I am not dead

Yeah, I know, its been a long long time...and I promised updates. Well, updates there will be. However, right now I am wrestling with the end of the semester and there are many papers to grade etc. When those are done, there will be updates...and cheese.

Toodles.

Not Amused!

Just a short note for now. I finished painted a miniature from Victoria Lamb Miniatures. The link is over there on the left. I ordered a few from her and the one I painted strait away is HRM Queen Victoria. As a fan of Victorian Science Fiction, Enlish Literature and...well...England, she one of my favs. This minis does not disappoint. Out of the mailer envelope there was not flash or mold lines...thats right NONE. Wow. It cost 10 Aussie bucks (about analogous to the American buck) and was really fun to paint. She has very many different kinds of things on her site, so if you like cool stuff you should go and look. She has a lot of special bits that can convert your Pretorian Guard troops into cool assed Victorian Sci Fi dudes. Also for the guard guys...Kilts and Balmorals and penal troops. Also, there is Vicky there and a few other really cool things including...the Spanish Inquisition! (I don't guess you were expecting that, were you?)


Totally NOT Amused!

Last not least she is working on a super cool three dimentional Board game where you play one of four sects of goblins who think they are something else...goblins dressed as fairies, goblins dressed as tin men, goblins dressed as dryads and goblins dressed as minataurs. Pretty cool.

In the near future I will be putting up picks of the second Queen Victoria that I painted as a ghost.

Go, take a look at here page, marvel at her painting skillz, they are mad!

Coming up when I get them painted will be the Mystery Machine by Armorcast, the Scooby Gang (second one painted, but a better job!), Some Judges from Mega City One just because and the Devils Rejects, should I ever get them.

Also look for more on GaryCon and this years iteration of the One Page Dungeon Contest, which I am judging again because I am just plain mad and have nothing to do with my time!

Toodles

Things to do.

It has been too long, kids. Big plans here, though. I am paintng a few things. Not Scooby Gang from Hasslefree. Also from Hasslfree not Dwarfish Adama and Tigh and a few marines. In the post...a few surprises of hard to find coolness from across the pond.

Later this month there will be alien stripp..er...exotic dancers.

Also, two cons to report upon. First off, Garycon. Am I ever looking forward to that Boys and Ghouls. Also, Cinema Wasteland...reports all round. I just did not want you all to think that I had gone and left this place vacant.

Unpleasent Dreams.

I will make you Fishes of Men...

The first big guy is a model from Fenris Miniatures...a fine company. I love their stuff, although it is difficult to find. This guy is ogre sized, that round base he is on is 40mm. He was hard to get together (five pieces) but only because I pin everything like this mini and then putty the crap out of it. The inside of this guy's mouth was harder to paint than one might think, but it seems to me that it turned out nice. Fenris makes a whole mess of smaller Deep Ones that I am really keen to get, as well as a guy this size that is a Shark Deep One hybrid...Oh, yeah, I am gonna get that one too!

Today's selections are the beginnings of my Deep One forces. The first six are Deep One Hybrids from Rattrap Miniatures. I really like these guys. I converted the tall one in the naval coat by giving him a big sword and the fellow in the red shirt and blue gray hat I gave a tentacle and dagger.

The next three are cool too. Hybrid priest of big C, a guy just turning (on the left) I tried to paint him to look as though his mammalian skin is sloughing off. The guy on the right is a cool one too, chomping on a cigar. However, it looks as though, under the extreme magnification of the camera, that I screwed up his braces. Oh, well. They look better normal size I guess.

The next two are the Deep One witch and her fanatic body guard. I was aiming for a gray green colour here. Yes, I know, the lobster on the staff should be brown, because only cooked lobsters are red...but the red is more visually interesting to me. I love the guy on the right and his mouth full of sharp teeth. I am told by the fellow over at Four A that there are more of these toothy guys on the way.

Here are the two Deep One champions. I love the way that the majority of them look like angler fish, so I painted them to look like their head appendages are lit. All of them have golden weapons as per Deep One love of gold.

These next four fellows are the beginning of the bulk of my forces. Note the angler heads and golden weapons. The left most three are swordsmen and are available from Four A right now. The little guy with the halberd is a preview figure that the gent over at Four A included in my order...very good gent, Andrew. I know I have said it before, but you should go over and at least have a look at his stuff...and you should buy something, because they are cool and very fun to paint.

I will be putting links over on the left for the new companies...all worth a look if you like the strange and cool. Until then, we shall dive down into black abysses and all live forever, or something like that.

The Newly Deads

I know its been a while...I have been busy. Not too busy, however, to paint a few things. Today's offerings are a Bloater Zed by Four A Miniatures. I have written about them in the past and I have to say I really love their stuff. This guy is no exception. Big, bloaty, full of guts and ready to explode all over some unsuspecting survivors. I also just finished some of Four A's Sea Demons...wow, but that's another post.


Hey, you, you got a sammich?

