Zombies 3: Faster Zombies

Just barely missed posting these in Zomtober, but here are six more quick zombie miniatures. Like the previous batch of zombies, these are from are the Zombicide "Walk of the Dead 2" expansion box of zombies. They're also painted in much the same way as the previous box. These six aren't really staggering around like the other zombies, though; they have places to be and brains to eat. With the previous batch, this makes an even dozen of the better quality zombie miniatures completed.

Superheroes: Sterling and Brickochet

The vigilante superheroes Sterling and Brickochet have joined the never-ending fight against injustice.

Sterling is another fairly generic masked figure to add to the stable as I continue to work on my superhero RPG. In the game, he definitely has the Inspiration powerset, but I don't have a specific fighting style in mind. The body and arms are from the Wargames Atlantic "French Infantry (1916-1940)" box, while the head is from their "Partisans (1) French Resistance" box (which is also where all of the Gingerbread Gang minions come from). The paintjob is simple and done without washes, which gives it a stronger look than the heavily-washed way I often do minis.

Brickochet (like ricochet) is based on a character a friend of mine played in a playtest of my street level superhero RPG. While he called him Brick Frog, that's already a character from the Venture Brothers show, so I renamed him for my own collection. All of the components are from the "Project Z: Male Survivors" sprue. The brick held aloft was originally a book that I cut down into a brick shape.

Villainous Thugs 4: Robbers (and a Cop)

A game of cops and robbers is very traditional. I recently painted up three more thugs and a police officer NPC for a possible playtest of my street-level superhero RPG. The physical playtest didn't happen, but the models turned out pretty well all the same.

The three thugs are done in a similar style to the rest of Gingerbread's gang, but these are armed with melee weapons instead of guns. They're pretty basic street hoodlums with pretty basic paintjobs.

The police officer is the Sergeant Donatan Johnson model from the Hard City board game. I found the board game on sale for $12, which isn't bad at all for 20+ decent miniatures. The figure painted up well and turned out looking colorful and characterful.

Zombies 2: Better Zombies

I previously posted about painting zombies back in 2023, but some higher-quality zombies have recently shambled their way across my painting area. These are from one of the Zombicide expansions, the "Walk of the Dead 2" box of zombies. These miniatures are better than the Zpocalypse models in practically every way: size, material, poses, detail, etc.

The skin is Vallejo Extra Opaque "Heavy Warmgrey" with a wash of Vallejo Flesh Wash (or, since it's labeled as "Carne," Vallejo Meat Wash). After that, a little bit of brown wash in the eyes and mouths (and scattered around the rest of the model), followed by two tiny dots of white for the eyes. The rest of the clothes are whatever colors I thought would look nice, but generally muted colors except for the red on the angry punk zombie. The base is painted with Vallejo "Luftwaffe Unif. WWII", with the rim done in my traditional Vallejo Black (70.950).

One last note: The zombie in the blue suit is the same figure that I used when I painted up the supervillain Fiasco. Twins! 

Huikong

Here's another investigator from C:DMD:FotU, and he's painted pretty much like the character appears in the game art. The character is named Huikong, and his ability in the game is to mitigate attacks made against him and redirect the monsters away. I tried some different paint techniques with this one, starting with a lighter base instead of painting over black, and it turned out resoundingly "fine." I'll probably go back to my normal black primer in general, but the bright orange robe really does pop.

If you were worried, which you're not, Huikong does still count as a mystery man, as the "elderly martial arts master" is a long-established pulp trope. (Also, I don't want to add a new category to the year-in-review page.)

And if you see that little bit of dried paint around the base of the model, don't worry about it. I cleaned it off right after I saw it in the picture. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT.

Superheroes: Mr. Whisper and Ms. Lead

I've been using a lot of reds and blues on my pulp heroes lately, so I opted for heavy greens with this duo of do-gooders (or at least do-neutralers). Mr. Whisper is a master of the sword: quiet, clean, and precise. Meanwhile, Ms. Lead (as in the element Pb) is the kind to stash a tommy gun for a boxing match. They fight crime. (In C:DMD:FotU, they are named Ikeda Saito and Agatha May, respectively.)

