps this is a more common nursery rhyme overseas than here in the States. It wasn’t until I got older, fell in love with Celtic music and started listening to the Pogues that I heard it for the first time, at the very, very end of Billy’s Bones.

As a comic book fan, though, I knew who Solomon Grundy was very early on. The guy was in the Legion of Doom on Superfriends (a cartoon that absolutely does NOT hold up). Later, I remember seeing a Bernie Wrightson portfolio with a couple of plates depicting Solomon Grundy, but that was about the extent of my exposure to him.

Now, of course, EVERYONE knows that Solomon Grundy was born on a Monday… et cetera, et cetera. He was a significant character on TV’s Gotham, and I remember cackling with glee the first time I realized that…

SPOILER ALERT

…Butch’s real name turned out to be Cyrus Gold.

Anyway…Grundy has about 12 different origin stories (look it up if you don’t believe me), but a common thread throughout all of them was that he was once a man named Cyrus Gold, who was murdered and dumped in Slaughter Swamp, the location of which changes but is usually outside of Gotham City. Something in the water reanimates him, so he is basically an indestructible zombie. He’s super strong (he can go toe-to-toe with Superman), nigh-invulnerable and impossible to permanently put down. He doesn’t have to breathe and he doesn’t bleed. He’s also usually, but not always, really dumb.

He started out as a villain for Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, but now he’s more of a Batman villain. The thing is, I can’t figure out why he’s a villain at all. Most villains have schemes and plans, things they wish to accomplish. Grundy just usually shows up and fights whoever happens to be around until he gets beat up or killed. Then he rises again some time later and starts all over. Not really a “big picture” kind of guy.

I bought this Knight Models Solomon Grundy because it’s AWESOME, and the Heroclix Grundy looks laughably small next to him.

I primed him black and drybrushed some Citadel Celestra Grey on him to pick out the details. Then I painted his skin using Citadel’s Rakarth Flesh, followed by a wash of Agrax Earthshade, then highlighted with Flayed One Flesh and finally, Pallid Wych Flesh. For the suit, I did a thin layer of Coat D’Arms Deadly NIghtshade, followed by an even lighter coat of Army Painter Dark Sky. This covered the Celestra Grey and provided some nice highlights to the clothing. His shirt was based in Citadel Tau Light Ochre, washed with Agrax Earthshade and highlighted up to Dorn Yellow. I used GW’s Stirland Mud to texture the base and stuck an old Armorcast broken tombstone on it before flocking the whole thing.

And that was the end of Solomon Grundy, and of Supers Month here at Dead Dick’s Tavern.

Insanity Pile Progress

Miniatures Purchased: 58

Miniatures Painted: 122

Total: +64

“Who you callin’ a dummy?”

As Movember draws to a close, I have officially painted all of my pulp miniatures! For this last installment, I present some ventriloquists!

Technically, only ONE of these is a pulp miniature…yet when painting him, I was surprised to find that I had two more ventriloquists in 28mm! It’s an odd genre of miniature to own, after all. How many ventriloquist miniatures do YOU own? I’m betting not three.

First, straight from his tour performing for the crown heads of Europe, The Great Adamski! This miniature comes from Black Army Productions, a small company that makes some interesting miniatures. This guy came with a couple of hand options; he could have either had a second puppet or a gun behind his back. (I went all in on the dummies.) Adamski also satisfies my Movember requirement: check out that handlebar mustache! His Cossack dummy (the one behind his back) is sporting some impressive lipwear as well.

Next, a zombie ventriloquist from Horrorclix, because why not? I repainted him because as expected, the factory clix paint job was somewhat…sub-par.

Lastly, a relatively new-ish Batman villain, THE Ventriloquist (and Scarface). This miniature was repainted completely, but I forgot to take a “before” picture.

The Ventriloquist (and Scarface) is pretty dumb, even for Batman’s rogue’s gallery. The Ventriloquist himself is a mild-mannered milquetoast; it’s Scarface, the dummy, who is the real ruthless bad guy. From the DC wiki:

I find him annoying because Scarface can’t pronounce the letter “B” (on account of the Ventriloquist not moving his lips), so he substitutes a “G” sound. This gets old pretty fast, especially when you’re reading speech balloons. “Let’s rog the gank, boys! And watch out for the Gatman!” Ugh.
Anyway, that wraps up Movember…I’m still mulling over a project for December. Watch this space!