Next up is the wedding party by Studio Miniatures. I have a few of this company's offerings and all are really full of character. Sure, they have some run of the mill type zeds, but they make up for that with the cool and different. As I said, they have a wedding party, I also have bought and painted a Christmas bunch, you know Santa Zed, elf zeds and a zed dressed like a reindeer. They also have a set of the best Nazi Zeds out there. I will show these off later.

Here comes the bride...for brains! I love the look of despair on her face...almost touching.

Truth be told, I really bought this set for the Zed pastor. Perhaps its my sick sense of humour after surviving seminary, I dunno. Here's Pastor Zed, Mr. and Mrs. Zed and the kids. Ooooh, creepy zombie kids. Who doesn't like that?

That is all I have time for now, but soon I will photograph and post pics of the Sea Devils by Four A, along with the rest of my Deep One Unit, a giant Deep One by Fenris Miniatures and a bunch of Deep One Hybrids by Rattrap Miniatures.

Until then, stay this side of the dirt kids.

Bad Feng Shui

I finally wrote something for the Zombieville Post, edited by my pal Doctor Warlock over at Pulp Planet. This will be the second issue. For those of you who are asleep (or do not play wargames with the dead) Zombieville Post is a fanzine for the game 7ombieTV. The first issue was packed full of goodness and I hope that the next issue is as well.
As I was saying, I submitted an article and if it is not too bad, I think it will be included. My article discusses the Jiang Shi.
Jiang Shi are Chinese Zombies, often they are called "hopping vampires" but in my opinion (if you read the article) they are more like Western Zombies. So, any way, there's a bit of info on the genre, I wrote some rules for playing the game with Chinese Hopping Zombies vs. Taoists and other living people. Last but not least (probably because I am just a little OCD!!) I had to include information about how to get some minis so one can actually PLAY the rules I wrote. Seeing as the Jiang Shi are very idiosyncratic, it would not do to use regular zombies,did I mention that I am a bit CDO. (because it HAS it be in alphabetic order!) I have been looking for some minis like these eversince I saw my first Jiang Shi film (Encounters of the Spooky Kind with Sammo Hung). I knew that someone, somewhere had to make them. So they do. Enter John Jenkins Designs. Its a company in Britan that makes mostly traditional military minis) but the actual John Jenkins lives in Hong Kong. Take a look at the links over there in the left. I have included both his Asian and UK site. The costumes are done right, the minis have a nice amount of detail and the castings are really clean. I have included a picture of my painted minis below.

Click to Embiggen!

So there they are...very unusual and very cool, with an OK paintjob. Stay tuned for next time when I talk about a couple more Four A minis and some other rare and fun surprises...lets just say that Captain Spaulding would be proud and leave it at that.

Four A Miniatures--- Zombies and a Hunter

I learned about this UK miniatures company from my pal Drew Wood over at Pulp Planet. I saw his picks of a few of Four A's zeds and had to check it out. Wow, have they got a bunch of cool minis over there. So, I ordered a few zombies and a hunter.

The first pick is the zombies. From left to right...Zombie with an Axe (a fav of mine), Dead guy in a suit and the last is a flesh golem that I thought would make a nice "Tank" zombie.

Before I show the hunter I want to say that these minis are more towards the 28mm (heroic) or 32mm size. However, this is fine with me because I have zombies made by Hasslefree, Studio and Reaper and everything in between. I like the differences in size so long as it is not like the difference between old and new Games Workshop (talk about scale creep! Compare a rogue trader ork to a new 40,000 ork. Do not even get me started.) Anyway, these mins are nicely priced and right out of the package they required very little to no filing. I could hardly even find any mold lines. Amazing! I liked the fact that the first zed has an axe. I think that more zeds should have and use weapons. For the flesh golem, I zombied him up AND kept the flesh golem idea. If you notice one of his hands is new, the other is from someone of a different Ethnic background entirely. The guy in the suit...well, he's a cool zed in a suit and like all the others was very fun to paint. I really like it when minis companies put a lot of unique character into their minis...I for one am a zed snob...the same ole same ole always bores me to death. There is nothing like fielding a hundred zeds that all look the same.
Speaking of character, our next mini dude is one who I have already decided to call Clairvius Narcisse (look out, obscure reference)

Ole Clairvius is from Haiti and is a Zombie hunter from a family of Houngans and Mombos. Just to let you know that Clairvius is one big dude, he towers over the rest. Once again this is cool with me because the character in any RPG that I use him in will be a rather imposing 7 foot Haitian guy with big pistols and skulls hanging from his belt. You will notice that I painted the skulls to look like he made them into Grisgris.

I have ordered a couple more zeds from Four A and I have been in contact with the guy behind the company. He says that there are more dead guys due out soon. Nice for me. Also of interest is that they have a set of Sea Demons (Evil Fish dudes) that my Call of Cthulhu players are definitely going to be encountering!

A very worthwhile and unique bunch of minis in an age of gray conformity. If you like to paint minis, or just like looking at cool stuff you should surely follow the link over there to the left and pay Four A a visit.

TT4N