#insert your own city's name here#'s finest!

I have set myself the goal of getting a working 'all things zombies' campaign up and running by xmas.  It will probably be a solo game with occasional episodes played with others in my gaming group.  In order to do that I have a list of figures I would like to get and have painted before I start.  High on the list were police as they play a big part in the early games and I want to have figures for any random events that are generated.  As luck would have it, Ainsty castings were selling off  some of the street violence range at a reduced cost, so I bought a couple of packs of street cops (and the backstreet militia which have yet to be painted!).  Below is the Police dept of the yet to be named city.
One of the older members of the department

 After I had painted him I realised that he should have been brown skinned!  Oh well- next time I will paint him correctly!

 All of the figures are very characterful, especially this one, who has a coffee and burger from mcD's and the one eating a pizza.

 the figures are armed with shotguns or pistols and have a nice mix of male and female officers.

 time for a snack in between zombies

 I like the fact that the female officers are not sexualised and exaggerated.

 These last few are of the departments SWAT team - I have another team of 5 to do but not sure where they are on the list yet.

over all I feel that they worked out not to shabbily with the streetcops being better that the SWAT team.  All of the figures were fun to paint.  I think I need to get some non foundry survivors to expand the collection!

this weekends offering of supers

a few more of my heroclik repaints.  

to start off with - Luke Cage , Power man.  Nice, easy colour scheme and a chance to practice a different skin colour!

 Hydroman.  A figure where the transparent plastic was too nice to undercoat over so just did the bit I wanted to repaint.  I think where i managed to keep the transparent effects on the figure I usually enhances the final effect.  It worked particularly well on this figure.

 Gorgon - one of the immortals.  would really like to get blackbolt to lead the immortals I have but he is a super rare figure and well above what I would pay for a clik I intended to repaint and rebase.

 The Hulk's son, Skaar.  A nice fantasy model as well.

 Moon night.  Another white model that I painted in foundry canvas triad rather than a grey/white combination.  I like the effect but some of it is that I only have GW greys and whites and they are going thick (as they tend to do!).  Maybe I just need to get a few more paints....

that's it for this weeks supers update, so have a good week people! (if anyone is out there looking!)

Reaper Kickstarter

 Well, it finally happened.  My reaper bones kickstarter turned up.  It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the last few months, ever since they started to ship the rewards out.  I have tried very hard to keep upbeat about it all and not get too despondent about the lack of communication and the feeling that the rest of the world orders were almost second class citizens. my patience finally paid of on Friday as a box was delivered by our postie.  It had been a year since the start of the kickstarter and now I finally got to see what my money had been spent on.

 the above image was straight from the kickstarter webpage and show the figures that had been promised in the basic pack.  After a couple of hours of unwrapping them(!) I had a pile of plastic miniatures.  Below is a picture of a Bones haul.  Quite impressive.

 However, I did also buy a dragon called Kaladrax.  I have mixed feelings over him at the moment.  Due to a mix up between reaper and the Chinese company that made them he turned out much bigger than anticipated, definitely bigger than I anticipated.  He can be seen in the picture below next to a normal 28mm figure.

the model is huge, too huge for me to have any real use for him.  I could paint him and sell him I suppose but with so many other figures to paint he has to be at the bottom of my list of things to do.
I have been pleasantly surprised by the bones themselves.  Most have a good level of detail on them and am definitely happy with the deal I got from the Kickstarter.  Have started to undercoat a couple to try out.  Due to the nature of the material you cannot spray undercoat them and so brush on undercoat is the order of the day.  Also as the plastic is very hydrophobic, the undercoat cant be watered down to improve flow so I found that a couple of coats was neccessary to get rid of the glaring white bits that were missed first time through.  And as a final problem, the first one I tried wouldn't even even take a undiluted first coat as it was covered in release compound so I had to was the figures in warm soapy water.  Not a good start :(
I will be posting pictures of finished minis when I get them painted.

a few more superheros!

Today was fathers day and my 4 yr old daughter got me a copy of the marvel movie Thor as a present. (she also got me some chocolates which she proceeded to help me eat!)  The film got me to thinking it was time for me to upload some more images of my clik repaints.
First up is Ghost

 I liked the clear lower body on the figure so attempted to keep it in. I feel it worked quite well.
Next up is Wendigo. This is an awesome figure and I might get a few more to paint differently for fantasy games.  Really cheap as well - I'm sure that it only cost me about US$1.

 This was one of my original attempts at stripping and repainting.  I had to be very careful with the Wasps wings

 The Patriot.  A simple figure that I think would be made or ruined by how well the shield turned out.  I felt that it as ok enough to photo!

 And finally the man (or god!) himself.  Not the best model available from herocliks but the others were much more than I wanted to pay. I will be watching the releases for the new movie carefully to see if its worth investing in a new figure and repainting it.

a week of distraction!

I made the mistake of loading up an old computer game onto my laptop, a game called civilization 3.  While I possess a copy of the next version, this one always seemed the best out of the series and a game that always leaves me feeling that I could have done better if i'd have just concentrated more on the detail of each city rather than be in too much of a rush to conquer the world.  Real time games are just a bit too much for me to cope with lately, but the turn based nature of this game keeps me at it for hours and so not only have I not blogged for a week, I also haven't done much in the way of gaming stuff either.  However, I seem to have got this game addiction under control now and have got my painting mojo back.  All I need to do is find time to photograph the stuff i did today.  Hopefully that will be soon.