The picture, unfortunately, really doesn't show the colors very well. The main green is Vallejo Heavy Green (72.146), and the grey-green is German Camo Extra Dark Green (70.896). The white is Light Grey (70.990). The golden color is Brass (70.801), and the silver is Oily Steel (70.865). That's pretty much it, but I love the way these two figures turned out. The face on the Agatha figure lacked much definition moulded into the plastic, but between the hat and the mask it's mostly obscured anyway.

Rat-a-tat-tat, eldritch monstrosities!

Superheros: Renaissance Man and Lady Eidolon

One of the reasons I wanted the Cthulhu: Death May Die: Fear of the Unknown game was for the included miniatures that could be made into superheroes. This gentleman and lady were my first choice for investigators to paint up.

On the left is Mike, the strongman, and my version looks a bit different from the official art. Why have everyman investigators when you can have a team of mystery men to fight the eldritch horrors instead? He turned out looking even better than I expected. I'm going to call him Renaissance Man for now (which is an old pun from the sidekick I painted up, Baroque Boy); the name is subject to change.

Wikipedia defines an eidolon as "a shade or phantom look-alike of the human form." On the right of the picture is Lady Eidolon, a pulp heroine who uses the mystical powers of the Hemotite Akinakes, an ancient Persian Dagger. She has some of the basic "vampire-like" powers without being a vampire herself.

Pulp heroes, assemble!

Villainous Thugs 3: Dream Warriors

You can never have too many generic thugs, and Gingerbread has rung in the new year by recruiting a few more dastardly goons to her criminal empire. These are painted in the same basic colors as the previous generic thugs, though this grey has a slightly greenish hue (Vallejo "German C. Extra Dark Green").

This batch also adds another special lieutenant, Mr. Mistletoe, with a heavy anti-superhero weapon. The missile weapon Mistletoe is towing appears to be an AT4 (from a Project Z sprue). According to Wikipedia, "the AT4 is a Swedish 84 mm unguided, man-portable, disposable, shoulder-fired recoilless anti-tank weapon." Technically, it's a recoilless rifle and not a missile launcher, but honestly, I'm just going to call it a rocket launcher.

So, this brings Gingerbread's gang up to 13 members:

• Gingerbread
• Mr. Holly (Light machine gun)
• Mr. Mistletoe (Rocket launcher)
  
• 5x Flatcap Thugs (Pistol)
• 5x Fedora Thugs (SMG)

That seems like a decent-enough criminal organization for a supervillain. (This does now outnumber the next-largest specifically supercriminal group, Redcoat's gang, which has a total of 11 members.)

WWII British Airborne Paratroopers

A while back, I ordered some sprues from Warlord Games and they sent along a free sprue of the "British Airborne WWII Allied Paratroopers" from their Bolt Action range. These six stouthearted lads are all made from that one sprue.

The six soldiers are equally divided between three with Lee Enfield rifles and three with Sten Gun SMGs.

• Beret - Heavy Red
  
• Pants - Gold Brown + Heavy Sienna (50/50)
• Smock - Heavy Grey
• Gold Brown + Heavy Sienna (50/50)
• Heavy Sienna
• Medium Foliage Green
• Pouches - Stonewall Grey
• Webbing/Belts/Bottom of Pants - Bonewhite
• Rifle - Folkart Coffee Latte
• Rifle metal and full SMG - Gunmetal Grey
• Wash everything lightly with Brown (Agrax)
  
• Redo Bottom of Pants - Bonewhite + Coffee Latte
• Para Wings on Beret - Bonewhite
• Boots and base rim - Black
  

While I don't intend to paint up any more airborne chaps, I guess I could use these in a pulp or superhero WWII game. They came out looking quite nice, but they are time-consuming to paint up.

Villainous Thugs 2: Return of the Thugs

Adding to my collection of thugs are three new old-school gangsters. This batch includes another flat cap fellow with a pistol (a broomhandle Mauser C96, no less!), another fedora fellow with a SMG (the classic M3 SMG, also known as the "grease gun"), and a new type of thug: red bowler hat guy with a Bren light machine gun! Even gangsters need some support weapons, especially if they're going up against superheroes.

