Ach more Zombies

I'd like to say I painted these up today but its more I painted these up some weeks ago and only just got around to photographing them before carefully packing them in a box with all my other finished miniatures. 

4 Plastic Studio Miniatures Zombies and one metal figure from the same manufacturer. As ever nice little sculpts which are pretty forgiving to the lazy painter (aka me) 

Having just punted a fairly large amount of money on the latest Studio Miniatures kickstarter I thought it was time I got these finished figures up on the blog. 

This chaps an attempt at a US postal service worker, the logo is meant to look like theirs, turned out okay but not great. 

A Hard Life

So wanting to do something a bit different with my hobby time I decided bash together this chap. He's made from (I think) parts from 5 different kits some of which are GW some of which are not. I sculpted on the fur trim for the cloak myself and it came out a lot better than I had expected. 

I have no idea what I would use him for, Necromunda or something like that I guess. 

The cloak is from an old GW plastic giant kit and has been in my bits box for literally years. 

And the painted version, I wanted him to look a bit worn down so there are some scuffs on the armour (which turned out okayish) and his weapon is painted to look like some old antique piece of kit. 

My sculpted fur trim turned out pretty nice once it was painted, and I am equally pleased with how the dragon scale cloak has turned out. All in all I am happy with how this chap ended up, though he will invariably never make it to a gaming table and may be doomed to live out his days either in my storage boxes or eventually a display case. 

Dress Whites

Quick little update today, I've had this figure from Artizan Designs floating around in my lead pile for quite some time. I'm not a big fan of the black SS uniform, and I didn't fancy painting a traditional uniform. So a quick google later and we are onto a white dress uniform. 

Not my greatest paint job but serviceable none the less. 

There is more than one way to wear Tartan

I've spent the last few days on these two Highlanders from my lead pile, they have been undercoated for quite possibly years but I never got around to painting them, like so many of my projects. I have however been just picking random stuff of late to paint from the lead pile, and these two floated to the top of the pile! 

I believe they are from one of Warlords ECW sets, though I forget each one (arrant scum perhaps, I don't really remember) 

I actually rather like the figures, quite nice sculpts and casting, I have little knowledge of ECW so I have no idea at all how accurate my pallet is, but I enjoyed painting them and I like how the tartan on the Kilt and Trews turned out. 

Small Starship Troopers

I've just finished painting up 8 of the Oddzial Osmy 15mm Scifi troopers. These are truly amazing sculpts for such tiny figures. My naff phone pictures really do not do justice to how good these sculpts are for 15mm figures. I've seen 28mm that are not so nicely sculpted.

I picked up a bunch of these ages ago simply because I liked how they looked, I went for a grey green camo combo with one shoulder pad painted blue so I can match figures to squads. So the next section will have a red or green shoulder pad.

No idea what I will use these for but they were simple to paint and a nice little scifi diversion!

I also ventured into painting a different skin tone. Historically I have painted just Caucasian skin tones simply because that was what I had learned to paint and I was a bit scared to paint any other tones as I wasn't sure how to highlight them etc. However I thought I would have a crack at some African skin tones on this little sculpt and was pleasantly surprised to find the tone very easy to paint. So that is something new learnt! 

Radio Ruperts

Just a quick update, I painted up this 20mm Officer and Radio Opp from AB miniatures, as usual lovely crisp casts. Really enjoying painting up the 20mm miniatures lately, the time required to complete is so much less than 28mm and I prefer the way they look on the table. Going to be topping up my lead pile with some more AB figures in the near future. 

Fire Team

Some modest progress on my 20mm British force, more lovely figures from AB of course, rounds my platoon out to 3 8 man sections. I have half a command section on the paint table at the moment waiting the arrival of mortar and other support elements. 

I have also finished putting together an Airfix 1/76 Cromwell its a little small for 20mm but not distressingly so. Its just a simple build and went together quite nicely with no significant gaps or issues with the fitting of parts. I did fill the hull with 1p coins glued together to give it some weight. Hopefully get some paint on this in a few weeks. 

Simple Green

Finished four of these cold war Brits from Elheim Miniatures over the weekend, I simply couldn't be bothered with camouflage so went for the older single colour green uniform that persisted for sometime after the war. As ever nice figures from Elheim, no doubt more will follow at some point.

Currently working on some more AB Figures ww2 Brits and tank support along with endless studying.

A return to familiar ground

Well that took a lot longer than expected. I had intended to paint just four of these figures but I got carried away and ended up painting up 20. As you will have no doubt noticed these are WW2 late war British Infantry from the fantastic AB Miniatures range. The figures are 20mm but are as detailed as some 28mm figures I have painted. Truly lovely figures that make painting them a joy. 

As they are that little bit smaller I found them a lot quicker to paint, and the slightly smaller scale allows for a simpler painting approach. 

I've painted up two squads of 10 each, which was the paper strength in the late period. That said I expect to field these in 8 man sections should I ever get them on a wargames table as my reading leads me to believe that it was more likely that the squads would have been nearer the 8 man strength than the 10 man goal. Either way I prefer 8 man sections for some reason it just feels right. 

The benefit of using 8 man sections being that this lot makes up an under strength platoon rather than just two squads. My intention is to paint up another half squad and a command section in short order to provide a full size platoon. 

I think for anything other than very small skirmish games I will be switching to 20mm going forwards as I am able to achieve far more, to a standard I can accept, than I can in 28mm. That said I expect I will still collect 28mm figures for smaller games. 

20mm Cold War

So another year begins, perhaps I'll manage to get a bit more painting this year, but I suspect not whilst the lead pile will no doubt simply continue expanding with a life of its own, at least thats what I tell the wife. 

That said I did find the time to slap some paint on another 4 of the Elhiem cold war Brits. As ever fantastic sculpts that are frankly better than some 28mm things I've painted over the years. So with the 4 completed previously I have my first section, another 8 on the painting table but my old comrade WW2 seems to be calling again as a stack of 20mm British Late War infantry have appeared as if by magic on the painting table.