Insanity Pile Progress

Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 63

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +50

Zombtober Week 4: Repaints and a Classic!

Zombtober comes to an end, and I present my final submission: a group of repaints and a classic Ral Partha miniature!

First up are the repaints: two Horrorclix zombies and two Indy Heroclix miniatures, repainted and rebased for use in the apocalypse. From L-R, a Horrorclix Zombie Patient, a Cheerleader Zombie, an Indy Clix Abbey Chase, and an Indy Clix Tiger Lily.

I like the patient zombie a lot, but the cheerleader is kind of silly. She’s using fistfuls of guts for pom-poms. I am not familiar with Tiger Lily or Abbey Chase, so I had no misgivings about repainting them completely for use as modern survivors. The Abbey Chase miniature could also work for a pulp heroine. Tiger Lily looks like Peter Criss without the armor. Repainting her face was easy, but what was kind of annoying was her T-Shirt. It has some design on it that I couldn’t make out, so I just painted the broken heart over it and I think it looks ok.

But Zombtober isn’t about REPAINTING zombies; it’s about painting zombies. Thus I present some old-school love: a classic Ral Partha zombie I’ve had since the mid 1980’s. He has never seen paint until now, so if nothing else, Zombtober has enabled me to get some long-overdue painting done!

 

Here’s the blogroll  of all the participants in Zombtober 2018!

Brummie, our Zombtober Host!- Brummie’s Wargaming Blog
Pulp Citizen- Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer
Rob Bresnen- Four Colour Super Minis
Kieron-Cheaphammer!!!
Terry Silverthorn- Miniature Mayhem
Ivor Evan- Saturday Mornings
Bryan Scott aka Vampifan- Vampifan’s World of the Undead
Colgar6- Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers
Clint- Anything But a One!
Phil Curran- Dizbusters Gaming Ephemera
Dai- The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted
The Wargames Addict- The Wargame Addict
Dick Garrison- Rantings from Under the Wargames table
myincubliss –Dead Lead Project

 

Insanity Pile Progress

 Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 43

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +30

Zombtober Week 3: Don’t be such a Killjoy…

Week three of Zombtober is upon us, and I present my submission: Killjoy, from the Wyrd Miniatures Malifaux line.

This miniature is the original metal version of Killjoy, a large-size character from the Resurrectionist faction. I don’t play Malifaux, but I love some of their miniatures. Killjoy has since been resculpted in plastic. I prefer this version, but YMMV.

Anyway, Killjoy is supposedly a zombie, but to me he looks more like a Barker-esque cenobite or perhaps a murder-golem. (Is that a thing? It is now.) He’s definitely a killing machine, and his corpulent size implies he eats what he kills. So I decorated his 40mm base with some appropriate bodies and body parts. I even “sculpted” some entrails and viscera out of green stuff and piled them at his feet. Gross, huh?

He was pretty fun to paint. His base is GW Rakarth Flesh, highlighted with some Ivory and washed with Nuln Oil, Agrax Earthshade and some Athonian Camoshade. Then I used a heapin helpin’ of Blood for the Blood God and Nurgle’s Rot, two technical paints that enhance the gore quite nicely.

Since I don’t play Malifaux, I guess I could use him as a “boss” zombie, perhaps the focus of an entire game, once I decide which zombie rule set I like best. I’ve tried All Things Zombie, but it wasn’t my thing. I enjoyed No More Room in Hell, and even wrote a three-part After Action Report on this blog; but now I’m looking for something a little more “realistic”. I bought Osprey’s Last Days, but I’m reading some not-so-great reviews, so who knows?

Here’s the blogroll  of all the participants in Zombtober 2018!

Brummie, our Zombtober Host!- Brummie’s Wargaming Blog
Pulp Citizen- Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer
Rob Bresnen- Four Colour Super Minis
Kieron-Cheaphammer!!!
Terry Silverthorn- Miniature Mayhem
Ivor Evan- Saturday Mornings
Bryan Scott aka Vampifan- Vampifan’s World of the Undead
Colgar6- Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers
Clint- Anything But a One!
Phil Curran- Dizbusters Gaming Ephemera
Dai- The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted
The Wargames Addict- The Wargame Addict
Dick Garrison- Rantings from Under the Wargames table
myincubliss –Dead Lead Project

 

Insanity Pile Progress

 Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 42

Miniatures Purchased: 13

Total: +29

(The Progress Queue took a slight hit this month as I gave in to weakness. More on that in an upcoming post.)