Once again, they're painted up in a drab color scheme so that they don't really stand out. Each has at least some Gingerbread-style dappled brown, so they all fit together cohesively. The weapons are incredibly dated, but hopefully that just lends them a nostalgic charm. Also, they can be perfectly slotted in for pulp games.

This brings our little gang up to seven members:

• Pistol thug x3
• SMG thug x3
• LMG thug x1
  

Villainous Thugs

In the ecosystem of superheroes and supervillains, the two-bit thug is an essential part of the circle of crime. Parasitic by nature, they latch onto stronger predators to survive. Here, we see four thugs that have attached themselves to Gingerbread (who got an accent highlight in her hair since her previous picture).

These models are from the Wargames Atlantic French Resistance 1940-45 box. They put me in mind of the classic henchmen from Batman: The Animated Series. Two of them have fedoras and M3 submachine guns. The other two have flat caps and pistols. Classic thugs. They'd also work well in general pulp games.

These guys are all done in browns and grays with no bright accent colors. They're not meant to stand out at all, so it makes sense. I wanted to put them on street bases (like Gingerbread), but the model feet are all on puddle bases, so I had to build up some Stirland Battlemire ground to hide them.

Ape Attack!

Here's an interesting trio. They were a part of the Reaper Miniatures "Bones 4" Kickstarter, labeled as "Ape Attack." As of yet, they are not available separately. They are available as "Ape Lord" and "Killer Apes (2)."

This is General Simius, immortal supervillain. Empowered by a Roman alchemist's potion, Simius gained intellect, size, strength, and immortality. After a brief tenure as a gladiator, then a general, Simius liberated himself from his Roman masters and has spent the last 1800 years studying the arts of war and alchemy. While he's been unable to replicate the potion that created him, he's had limited success in uplifting other apes with lesser versions of his own powers.

Here we have Formido. He's a big ole fella.

The paint scheme for these guys is quick and simple. Over a black base coat, the fur got two drybrush passes of grey. I love these big critters with a lot of drybrushing area.

The skin is a mix of blue and grey. Teeth and nails are beige.

The eyes are tiny little points of white. Actual gorilla eyes are brown and black, but I can't really paint tiny eyes. The white dots give them an intense look. Also, a kind of crazy look.

Here is Pavor.

Originally, I was going to call these minions Deimos and Phobos, but I swapped over to the Roman equivalents (which I had previously not known the names of).

Pavor's the more bestial, aggressive minion. He's a real terror on the battlefield. I considered kitbashing a few human minions as well, but it turns out I don't have any Roman legionaires left to give assault rifles. Oh well, maybe someday.

Now, usually I forget to take size comparison shots when I do these big miniatures. This time was no exception. So I went back and set up a few minis to show General Simius' size. He's on a 50mm base while the smaller guys are on 25mms.

Here's a meeting of some league of supervillany. Looks like the "league of holding up weapons in your right hand."

 

Dr. Singh

This is a "Reaper Miniatures Savage Worlds Bones 'Deadlands: Noir Patent Scientist.'" That's a mouthful.

I'm thinking I can use this one as a superhero/supervillain. He's got a cool blaster, kind of steampunk-looking.  Overall, just a nice model. For now, I'll call him Dr. Varad Singh.

I went with a red, along with various earth tones. The metal bits are bronze and brass. There are a handful of blue accents just to make it pop.

Star Spawn

Spara realizes that shopping at Discount Scroll Warehouse may have downsides.

Here we have some type of eldritch monstrosity like a star spawn from the Cthulhu mythos. This is a Reaper Bones model that they call "Eldritch Demon." It's on a 60-65mm base. (For scale, Spara is on a 25mm base.)

This model has been basecoated solid green forever (since forgotten aeons, really), but a few quick drybrushed layers, a light wash on some of it, and a few picked out details finished it off.

I'm glad it's finally done. Projects are not dead which can eternally lie half-completed.

Slasher

I decided to speed paint a figure tonight and pulled out a Project Z miniature. I'd previously started this guy, but I mangled his face pretty bad with some thick paint, so I covered everything in black and started over from primer. Immediately, given his pose and messed up face, I decided he should be a slasher movie villain. The finished product is probably about an hour's work.

