The Painting Backlog

My backlog of figures to paint for Empire of the Dead.

(Note this list does not include the Requiem figures or future purchases.)

  30 West Wind Productions (gentlemen, zombies and werewolves, special characters)

13 Reaper (vampires, artifacts, ghost & assorted henchmen)

4 Horrclix (wolf & special characters)

5 Ral Partha (vampires, dog, zombie, civilian)

3 Lead Bones (zombies)

11 Games Workshop/Citadel (artifact, bats, wolf, vampire, wolfskin)

1 Wyrd Miniature (special character)

1 Heresy Miniature (vampire)

2 Hasselfree Minatures (children)

2 RAFM (objective markers)

Once combined with the Requiem figures I’ll have 6 factions complete with upgrades.

(1 Werewolf, 2 Gentlemen, 2 Vampire, zombie mob)

Lunatic R.’s Painting Backlog

9 West Wind Productions (brotherhood, special character)

5 Wyrd Miniatures (zombie prostitutes, character)

1 Reaper (knight Marshall)

1 Privateer Press (character)

17 Ral Partha Ravenloft (angry mob, gypsies)

Once combined with the Requiem figures he’ll have 3 factions complete with upgrades, plus the figures needed for the escape of the Peelers scenario.

(1 Brotherhood, 2 Gentlemen Vampire Hunters, 1 Special Branch, the mob)

So you can see we will have 9 complete factions and numerous special characters to build an EotD gaming group with.

Sadly we still have more to purchase. We need civilians and lots more period zombies. Also Lunatic R. wants to create an all lady Gentlemen club.

Trip to the Model Railroad Store

Lunatic R. and I to a trip to the last Model Railroad store in Manhattan it’s in a basement crammed floor to ceiling with stuff. O scale is the model railroad scale to corresponds to 28mm.  This shop also sells a large number of scale model military kits. Our mission was to find items for the London board, specifically brick pattern plastic card sheets. We spent an hour or so searching through dusty corners and looking through the top most shelves we achieved success! We found sheets of 3 different brick patterns that we are happy with. You’ll see these in the future on streets and buildings of the London board.

Lunatic R. found this manor wall plastic kit.

The kit came with 2 sprues of street lights, lanterns, and what I think are iron gates. None of these parts are listed in the one sheet instructions so I guessing at some of that.

This is a 1/32 military scenery kit by the company MiniArt. If anyone knows what these parts are for please let me know. The mystery parts not withstanding this is a great kit.

 I found this little beauty.

This is the Plasticville cathedral from Bachman. It is available as a kit or fully assembled.

A Look At The Work Table 3 & Declaration Of Intent

As you may have notice I've been changing some things around. I'm happy with the picture but I fear my description "Victorian Phantasmagoria" can't be read. I'm happy with the post background color but not the general background color. I'll try another round of graphic changes in the near future. Please free to chime out when you notice a color combination you like.

I've been inspired to offer up some prizes to my readers, nothing fancy mind you, I've decided I can offer up one of my Liedo milk delivery vans, a Malifaux blister and some other odds & sodds laying around the flat. I was inspired to do this by the very generous Tamsin P from Wargaming Girl.
WELL before I can do that I'll need to add a subscription thingy. I know I have to add a 3rd party code to blogger for that, but as of yet I haven't figured out where to get it or how to set it up. If anyone would like to help me out you can email ageofbloodiron@gmail.com

I realize that this has been a very boring update so far so let's take a peak at the work table. First up the Horrorclix zombie puppeteer quick repaint.

I have several other Horrorclix figures but the will get a full re-paint as opposed to the touch-up this one got.
 

West Wind zombies in various stages of completion. The shuffling lads & lassies will do double duty as the minions of  Alasdair Sinister and the Sinister Six, my hellfire club gang, and as members of the shambling horde in "The Zombie Incident of 1889".

The Ghoul King, he was a very successful gang leader during our Mordheim days. We used a different figure during our games. I converted this one at the end of our Mordheim period thinking we would start again. I have a bunch of painted GW old school ghouls to go with him. But they are all dressed like Tarzan so I'm working up a Victorian gang for him.

So just to be clear gentle readers I'm working on two versions of Empire of the Dead; A regular campaign featuring Alasdair Sinister and the Sinister Six (hellfire club), Lunatic R's Brotherhood, The Ghoul King (Vampire gang), as of yet unnamed Gentleman's club and I believe The Werewolves of London.

 And I'm working on "The Zombie Incident of 1889" a zombie apocalypse campaign.  Now to portray this properly we will need to play totally different factions. Apocalypse type ones! So far I have " The Ladies Auxiliary Yachting Club" (made up of those lovely Hinterland Sailor girls), and the "Fraternal Order of Angry Men". 

Yes gentle readers in time, perhaps a very long time, each faction once finished will be displayed here with their accompanying biography.

If you've read all the way though this mad late night ramble I salute you!

Robert

Introducing the Amazing Board of Kaspar Olensen

A Danish gentlemen by the name of Kaspar Olensen has produced a fantastic London Docks board to play his Empire of the Dead games on. He says its taken him a month from start to finish.

I've taken this photo from his new blog London by Midnight  I great name by the way. You can find more of pictures of the finished board on his blog. You can also find construction photos of this board on his thread on the west Wind forums here

Please check out his work its grand.

Vehicle Research

I was worried about the rubber tires on the delivery/dairy vans I got in the mail. So I did a little goggle research last night. I found that dairy vans from the 30 to 50's used those style tires. That explains the 30-50s styles plastic figures I got with them.

Pictured here is a 1948 American dairy van with those style wheels.

