First Zombie Painted

Hi, everybody. I painted my first Zombie of 2012.  A Studio Miniatures one from set #2, the Chicken Mascot. Since I first saw this mini on Vampifan's site I wanted one.

This was a fun mini to paint. It has great detail. I used some Tamiya Clear Red for the wounds. It's still a little fresh and shiny in these pics.

I also did a little work on one of the Sarissa Precision Buildings. Sprayed it Krylon Ruddy Brown primer. It took the paint well, no detail lost and no warping. I printed out some textures from the WorldWorks Games Bank that I'll use for the floors and walls. Maybe I'll make that building a bank.

Thanks for looking.

28mm Modern Cityboard Update

Hi, everyone. I managed to get a few more things done for the 28mm Modern table for All Things Zombie gaming. I got modeling paste on the bases for 8 Studio Miniatures Zombies, scratchbuilt a dumpster, and finished my Steakhouse made from a GameCraft Miniatures Old West building.

Here's the dumpster.

It was made from plastic from a set of plantation blinds. The slats were extra ones which my wife cut off when she sized them. I ended up with several 3 foot long slats of 3mm plastic that's 2 inches wide. It has a wood grain. I've been using it for flooring in some of my Mordheim builds. I wanted to use it for this dumpster because I wanted it to be sturdy. The trim on the edges is cardstock and the lids are from corrugated paper. The pick up slides on the side are made from pieces of craft stick. R&B Hauling is the company that picks up my trash IRL.

The lids for the dumpster are held on with a piece of black duct tape. I wanted to have access to the interior. I painted on some chainmail to show where the paint has worn off and gave the dumpster a dusting of rusty red weathering powder.

Dumpsters seem like a good thing to jump up on when zombies are coming. Plus I used the mini to hold the lids down. They kept trying to close. :)

Next up is the 28mm GameCraft Miniatures Old West building. I'm using it for a modern day old west themed steakhouse. I really like this model.  GameCraft Minis did a great job on this building. Beautiful job on the etching. The only thing I didn't like was that GCM doesn't include the floor with the building. You have to buy it separately. I ended up using a piece of Sintra for the floor. I was afraid that spray paint might warp the wood, or obscure the etching of the planks, however, I read where others had used spray paint without any ill effect, si I gave it a shot. I used a light coating of Krylon white spray primer. It did fine. There were a couple of places where I sprayed too heavily and lost the gap between the boards, but I was able to clean that out with a toothpick. There was no warping at all. I did not have the foresight to paint the green trim pieces first before applying them to the building, so that added a lot to my painting time. Still worked out okay, though.

I didn't build the model the way it was intended. It has a very nice front porch railing that I left off. I wanted more room for the models. The front canopy is designed to be horizontal. I mounted it at an angle instead and raised it up to allow more room for minis. I also cut out part of the doorframe to allow more mini head room, like CAPT Jake from TMP did, on his build of this model. The sign was a mixture of google fu and Paint mounted on matt board.

Pic above features the ubiquitous Haloclix mini for size comparison. Haloclix are on the big side, so if he can fit, most other brands should be okay.

Pic above shows a side view. The doorway is a little small, probably more suited to true 25mm than 28-32mm moderns. I added a sign from one of the Microtactix City Streets sets. I used some weathering powders on the base of the building. The roof has a Hirst Arts air conditioning unit to modernize the building. I weathered it with a rusty red weathering powder. Note the lift of the roof at the back of the building. It's not from warping of the roof piece.

Pic above is the back view of the building. More signs from Microtactix. The gap between the building and the roof piece is especially noticeable at the left back corner.

Other side view. Another Microtactix sign. The signs are mounted on matt board and held in place with double-sided removable tape.

PIc above shows the interior. The walls are textured from Fat Dragon's Rio Draco set, and the floors are from WorldWorks Games' Mayhem Armory. The tables are either scratchbuilt (rectangles) or 1/4 scale dollhouse furniture, as are the chairs. The counter separating the room is made from balsa and popsicle sticks. The grill and refrigerator unit are from WWG's Mayhem Mall set. The refrigerator is too tall and is causing the roof to raise up.

Pic above is another interior view from the rear. It's hard to tell in this pic, but the WWG refrigerator unit is a little too for this building. It keeps the roof piece from seating correctly. I'll have to cut it down a little.

Here's a perspective view through the front. Pic below shows a couple of menu boards I made from what I guess are supposed to be door pieces from the GCM building.

 

I did the signs to go within the frame on Paint and printed them out. They're also held in place with removable double-sided tape.

Here's another side shot of the building with the WWG refrigerator removed. As you can see, the roof fits much better. I don't want people to think it's a problem with the GCM parts. They were perfect. It's a very nice building at a great price. I will definitely be getting more of these.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I hope to start painting one of the Sarissa Precision CityBlock28mm buildings, and maybe my first Studio Miniatures Zombie. I think I'll do the chicken mascot. :)

Thanks for looking. 

Cityboard street furniture and accessories

I took some pics today of the cityboard with some street furniture and accessories. Some are from model RR sets, some from toy playsets.

The jersey barriers in the background are plaster castings from an ice cube tray.

Pic above and below shows some model RR accesories.

This is some plastic fencing I bought online a few years ago.

Pic above shows one of the back lots.

Pic above shows the street blocked. The traffic cones are marking some casualties I made from Clix figures. There is an excellent article on how to make these casualties on the Combat Zone Chronicles Website.

One of the AT43 containers. I love these things.

More accessories with one of the Clix casualties. I based my casualties on a piece of clear plastic.

Pic above shows a police checkpoint. I drilled bullet holes into the signs and barriers.

