29 October 2017

The Walking Dead: Made to Suffer

The last kickstarter expansion Made to Suffer (Woodbury) and the Safety Behind Bars (Prison) retail only boosters.

I've really been looking forward to painting up the Woodbury guys, getting another large faction for thematic play. The Woodbury models are nicely sculpted (as are the prison retails), for that later part of the story arc.

Large survivor groups doing something that resembles actual war.

Dr. Stevens, Nurse Alice and Army Medic Bob
All medic models, with abilities to better use healing equipment. Went for an army duffel bag look with Bob. Bob and Alice are nice also able to allign with the Atlanta group.

Maggie Greene
Maggie is one of my favourite characters from The Walking Dead. Here's the short haired Prison Retail version next to the Greene Farm expansion version.
Rick - after meeting The Governor
This was my fourth time painting Rick Grimes. One handed version, he'll properly not see as much action as the other Rick models. But it's a nice sculpt to have for scenarios and campaign play.


Tyreese, Chris and Julie
Tyreese is another favourite, a real shame he's in the story for such a short time.


Glenn 
Two very different looking versions of Glenn. I've been running Gleen in full riot gear and Maggie as a nice combo in games. Being all geared up, it's impossible for single walkers to even hurt a character.


Brian Blake - The Governor
The mutilated version of The Governor is not really wearing Riot gear (it lacks a lot of detail). But I've painted it in the same style as the above characters and my Prison Guard Walkers.


Bruce, Martinez and Gloria
Troopers in the Woodbury army. Very nice sculpts, espcially Martinez is looking super cool.


Gabe, Wes and Curtis
Troopers and goons in the Woodbury army.


Woodbury - the entire gang
Here's the entire Woodbury faction. More models than will ever be fielded in a single game.


Walkers
The walkers from this expansion and series of retail releases.


Really pleased with the bandana on this biker walker.





28 October 2017

The Walking Dead: The Herd!

Took all my Walkers out and put them together. I have some dublicates, some extras won at auctions for conversions, some copied for extra with press mold and greenstuff.

66 Walking Dead including:



The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon

I really like cool guy redneck Daryl Dixon from The Walking Dead TV show. But Mantic Games don't have licens to cover taht show and Daryl is not in the comics. So I've had to build my own.

Build my Daryl from the miscast Craig model. I've straightened the model with hot water and cut the hood off the vest. Also cut away a lot of his stomach and ribs, to make room for the crossbow and tank top.

The angel wings on the vest, tank top and the hair is greenstuff.

The crossbow is from the Warlord Games male zombie survivors. I've added the bowstring myself. It fit fairly well, after alterring the models arms with hot water. I used a clothespin to hold the arms while the plastic cooled.

Needed a bit of greenstuff to hide the glue points.

VIP



Painted model





21 October 2017

Frostgrave: Ulterior Motives

Frostgrave Ulterior Motives is a neat little expansion that introduces individual missions to Frostgrave scenarios. Changing the XP wizards will get and add another level to whatever mission you're playing.

The quests in Ulterior Motives use 7 different objectives and red hearings (fake objectives to confuse the enemy):

An Archway, a Pit, an Arcane Circle, a Statue, a Trapdoor, a Sarcophagus, a Runestone and a Zombie.

Here's my version of the above. Mostly made with recycled polystyrene and my hot cutter. The 14$ hot cutter tool is amazing (more on it here).

Terrain pieces are based on hard plastic (recycled yogurt lids). The polystyrene is painted with first a charcoal grey / woodglue mix. Then drybrushed with a light grey / woodglue mix. The two layers of glue adds a lot of strength to polystyrene kits.

Making them with the hot cutter also strengthen it, the melted edges don't break as easy.

The snow is home made. A mix of white aquarium sand, wood glue, baking powder and white acryllics (in use here on my houses).

Lastly the entire pieces are sprayed with matt white spray paint, from approximately 60 cm (2'). Gives a nice frosted look and ties all my Frostgrave terrain together.

Rune Stone
Evergreen ivy plant made from cheap chinese flock. Two pieces of polystyrene - base and stone. Glued and toothpicked together.



Statue
I had already found a nice old toy knight, that I wanted to stand on a plith. But I found this statue for €1,5 in the second hand store. Added a polystyrene stonework base and a skull. Painted emerald eyes on it, as this is a thing on a Ulterior Motive card.





Archway
Made from three pieces of polystyrene. Based on an mdf base. Tiles on the base are simple cardboard pieces.


 Pit
Cut from one piece of polystyrene - the stairs were a bit tricky. Room enough on each step for a 25mm round base. After frost coating the piece, I painted the pit buttom clear black. Seems to be deeper this way.



Arcane Circle
Super easy piece to do. Cut a disc and made a pentagram in it with the hot cutter.