Zombtober 2018 Week 2: Felicity meets the zombies!

It’s Zombtober, and I’m getting a late start. I missed the first week. Therefore, I worked twice as hard this week to get my submissions in. I decided to do a bunch of zombies and a survivor to catch up.

These zombies are from Reaper’s Bones line. You get all 5 in a pack for 7 bucks! They’re all pretty good sculpts, I’m particularly fond of the second one from the left and the one all the way on the right. These were the first miniatures I ever underpainted after priming; meaning I gave them all a light drybrush of white over the black primer before adding the colors. It was a technique I was unfamiliar with, but now that I’ve tried it, I can say it works terrific at picking out the detail on models, allowing me to easily see where clothes end and skin begins. It even picked out the wounds and bite marks the zombies have, making painting them easier. I’ll be using it again. My eyes aren’t getting any better with age, so any help is a good thing.

What do you do when you’re outnumbered five to one? Have the right tool for the job. This minigun should be just what the doctor ordered… This is Felicity, from Hasslefree. She’s one of the “not-Mystery Machine crew”; basically she’s Daphne from Scooby-Doo with a minigun. As cool as that is, I decided to paint her differently and not stick to her regular colors.

Here’s a quick shot of Felicity in action.

Next Sunday is my next Zombtober submission. Hopefully I’ll get some other stuff done before then, though, so watch this space!

 

Insanity Pile Progress

 Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 40

Miniatures Purchased: 1

Total: +39

 

Here’s the blogroll  of all the participants in Zombtober 2018!

Brummie, our Zombtober Host!- Brummie’s Wargaming Blog
Pulp Citizen- Eclectic Gentleman Tabletop Gamer
Rob Bresnen- Four Colour Super Minis
Kieron-Cheaphammer!!!
Terry Silverthorn- Miniature Mayhem
Ivor Evan- Saturday Mornings
Bryan Scott aka Vampifan- Vampifan’s World of the Undead
Colgar6- Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers
Clint- Anything But a One!
Phil Curran- Dizbusters Gaming Ephemera
Dai- The Lost and the Damned and the Stunted
The Wargames Addict- The Wargame Addict
Dick Garrison- Rantings from Under the Wargames table
myincubliss –Dead Lead Project

Saga’tember: Zombies and Necromancer

It’s 2/3 of the way through the month, and I finally have my next batch of Dungeon Saga miniatures to post. At this rate, I’m unlikely to get the whole set finished by month’s end, but I won’t have much more to do and I should be able to finish the base set by the end of the year, in between my other projects.

This time around, I decided to focus on the zombies. There are four regular zombies, and two wearing armor.

I have to say that I’m really not a fan of most of these Dungeon Saga miniatures. Not because they look particularly bad, but because they’re fragile. Many are misshapen, and despite many attempts at reposing them, they tend to stay that way. Thankfully, Mantic seems to be aware of the problem, so only one foot is attached to the base. This allows you some measure of control to reposition the model before gluing the other foot down. This straightens the model’s posture, which is a good thing. But it doesn’t help with bent weapons or arms at all.

In addition to the zombies, I painted another bad guy: Mortibris, the Necromancer. Once again, I ignored the “official” Mantic paint colors in favor of my own classic necromancer color scheme that harkens back to the days of my old-school Warhammer undead army. I like how he came out, but I wish the picture was a bit more in focus.

This week, I didn’t buy any more miniatures, but since I’m keeping a year-to-date total (or at least a running total since I decided to start keeping track), I’ll include my earlier purchase. That miniature will be painted soon, hopefully by the end of the month…he’s just too cool to put off.

Up next, however, I’ve decided to focus on one of my favorite painting subjects and the namesake of this game: Dwarfs!

Insanity Pile Progress

 Miniatures Painted Thus Far: 26

Miniatures Purchased: 1

Total: +25

Zombie Strippers!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Well, these lovelies have been languishing on my desk for almost a year. In fact, I was planning on painting them for ZeDecember last year, but I got distracted by life. All I can say is “better late than never”. And anyway, it’s not like these girls are in a hurry for anything anymore. They’ll be making an appearance in my No More Room in Hell games.

These are Reaper’s Zombie Strippers, from their Chronoscope line. The bases are from Armorcast. I especially love the gal on the left holding the customer’s hand, still clutching some dollar bills.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The strip club (a better view of it above) is a paper building from TommyGun over at Model Paper World. You can find it here. And it’s FREEEEEE!