Pic above shows another angle of the fencing. I think it really adds a lot of impact to the table. The warehouse now looks fortified. I could see this stout metal fence being pretty effective against zombies.

Another shot of a back lot.

Different angle.

Another back lot shot with a casualty.

That's it for now. I didn't do too much today hobbywise. Was feeling a little sick, and spent a lot of time helping the wife with projects at the new house. I did manage to mostly build a dumpster, made from a piece of a plastic plantation blind. My wife bought some plantation blinds a while back, and when she cut them to size she saved me a bunch of the excess plastic slats. It's a very nice, 3mm thick plastic. I hope to have the dumpster finished with pics this weekend. 

Thanks for looking. 

Some inexpensive Vehicles for Modern Gaming

Hi, folks. I stopped by a Rite-Aid Drug store not far from my house and found some nice new vehicles. I plan to use these in upcoming games of ATZ. I got 4 for about $20. Pic above shows a little ice cream truck. It has front doors that open independently of each other and some nice interior detail.

Pic above looking into the ice cream truck from the back. Looking at the colors of this vehicle makes me think it will be perfect for some Killer Clownz to drive around in.

Another view above from other side.

Pic above shows another Rite-Aid find. A nice little New York State Trooper car. Scales in pretty well, I think. Doors open, but not as wide as I would like and both open together. They don't open independently of each other, either.

Pic above shows another find from Rite-Aid. My favorite: a Hot Dog Wagon/Roach Coach. It also has doors in front that open independently, and some nice interior detail, too.

View from the back.

View from other side. I like that the sides are different.

Pic above is the last of the new vehicles. Doors that open for cover and access. Size is also about right.

Well that's it for now. Thanks for looking. I may have to go back and get an extra of each of these so I can distress them. I think the food trucks especially could be turned into nice fortified Post-Apoc/Zombie Hunter vehicles.

Thanks for looking.

Modern Cityboard WIP Update

Here's a little update on the cityboard. It's been a little while since I've been able to do any work on it, just a little bit, here and there, mainly. We closed on our new house and are gradually moving stuff over to it from across town. I finally got most of my gaming stuff sorted and organized in the new game room and felt like I could take a few pics.

I managed to get the sidewalk glued down. The sidewalk was made from vinyl floor tile cut into 1.5 inch squares. I left cutouts for vehicle access from the street and alleys.  I was puzzling how to handle the integral sidewalk sections on the buildings because the sidewalks with the buildings have a different texture from the sidewalk tiles I made. Trying to decide whether to have those integral building sidewalks set back behind my floor tile sidewalk, or to just include them like part of the regular sidewalk. My wife pointed out how you sometimes see different sidewalk sections in front of some building, especially in older sections of town. So I decided to just include them into the regular sidewalk for some of the buildings, and to set them back for others.

Pic above shows the Sarissa Precision CityBlock 28mm buildings on the left. Their sidewalk section is 40mm wide and works well sizewise with my 1.5 sidewalk tiles. So I integrated them into the vinyl tile sidewalk. On the right foreground is a Gamecraft Miniatures Old West One Story Building - 28MWEST011. It's "sidewalk" section is a boardwalk that's 1.3inches wide, a little too narrow and too different from the vinyl sidewalk tiles I'm using.  So I set it back from the sidewalk. It's going to be an Old West themed Steakhouse.

The pic above shows the board from a different angle. The street has more of the excellent Sarissa Precision CityBlock buildings in the foreground. There's an open area behind each grouping of buildings. I'll probably add more street furnishings like dumpsters or fences and have some parking spaces, too.

Pic above is the board from the other angle. On the left is a warehouse made from the Hirst Arts small brick mold, with a mixture of sci-fi and other components. That section has the vinyl tile sidewalk. The right foreground has the Sarissa buildings.

That pretty much covers the general layout of the board. Right now it's 4x4 foot. I may add one more 2x4 foot section to make the total size 4x6.

Here's a few pics of some of the buildings.

Pic above is the Gamecraft Miniature 28mm Old West Building 11. I did a slight modification on it, I put the front canopy on at a slant and used a couple of Litko cornice pieces for supports. Beneath the canopy is also a piece of triangular balsa which adds more support. There was a very nice porch rail piece from GCM designed to support the canopy but I decided to omit it because I wanted more room for minis. The pic on the right shows the roof of the building. I used a Hirst Arts air conditioner bit to be able to easily lift off the roof, and add a modern look. Still needs a paintjob and some signage. I'm thinking I'll call it "Pioneer Steakhouse". If I switch out the roof I can also still use it for Old West gaming.

Pic above shows a couple of the excellent Sarissa Precision CityBlock 28mm buildings. I really love these. They have playable interiors, are beautifully detailed and can have additional floors added. My wife got me these as part of their CityBlock 28mm Mixed Bundle deal for Christmas. 6 buildings for 99 GBP with free shipping, plus the service was great. My wife said she got the order in about a week, all the way across the Atlantic, and well before Christmas. The bundle has 3 building types, 3 of the #64 type (the smaller building in the center of the pic above), 2 of the #86 type (the larger one pictured on the right foreground) and 1 Residential building.

The pic above shows the Residential building. This is a really nice building with interior rooms on the ground floor, and as you can see it has a very nice front.

Pic above shows a couple more of the Sarissa Precision buildings with some more in the background.

Pic above shows one of the back lots. The buildings are positioned to have some narrow or wide alleyways between them.

Well, that's it for now. The biggest job left is to get the buildings painted, including interiors. I think I may use some print-outs of WorldWorks Games textures for the interior walls and floors. I'm also planning on adding street furnishings. I'm thinking I'll make some dumpsters from scratch, but I may buy some other stuff like vending machines, though those certainly can be scratchbuilt. Thanks for looking.