Sarcophagus'
This one I made from cork, for putting hot stuff on, they cost nothing in Ikea and a great for a lot of terrain. Added some bits with super glue and painted the whole thing as stone. This will go into my Mausoleum when I've build one of those.



Trapdoor
Made from greenstuff on a yogurt lid base. Bolts are made with the excellent greenstuff mold from Green Stuff World. Stonework from Ikea cork.







15 October 2017

Devil's Run: Freelancers

In the first Devil's Run there were a couple of Freelancers. Characters and cars able to join all factions in the game.

Bane
The model is done as the car Mad Max drives in the movies. A very nice sculpt. I wanted to try some flame work, so did that. I would like another one at some point, just paint it matt black and dusty.

Added some armor to the rear windows. Made of thin currogated plastic from a box of chocolates.


Muggy and Geralt
There were multible muggy characters in the first Devil's Run kickstarter. And there's an entire muggy expansion coming for the next edition, Hell's Highway. It's a nice little car.

The biker is made from two different miscast bikes. A skinner bike front and a law bike rear. The skulls are 20mm resin pieces from Black Dog miniatures. I'll have to make a card for this bike at some point.

5 October 2017

Terrain Tutorial: Polystyrene Cliffs

Having fairly limited space and hobby time, I always try to make models and terrain for multiple gaming systems.

This is a tutorial for some almost free cliffs I've made. I made these for the following games I play (or want to play): Deadzone, Scrappers, AutoKill and Frostgrave.

I've made this square and flat topped, because it gets better play area for skirmish shooter games and use as dungeon walls. 

Materials
  • Hot Cutter
  • Polystyrene blocks
  • Sand, dark paint, woodglue mix
  • Granite effect spray
  • Grey paint, woodglue mix
  • Flock
  • Thinned, green paint, woodglue mix
Step 1 - Mark it out
I bought a super cheap hot cutter from AliExpress (you can find them on Ebay as well). Bought mine for 13$ including shipping. A wonderful tool for the price, easy to work with. 

Mark out the block you want to cut on polystyrene (I picked mine up for free a the recycle station). I've made sure to work in 3'' blocks, for perfect fit in Deadzone. 


 Step 2 - Cut it out!
The hot cutter needs time to warm up. I'll do one cut, then it needs to warm a bit again. If it's too cold, it'll draw annoying polystyrene strings from the material.

A nice effect from using the hot cutter, is that the melted polystyrene is stronger. It will not tear as easily as normally.


Step 3 - Cut the edges
Make cut off here and there, giving the cliff some rock shape. I've tried to make sure the base is as close to a 3'' square as possible.


Step 4 - First paint layer
Make a mix of wood glue, dark paint and sand (add water if too thick). Paint the rock with the batter. This will work for shading the granite effect. The glue will strengthen the terrain piece and make sure the spray paint don't melt it.


Step 5 - Second paint layer
I bought a granite effect spray paint at the hardware store. Super fast to use. I also come in as sandstone or terracotta. But I figures granite would work best for most games.

Make sure to only give the rock a thin coat. It'll leave the deep areas dark and lets the first layer be slighty visible. A thick layer of the granite spray is too light. It takes around 24 hours for this spray to harden.

Step 6 - Flock
I've added some flock to a third of the cliffs. My flock is homemade with a recycled blender, foam matress and green paint.

Mix grey into your glue and paint it on the clif. Press a big handful of flock into the glue, a lot, the more the better. Leave it to dry and don't take it off until it's all dry.


Step 7 - Strengthen the flock
I've thinned some wood glue and green paint. I've then dapped it onto the flock, very lighty. The mix needs to be thin, so it'll just run into the flock. When it's dry, it'll help the flock stay in place. It gets pretty strong. 


Finished cliffs
I've made a lot of cliffs, in many different sizes. Enough to fill out some boards in rocky terrain. Here's examples of the above in different boards. The mats I use for most photos are cheap felt mats from excellent Ceri Designs.

Frostgrave
Top side scenarios in the city. The light rocks fit fairly well into the frostty look I'm going for on my other Frostgrave terrain. An easy way to get quick bulk and line of sight blockers on the board - that doesn't look out of place. With only a handful of building, my 3'x4' table is good enough.



For the underground Frostgrave scenarios - in caverns and dungeons. Throwing in a some furniture and I have a decent 3'x3' dungeon. I need to make myself some walls, for a proper dungeon - I'll use the same method as above.


Scrappers is a cool little system by Osprey Games. Very nice rulebook, it's a sandbox system that allows use of pretty much any post apocalyptic og sci-fi models in your collection. 


I don't have much 20mm specific terrain. But the rocks will work well for a wasteland board with my 20mm vehicles.


Lastly they are for use in Deadzone. I've made enough cliffs to fill the standard 2'x2' Deadzone mat. It looks pretty good with nothing but rocks and scatter terrain. This is a double mat 4'x2' board filled up.