Zombie Painting 101, the lazy man's guide

 I've received a number comments about the skin tone of my zombies, first of all thanks for that my painting isn't good enough to be worth the fuss. But, I'll write you a lazy man's guide to how I'm painting my zombies for your enjoyment.

This is the first part of a two part article on painting zombies the lazy man's way. Its in 2 parts because I haven't had a chance to finish these buggers.

Step One prime model black then spray primer grey top front down. This is supposed to help create light and shadow. Now I don't have any proof that this shows through under the paint, but it does give me a better idea of how light & shadow works on that model.

Fist I paint the flesh with a watery layer of Vallejo Game Color Livery Green,

Then give them a wash of Reaper Brown Ink to tone the bright green down,

Then a light, all most a glaze really of Vallejo Model Color Sunny Skin Tone see here's the bottle,

Now I have the basic skin tone oh it will get brown ink shadows and maybe some more Sunny Skin Tone glazes on some high light areas but that's basically it. Next I start adding pigment to the hat, shoes and pants with a Games Workshop Badab Black Wash.

He looks good in a black top hat don't he? Next I painted the shirt rags in Vallejo Game Colors Ghost Grey.

Next week I'll have more of the progress on Top hat here and his pal Mr. Speckles.

Here is a paint manufacture comparison chart to aid you.

Nadezhda Durova

Everyone who pledged in the Requiem Kickstarter received this this dashing hussar or should I say hussette? But did you know that this figure is an artistic interpretation of a real life military adventuress? Yes Nadezhda Duroa was a decorated Tsarist hero of the Napoleonic Wars! 

"The year was 1807. Napoleon and his Grande Armée, having defeated the vaunted Prussian army the year before, was on the move again, and the Russian army was marching west to meet him. Among the multitude of Russian units was the Polish Lancer Regiment, whose recruiting parties rode alongside its line of march, trying to fill vacancies in its ranks. One rainy night in March a young man presented himself to one of those parties and politely asked to join the regiment. His only answer to the captain's questions about his background was that he was a Russian nobleman who left his family to join the military in spite of its disapproval. The volunteer, who called himself Aleksandr Sokolov, enlisted as a 'gentleman-ranker.' Nobody suspected that this slim, dark-eyed man was, in fact, a young woman named Nadezhda A. Durova." 
"Once in the Polish Lancers, Durova received her baptism of fire at Guttstadt on May 22, 1807. Throughout the action, the Lancers did not fight as a regiment–instead, each squadron would make a charge and then rotate to allow a fresh squadron to take its place in line. Either in her excitement, or simple ignorance of what was expected, Nadya joined in every squadron's assault until an officer from another such unit noticed her with his squadron and chased her away.


In addition to displaying her inexperience, the battle first showcased Durova's bravery. While returning with her own squadron after a charge, she saw several French dragoons surround a Russian dragoon officer and knock him off his horse with a pistol shot. Without a second thought, Nadya lowered her lance and charged. Startled, the French dragoons scattered. Showing more nobility than judgment, Durova then lent the wounded officer her horse to get him to the nearest field doctor. She was able to recover Alchides much later–after Cossacks had stolen her saddlebags, packed with food, personal possessions and her overcoat. She spent several very uncomfortable and wet nights before she replaced the lost items with those pilfered from troopers killed in action."

Nadezhda fought in all the later campaigns of 1812, 1813, 1814 and the Hundred Days Campaign of 1815 which ended in the Battle of Waterloo. She impersonated a man throughout her military career but rumors of a cavalry-woman in the Russian ranks persisted and "Durova was summoned for a personal audience with the tsar at St. Petersburg. Aleksandr was very impressed with her and granted her permission to stay in the army. He also awarded her the Cross of St. George for saving the life of an officer and commissioned her as a cornet (second lieutenant), with permission to join the regiment of her choice. She chose the Mariupol Hussars, known for a large number of Russian aristocrats serving in its ranks." 

Despite the Tsar learning the truth she continued to wear mens clothing and insist on being address as Sir even after she retired from the army to her country estate. She found this retirement to be a bore so she wrote four novels, her memoirs and numerous short stories.The Cavalry Maiden: Journals of a Russian Officer in the Napoleonic Wars, her memoirs are available in English through Amazon.

She became a Soviet era icon due to the Aleksandr Gladkov play, A Long Time Ago.

She appears here as one of the main characters in Eldar Ryazanov's 1960's film The Hussar Ballad. 

She became such a soviet darling that her likeness appeared on a 2 ruble coin. 