I now have my delivery van reference at least most of it. I want some better signage reference before I try to do the sign on the side. I love the large wheel in the back look. It also raises the van higher than the rubber tires, I like that too. Fortunately for me the omnibus has just the wheels I want for my delivery van.

I've found some omnibus pictures as well. I think they are fantastic.

Most of the pictures I found where small so they aren't so sharp when blown up. They do show a number of important details like the driver's blanket, where the advertisements where placed and the scale of the bus. I can't wait to get one of the West Wind omnibuses now. It will be a major project for me though. I'd have to acquire a bunch of seated passengers. I'd feel the need to place passengers seated at the windows of the bus and a number on top. I love the crowed look to the bus in the sepia tone picture.

London board Accessories Part 2

I've received my order from Recreational Conflict with my Lideo diecast carriages. I've been asked to post a size comparison photo. I've photographed a few with a west wind zombie for scale.

All the horses are clearly 20mm and will have to be replaced on all the carriages. Its clear I'll need to give them a base to raise them up to the level of the figure bases. On the whole I'm very happy with them. I'm especially happy with the fire engine. I love it! The other carriages have these rubber rimmed wheels, I'm not sure if they are period correct. I'll have to look into that.

Now I'm not happy with the omnibus. It's clearly 20mm and there isn't any I can do about that. Well a gamble doesn't always pay off. But at $3 its not much of a financial loss.

I may scavenge the wheels. I really like them.

I received a number of sprues of plastic figures which go with these carriages.Many of them look post WWI to me. I will use the dairy man drive with the dog he's nifty.

I'm terribly upset that these firemen in proper London firemen uniforms are 20mm. If I use them the engine will look like its crewed by boys.

Let me know what you think of them.

Sorry for the hasty pictures,

Ray Harryhausen the wizard of cinema is dead

Ray Harryhausen the wizard of cinema is dead. The ground breaking animator and special-effects wizard who inspired a generation of famous filmmakers such as George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Peter Jackson as well as others died at the age of 92 on Tuesday in London.

He is most remembered for his 1963 film “Jason and the Argonauts”. This film was the theme for this years (2013) Salute war gaming convention in London. Its best remembered for its iconic skeleton sword fight.

His innovations were honored in 1992 with a career Academy Award for technical achievement. At the Oscar ceremony, Tom Hanks told the audience that he thought the greatest movie of all time was not “Citizen Kane” or “Casablanca” but “Jason and the Argonauts.” I completely agree with this statement. 

 

He is listed as simply “technical effects” or “special visual effects in the credits of most of his films, but Mr. Harryhausen usually played a principal creative role in the films featuring his work. He regularly directed the performance of film actors in front of the blue screen in order to get a seamless match with the actors and his animated characters. He frequently proposed the initial concept, scouted the locations and shaped the story, script, art direction and design around his ideas for fresh ways to amaze an audience.

I had the honor to meet him at the Lake Placid Film Festive in Lake Placid NY. He told me that he had taken a helicopter trip in New Zealand with a guy named Peter Jackson. Who had invited him out of the blue to visit him while he was making The Lord of The Rings films. Mr. Harryhausen was very touched by it. He also told me that one of his happiest moments was to learn that his permeate exhibit in the Berlin Museum was next to Marlene Dietrich’s. He said that went to see his exhibit he spent his time nest door at Marlene’s exhibit. He was a real Marlene fan. 

 

I’ve read many newspaper articles and tributes of Ray, but strangely none of them discuss is reason for retiring from Hollywood in 1983 two years after his film “Clash of the Titians” (1981). He said that he saw a new trend of violence for the sake of violence in movies.  He said he made “adventure pictures” where violence was part of the story, not the reason for the story. He sensed the coming blood thirstiness of modern films and he wanted no part of it. He saw his films as entrainment for both adults and children simply refused to give that concept up. The Hollywood pundits of the time said he would slip into obscurity.   

 

"Some people think it's childish to do what I've done for a living, but I think it's wrong when you grow to be an adult to discard your sense of wonder." Ray Harryhausen

All though he is most famous for his fantasy films, he made two VSF films, Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (1961) and H.G. Wells’ First Men In The Moon (1964).

Mysterious Island with giant animals!

 

 The Nautilus and Captain Nemo in a shell diving suit!

H.G. Wells' First Men In The Moon. Victorian space travel!

The underground Moon cavern world.

He married Diana Livingstone Bruce a descendant of the Scottish born African explorer Dr. David Livingstone in 1964. She and their daughter Vanessa survive him.

The official Ray Harryhausen website

[url]http://www.rayharryhausen.com/index.php[/url]

All films copyright Columbia Pictures 1989
All images taken from the Author's private DVD collection.

London Board Accessories

I've just ordered a number of Lideo Diecast vehicles, which I intend to use as London board accessories from Recreational Conflict. I've been looking for these as alternative vehicles for some time now. I've been scanning ebay for them without luck. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Recreational Conflict had a bunch of them on sale.  The Lideo horse drawn vehicles are listed as 20-25mm in scale, which would make them a little small. But at $3 a piece how can I go wrong? They will do nicely as stand ins until West Wind offers there new vehicles.

Here are some of the vehicles I ordered.

I think some of them will be useable with the West Wind by swapping out the horse with a 25mm one and adding a 25mm driver from Old Glory or RAFM. Like these models pictures below:

I'll take comparison shots once the arrive in the post.

Frist Building for the London Board

My pal the lunatic R. has completed the first building for the London board a quick paper and foam core affair. This is a boiler house which will stand next to a factory.

Please excuse the bad photo.