The face paint/mask reminds me of the characters in We Happy Few, though that wasn't intentional. He also appears to be wielding Gordon Freeman's crowbar, since all crowbars should have that color scheme.

Not bad for a quick, unplanned project. No idea what I'd use him for, but I guess he could also be a supervillain. You can never have too many supervillains.

Two Blue True Blue Heroes

Two more superheroes I painted up for SuperSystem. The first one here is the imaginatively-named Blue Golem. He's a Reaper Bones "Clay Golem" figure, painted to be a big Hulk-like bruiser. I'm happy with some of the shading on his muscles, along with his red short-shorts. I didn't include another figure for scale, but this fellow has some decent height, and is as wide (or wider) than he is tall.

And this guy is the Indigo Detective. A pulp hero in the vein of The Shadow, he's a Reaper Bones "The Black Mist" figure.

The pictures don't do justice to the electric blue of his outfit. The overall painting isn't fantastic, but I love how some of the blue turned out.

The Dead Marshal

Another superhero character, though a figure that would also work just as well in a Weird West setting, is "Dead Marshal." A Reaper Bones "Undead Outlaw," he was painted up in simple maroon and grey, with white bones poking out here and there.

With a traditional backstory of a lawman returned from the grave to punish evildoers, Dead Marshal is over 140 years old, still fighting crime in the modern era. While in Supersystem he had other powers, the only power of the Prime version of the character is that he returns from the dead 24 hours after he's been killed, over and over again, without exception. He just pops up as whole as ever somewhere else (but usually in The City these days).

Pulp Adventurers

I love old-school pulp adventure stuff. I didn't have any particular game in mind when I painted up these two miniatures, but I suppose they could be used for Call of Cthulhu or even modern games at a stretch.

Both figures are Bones plastic from Reaper Miniatures. The Indiana Jones-like figure on the left is listed as "Frank Buck." I went with a smooth earth-tone palette for his outfit, with greys on his weapons.

The figure on the right is "Jake Ryan, Hero Explorer." Aside from being simply enormous and thus out of scale with most other 28mm figures, he's a nice figure. His shirt is one of my first attempts to do decent white, layering some warm beige before the white in order to get a decent resulting color.

And both miniatures have proper basing! Jake even has a "Army Painter Wasteland Tuft" on his base. You'll be seeing a lot of those, since it's the only decent basing thing I have.

Looking back at these guys, I'm really happy with how they came out, especially the outfit of "Frank Buck."

Egyptian Undead

I'm not sure if the big Avatar is really undead, but there's definitely a theme here. The mummies are regular 28mm size, so you can see just how big the big fellow is. These guys are more monsters for D&D, with the big one great for a boss or even a deity.

This is the Reaper Miniature that they call the "Avatar of Sokar." He's a big, bird-beaked fellow. It took a while to paint him because there's a lot of detail spread out across the miniature. I went with a gold, blue, white, and orange color scheme and I think it really worked nicely.

I also did actual basing on his base! I don't frequently do basing, even though it adds a lot to a miniature; I don't enjoy it, so I skip that step. Still, the sandy base with little clumps of Woodland Scenics clump foliage looks pretty nice.

Finally, these two quick and easy drybrushed mummies are from Heroquest, like the skeletons in the previous post. They look pretty good, ready to ambush unwary adventurers that dare defile their tombs!

Next time, those that dare defile their tombs!

Vermin! Rats and Giant Spider

As every low level adventurer knows, at some point you're going to have to go into an inn's basement and kill some rats. Here are six such oversized rats, with a nervous local for scale.

The imaginatively named "Rats (6)" from Reaper Miniatures come in a pack of six. They're the soft plastic Bones material, which I love. They painted up quick and easy and are ready to be a source of much needed experience points for the less fortunate (and less leveled).

And on the topic of common RPG monsters, here's a giant spider, with an unaware local for scale.

This is some kind of Dollar Store spider that I've had in a drawer for probably two decades. It started out bright green, but it had a good texture to its skin. I painted it up with a black undercoat, three drybushed greys, a little bit of drybrushed white, and some maroon for the eyes, back, and the tips of the legs. There's no base on this little beastie, but it fits in a two inch square pretty well, so it's a nice "large" monster for D&D.

Next time, some classic undead!