Thing a Week 15 - Flak Track

With Salute behind us we return to our irregularly scheduled non-All That Remains related painting, and with this captured German AAA half track, I have emptied my paint queue for the first time in 2 years.

It's a little yellowed in the light, but I'm relatively happy with it and quite pleased about the Union Jack I sculpted onto the bonnet.

I've read online that photoing miniatures on a white background isn't a good idea as cameras refuse to focus on the figure, which would explain why recent shots have looked a little diffused. I thought it was my camera failing, turns out it was the background. I'm going to cobble together darker but still clean backdrop for the future.

The paint queue is now full of zombies...

Thing a Week 14 - TESCO

"TESCO"

TESCO is part of my project to make some characterful figures from the lead pile while simultaneously making a selection of randomly generated level 1 characters for Darwin's World, for easy use, if I ever actually manage to get a game running.

We found TESCO squatting in the ruins of one of the Ancients' food markets. We named him after the store we found him in, filthy and alone. It's not like he's ever told us him name, or ever will, or will ever say that much. He's a mutant of some type, but there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with his voice-box. I think he's just never learned to speak.

Talking of being improperly socialised, he has no bowel control, gets inappropriately possessive of anything he considers his and wont stop following us. That's how he became part of the group. It's not like we asked him to come with us, we just blundered into his squat, catching him unaware, and after a tense stand off in which he hissed, growled and threw unmentionable substances at us, we went our separate ways. A few days later we became aware that he was stalking us.

He is fast, and very good at hiding himself. It took us a week or so to get him to come out of the shadows, another week to join us by our camp fire, and another two to get him to put on some trousers. Although that seems to have been done out of imitation rather than anything else

His most prised possession is an Ancient rifle. He clearly has no idea of how to use it, or even that it has any function other than a club. We briefly debated trying to teach him how to use it, but decided that it would be too dangerous for everyone involved. Frustratingly, he refuses to part with it.

Thing a Week 13

A pretty productive start to the New Year, with a whole squad for All That Remains is up over on the AtR Blog. While I was waiting for various paint sections to dry, I knocked out this wee doggy as a replacement for the dog currently forming part of my initial AtDE band. It also forms part of the attempt to reduce the lead pile and to begin to fill my "threat box" for RPG's.

Blastastic goodies

For some reason the internet loves 'goodies' posts. I cant understand them myself, especially 'unboxing' videos. I mean seriously?

But apparently I'm in the minority. Here's the loot I grabbed at Blastastic last Saturday in Bristol.

My best value buy was probably 10 heavily discounted Modern Empress Brits, but my favourite was probably the wraith with no hands, which, with a bit of work should provide the basis for a random post-apocalyptic crazy.

I also got a whole bunch of skeletons, both regular plastic ones and undersized ones, for a purpose I shall reveal later.

Also worthy of mention is the walking penis monster (actually a GW familiar) which I intend to paint up as a walking penis monster in order to scare players when playing RPG's.

More AtDE goodies

So these girls arrived a couple of weeks ago.

I've been looking forward to them for a while. I saw the greens and was really impressed. This photo doesn't really do them justice, but they really are good. I'll be swapping out the kneeling figures AKM for an SA80, but they're definitely going to see use. Eventually.

Across the Dead Earth - Wave 3 Biographies

Olivia, Julia and Nancy are the newest additions to the 8th Battalion MI. While DC was hoping for warriors, he instead got survivors. Maybe they'll prove just as useful in the long run.

Olivia

Olivia, originally from Australia, was studying at Durham when the Fall made returning home impossible. Now in her late 20's She's been wandering the UK for a while, trying to work out what to do with her life.

Stats
Yob, Two-handed Axe - 22pts

Nancy

Nancy is older than she looks; a kind soul, now fiercely protective of granddaughter Erin (not pictured). The pair of them have been on the road since their village (more accurately their extended family) was ravaged, first by a water-borne disease, then looted in the middle of the night by opportunistic neighbours. The only two survivors, Nancy is interested in little more than finding a safe place to bring up Erin.

Stats

Grunt, Chainsaw - 38pts

Julia

Julia, originally from Poland, was doing barwork in the UK when she was trapped by the Fall. She and Olivia have been friends for a while as they worked in the same bar in Durham. They have travelled together ever since, picking up casual labour and living off the land. Julia, ever the adventurer, even convinced Olivia to accompany her to the continent. They managed to convince some fishermen to take them, but slipped away when they thought they heard their erstwhile captain plotting to sell them. She's been wary of strangers offering to help them since.

Stats
Yob, Pistol, Small Axe (Yes I know, I ran out of points) - 15pts

Have another group shot:

Thing a Week 12

The third and final wave of Across the Dead Earth miniatures are finally complete!

The picture's a bit overexposed, but I'm actually quite happy with them this time, other than the flesh.

Each one has a different style of flesh paint. The one on the left is quite flat and was the simplest to do. I took more care to separate the colours on the middle figure and it looks like she has a skin disease and the figure on the left took the longest, with me using all 6 flesh paints, and didn't produce a noticeable difference... I need a tutorial.

Especially happy with the highlighting on this lassies clothes. I quite enjoyed painting the women in this group. I don't often get to paint them and while I can continue painting with my normal muted colour pallet, I can brighten things up by introducing bolder colours or splashes of primary colours.

I should probably note that, while the Wargames factory female survivors are probably well dressed for the sunny southern American climes featured in The Walking Dead, they're probably not particularly well attired for Brit Apoc. No matter. The Wargames factory box is probably the best option for a versatile collection of female survivors. I'm considering swapping them out for some of the more lightly dressed Scavenge Skirmish Survive women as my group becomes more advanced.

Here's a group shot.

The dog will be replaced too...