She was decorated for bravery numerous times during the course of her military career and subsequently the subject of many military themed oil paintings.

She was buried with full military honors in 1866 at the age of 83. Or was she?
She appears here in Requiem in the flower of her adventuring youth could she have become one of the Nosferatu?

(Quotes taken from an article orignially publish in Military History magazine on June 12 2006. The article can be found here.

Hon. Harold Carfax assembly

I received a question last night form a friend who was trying to dry assemble Hon. Harold Carfax the fifth figure in the Requiem KS Gentlemen with Guns Set. I was asked if I was able to assemble it to look like the picture. Well I hadn't done anything with this set, but of course this query made me wonder. The answer is yes I could, but this picture fails to show that when you position the gun vertically like this the gun is cocked to the side. Sort of like a gangbanger cocking his pistol to the side when shooting.

Now to be fair the angle isn't this extreme but its a very lazy angle that could only charitably be called "devil may care", I do not like it personally. I tried bending the arm to straighten the angle but I was unable to get it right. I chose a downward angle for my miniature, which I'll show later.

The angle isn't the only assembly problem with this 2 part model, the left forearm has a peg, which fits into the body. This peg is much too shallow to provide a strong bond so I had to file off the peg and replace it with a pin. There are two pre-drilled holes for pegs in this miniature. (I've inserted pins in them in these pictures so you can see their placement.) The right hand hole seems to be for a peg on the back of the right hand, but there is no such peg on my model.

 The Right Hand Peg Hole

Both Peg Holes Pinned

 I drilled the holes deeper and inserted pins in them so I could position the hands and gun without final gluing. My plan was to paint body and gun separately, but since I was changing the angle of the gun this turned out to be impossible. Because I've adjusted the angle more to my liking the pin in the right side of the body proved useless to me so I removed it and glued the right hand to the body.

Here is my progress so far.

I like the pose much better than the other to me the tilt doesn't look so strange this way. It does leave a big gap with the right hand so a little putty work will be needed.

I hope you guys find this helpful.

Requiem Gentlemen with Guns Set

Gentlemen With Guns Set

Here are photos of the Gentlemen With Guns Set, a set of reinforcements for the Gentlemen faction. I would have liked to see more of these reinforcement sets in the KS. The special characters are lovely to see, but for me EotD is all about growing your faction through play and more sets like this for other factions like the Lycons would have been good. These figures have not been cleaned or anything so you can see how clean the castings are. There is very little flash  and when there is its what you would expect. I'm very happy with these figures they are just what I expected and they do not disappoint. I do however have to point out that once many of the KS miniatures are primed you will notice some pitting on the supposed to be smooth areas. These areas might require some clean up/filling.

First up is a Gent in Evening wear with a Man portable Gatling Gun and goggles.

 Next up a Gent in suit and bowler hat with the aforementioned Man Portable Gatling Gun. It's nice to have clothing options!

Gent with shotgun. I plan on adding him to "the Queen's Dinner Party" my Sons of the Empire faction as Mr. John Brown.

Wild looking bearded Gent with Volley Gun.

Gentlemen in half cape and bowler hat with Repeating Rifle. I plan on adding him to "the Queen's Dinner Party" as one of the Queen's special branch bodyguards.

Well that's all of the five gentlemen in this set. Again I apologize for the bad pictures, but I'm happy to say I've gotten a replacement camera off ebay so the quality of the photos will improve dramatically.

As most everyone has now received their Requiem KS packages I'm no longer going to post raw photos like this, I'll post work in progress or painted figures from now on.

Zomtober Week 4

"During the Zombie Incident of 1888 survivors spoke of being rescued from the hungry dead by a mysterious nun"  

Sister Agnes, Zombie Hunter

Sister Agnes is a conversion of the Reaper Cronoscope Sister Maria Nun by Patrick Keith order her from Reaper through this link here Sister Maria, Nun. For the conversion I cut off the pointing hand and replaced both hands with a brace of revolvers from  Heresy Miniatures.

Zomtober Week 3

This Gentlemen Zombie is fashionably late to the Zomtober party. Can you still be a Gentleman once you've become a zombie? Anyway he is a rush job as I agonized over of all things, his waistcoat.

Zomtober Week 2

Lady Zombie

OK ladies & Gentlemen The Fiends in Waistcoats are back in the game! Meet Lady Zombie once a rather respectable society lady until her sordid reanimation. She is another of the lovely models in the West Wind EotD Zombie box set. She hasn't been varnished yet and the ink on her dress has shown up rather shiny in the photos, sorry for that.