What D and D class are you?

This is me....apparently!
quite concerned that I am neutral and not good which I would have assumed I was - always viewed myself as a bit of a humanitarian but apparently not.  
And not a single 18 :(


I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human /Wizard (4th/3rd Level)
Ability Scores:
Strength-12
Dexterity-13
Constitution-10
Intelligence-16
Wisdom-13
Charisma-14

Alignment:  Lawful Neutral.   A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs him. Order and organization are paramount to him. He may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or he may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government. Lawful neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you are reliable and honorable without being a zealot. However, lawful neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all freedom, choice, and diversity in society.

Race: Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:  Monks are versatile warriors skilled at fighting without weapons or armor. Good-aligned monks serve as protectors of the people, while evil monks make ideal spies and assassins. Though they don't cast spells, monks channel a subtle energy, called ki. This energy allows them to perform amazing feats, such as healing themselves, catching arrows in flight, and dodging blows with lightning speed. Their mundane and ki-based abilities grow with experience, granting them more power over themselves and their environment. Monks suffer unique penalties to their abilities if they wear armor, as doing so violates their rigid oath. A monk wearing armor loses their Wisdom and level based armor class bonuses, their movement speed, and their additional unarmed attacks per round.

Secondary Class:  Wizards  are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out  'http://www.easydamus.com/character.html' target='mt' What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?  , courtesy of Easydamus

Some more potential survivors

Although still haven't quite decided on the basing yet, I have painted a few more survivors from foundry street violence and hasselfree miniatures.
First up is rollerskate girl.

 I'm really not sure the technicalities of using two firearms on rollerskates but it was a nice figure to pain as are most of the foundry figures I've attempted, historical or fantasy. I did have to try and find out how do do sunglasses simply as I was finding more and more of the figures i was painting were wearing them.  It turned out to be a very simple process but like most things easy when you know how. i have seen some very nice examples of sunglasses where they show the reflection of the horizon or cityscape in them!  Wonderful effects but beyond my abilities to pull off :(
next up is some street thug in his football kit.  His bullet belt shows tracers rounds as well as normal bullets.  I wonder if old zombies are more prone to catching fire once they have dried out a little?

 This figure is slightly more high tech as he has some form of body armour.  i think he is part of the hardwire troop

 i was trying to make this figure a 'study in blue'. using 3 different blues to paint her.  It turnee out ok but nothing special..

 I liked this figure.  Quite simple to paint and I am toying with the idea of getting some gloss varnish to paint her outfit to make it a more patent leather look

 Finally a hasselfree miniature.  I think this one is called Dionne.  She is a slighter sculpt than foundry so more care was needed. I liked the way her white body suit worked out.

I intend to start a zombie campaign when i get time but I get into an odd mindset that i can't start until I have all the options of figures I might need.  The two most obvious gaps in my figure collection for zombies were cops and military and so I finally got round to buying some street violence packs of cops and militia which I have undercoated but not started painting yet.  I will post them when I finish them.  They were from Ainsty castings who had a few blisters at a discounted price.  the discount covered the cost of postage for the full price figures. Worked out well, i thought.  

more superheros

Time to post a few more superheros repaints.  A mixture of heroes and villains today.
As I had the web slinger last time, Its only right to have an opponent for him this time.  So here is Dr Octopus.  Nice figure and I enjoyed painting him a lot.

 This figure is  Wonderman.  I liked the nice, casual pose of him.  I suppose you could make him a civilian if you took him off his flight stand.

 Boomerang

 Angel.  Nice feather texture on his wings.

 juggernaut was a stripped figure and the acetone etched into him a little. You can tell slightly on the figure but it doesn't show up too much on the photo

 Why wouldn't you want a super villain, and as supervillains go Dr Doom is a good one.  Again, I really liked the figure.  There are many Dr Doom cliks available but most were more than I cared to pay, especially when the cheap ones were so good.

So that's it for this supers update.  Will try and post some more in the week.

town clutter

I am still trying to think of modern city clutter for survivors or superheroes to use for cover.  My latest attempt was to build some builders skips.  These are built to a British pattern which means my final city will be a strange mixture of European/American cultures but I am sure I can live with that!

 First I created a 'net' out of paper and when i was convinced the sides lined up to give me the basic shape I wanted, I traced it onto card and cut it out.

 I then reinforced the sides with strips of plasticard.  This took the most amount of time of the whole project!

Finally I painted them.  I made 4 all together.  The photos make them look a little rougher round the edges than they do in real life.. I suppose that I could have made the sides of plasticard as well but this would have increased the difficulty and construction time and I am very flighty at the moment!

I think that they dont look too bad and again they cost me nothing to make as all materials were already lying around my desk.  I look forward to actually using them in a game.  Just need to think of what to make next!?!?!

foundry figures - street violence

As well as supers project I also have it in mind to play some "all things Zombies" games but to do that I need some survivors, gang members etc.  To that end I started I bought a future wars "collection" and have been slowly painting them.  Some are really easy figures to paint and don't look too bad when completed.  I say completed but am still to decide on how to base them so as yet they haven't been.

Of course they could also double as a group of henchmen to a super villain.  We shall have to see where they turn up!