Zombie of the Week #76: Young

Young

Mr Young is a Studio Miniatures zombie, who appears to have come to a sticky end while sliding down a banister.

Undignified

Another unpleasant looking (but in a good way) patient miniature from Studio.  The angle of the head and the mangled and torn right arm, knee and genital areas make this guy a pretty classic looking modern zombie.

Zombie of the Week #75: Cole

Cole

Cole is a Mantic ghoul with a GW ghoul head.

There is nothing wrong with the Mantic ghoul heads, but as I had a couple of the GW heads available I decided to try one for variety.  The GW head is more distorted, the jaw a little distended, a bit like the rubbish special effects in “I Am Legend”.  Except that I reckon that Cole looks better than the terrible SFX in that film.

A pretty intense guy by the look of things.  Cole looks like he means business.  ”Business” as in ripping people limb from limb and devouring them.

Zombie of the Week #74: Stuart

Stuart

Another of the cool Necromunda plague zombie figures.  I have always liked these figures, despite the fact that they tend to wield weapons.

A quick paint job from over a decade ago.  Stuart has seen a lot of action and has probably been involved in 90% of the zombie figure games that I have played, which is quite a bit.

Zombie of the Week #73: Cliff

Cliff

Cliff is made from Mantic ghoul and zombie components.

Cliff looks quite energetic for something that has been eviscerated.  One of my few issues with the Mantic stuff is that their zombies are more savage than brainless as I generally prefer slow zombies in concept.  The Mantic figures are ideal as fast zeds though.

Zombie of the Week #72: Johnson

Nigel

Johnson is another of my zombie patients made from Mantic Ghoul and Zombie kit parts.  In many respects they sum up most things that I want in a zombie miniature.

In particular they are creepy rather than just goofy and they are fleshy rather than skeletal.  If these guys had been clothed in a modern fashion then they would probably be my favourite zombie figures ever (and while I wouldnt call myself an expert on pretty much anything, I have seen and/or painted plenty of 28mm dead men walking, so thats high praise by my standards).

One rather dorky issue that I have with the crawling torso zombies made from these kits is that they dont really lend themselves to looking like they are propelling themselves along the ground.  They look a lot more like they are bursting from under the soil.  A classic image no doubt, but not usually what I am looking for as I tend to prefer pseudoscience zeds, and they dont do that.

Being plastic it would be quite easy to reposition some of the arms a bit to make the figures look more like they are crawling, but I didnt bother.  Its a minor quibble and the time spent repositioning those arms was better spent assembling more figures I think.  Johnson still looks creepy anyway.

Zombie of the Week #71: Amelia

Amelia

Another sexually indeterminate Citadel zombie miniature from the eighties.

Like all of my old Citadel zombies Amelia was painted and converted (if clipping weapons off counts as converted) to fit in with a Necromunda setting.

Zombie of the Week #70: Tony

Tony

Tony is a Mantic figure and part of my recent Running Out of Patients zombie project, here, here, here and here.

Excruciating

Mantic figures are great.  They are more than acceptable on the tabletop (I would go so far as to say desirable on the table really) as the detail is deceptively fine and they paint up well.  I think that the Mantic figures from the Patient Zombie project may even have turned out better than the metal Studio Miniatures elements, which was a surprise.

Mantic zombies and ghouls (Tony here is a mix of components) have quite animated, palsied and somewhat spastic poses, reminiscent of the creepy infected from 28 Days Later.  The miniatures heads are quite unpleasant too (in a good way) and look to me to be full of mindless hostility.  I like amusing, black humour filled zombie minatures too, but I will take creepy, horrible and unpleasant figures in preference every time.

Zombie of the Week #69: Mary

Mary

Mary is a vintage Citadel zombie that I originally speedily batch painted back in 1998.  The figure got a minor touch up of the gorier areas a couple of years ago to bring it a little more in line with my more recent zombie stuff.

Enthusiastic Ex-Gardener

Mary was an old figure even back in 1998.  I bought it along with a number of other older Citadel and Marauder figures for use in Necromunda.  There were no plastic zombie kits available at the time that I was aware of.  Considering that I didnt even have an email address back then, buying online wasnt an option.

I generally tried to get zombies without weapons or with weapons that could easily be removed, but the occasional armed zombie was included due to lack of options, Mary being a case in point.

Mary here is gender indeterminate, but due to the general skewing of the miniature population in favour of males, I choose to see the figure as female. Thats how enlightened a modern man I am…

Zombie of the Week #68: Kent

Kent

Kent is a Studio Miniature and part of my recent thirty strong batch of hospital patient zombies.  My Patient Zombies project was composed largely of Mantic figures plus the contents of a Studio Miniatures set.

Dignit-ass

I enjoyed painting the Studio figures that I have finished so  far.  Crisply sculpted and with deep detail, making it easy to pick out the detail.  Loads more Studio zeds to come.

Zombie of the Week #67: Lurlene

Lurlene

Like Lulu and Huey, Lurlene is another Tengu zombie that suits the role of a Special Infected from the Left 4 Dead video game series.  This time its a Spitter.

Glad to see the back of.

Like Boomers, Spitter use their vomit to disrupt survivors, but in a different way which I wont go into here.  Suffice to say that they launch corrosive spew.

In the game the Spitter is quite a lurid colour, almost like her day glo puke which she constantly drools in metre long strings.  Lovely.

Image courtesy of http://left4dead.wikia.com

Short of using flourescent paint, actually painting that sort of colour can be difficult, so I tried something else.  And when that looked good I then used waaay too much Tamiya Clear Green over the top and ended up ruining the effect.  Ho hum.

I am in two minds as to how well or not the figure looks.  Its ok, its finished and it will get the job done (which is important) but I wish that I had been more careful with the drool.  A little less and the figure would look much better and a little less like it was painted by an adolescent, if you know what I mean.  On the other hand it is based on a repulsive monster that does look just as over the top as that figure, so maybe its not so bad.  The paint job probably looks better from behind now, which overall was a disappointing result considering how promising the paint job looked during the early stages.

Finally, an aspect of the figure that isnt properly visible from the photos is the gooey drool on the base.  This actually looks quite good on the table, helping to cement the figures nature as a Spitter.