Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #10

Painting started well during the week with me getting another set completed, then my enthusiasm died due to the continued hot weather.

This set includes:

Falstaff – Dracula (Gary Oldman from 1992 “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”)

Lucas – Godfrey de Ibelin (Liam Neeson from 2005 “Kingdom of Heaven”)

Sylvia – Black Plague Hero Box

Julian – Black Plague Hero Box

All four are fairly general melee hero’s, with two exceptions. Lucas has “Spellcaster” as a red skill, which I feel is a bit late to be considering magic, unless ‘Reaper: Combat’ if that was taken at orange. Sylvia has distinct melee skills until red – then she has three ‘Combat’ options, which I feel is great at that stage because it works with any equipment you’ve gained.

Falstaff was easy to paint; he’s basically red with black ink, though I did give him a brown base coat to ensure the red wasn’t going to be bright. Lucas has dark hair on the card, but it’s much more a light brown in the movie. I’ve painted his hair to match the movie, but it’s looking a bit lighter in the pictures than it actually is. I didn’t bother painting the “mask” on Sylvia’s face. Julian’s cloak looks to me (on the card) as if it has a purple hue near the top and more blue-grey at the bottom – I just used a dark purple I have all over with a little dark blue/gray and black for shading. I wasn’t concerned about highlighting these figures. They are board game figures, and I want them finished… so unless a particular figure makes me want to spend some extra effort I’m just happy to use ink for shading and leave it at that.

Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #9

More survivors! Most of these were fun to paint – mostly simple colour schemes and some different colours.

The four figures are:

Clovis – Original Black Plague

Theo – Wulfsburg Expansion

Gowan – “Connor McLeod” (Christopher Lambert, Highlander movie.)

Troy – “Ash” (Bruce Campbell, Army of Darkness movie.)

There’s quite a variety in “quality” when it comes to the movie characters – the cards are generally very close to the actors representation, but the actual figure faces aren’t always so good. Troy’s card certainly looks like Bruce Campbell, but I feel figure is close but not great. ‘Gowan’ is worse – with perhaps the exception of the shield, the pose and gear is accurate, but the face doesn’t look that much like Christopher Lambert to me. The tartan is wrong too.

 

“Everyone yell at the enemy!”

I like tartan and Highlander (Scottish ancestry), but I’ve dreaded painting it. I wouldn’t say my first attempt is great, but it came together better than I’d hoped. In future, I’d paint slightly differently – light background colour, darker colour, then fine stripes, rather than trying to darken ‘squares’ after the lines. I used movie stills for accurate tartan colours.

     Gowan/Connor McLeod close-up

 

I was pleased to get to ‘Ash’ – since I completed ‘Evil Ash’ (Survivor/Necromancer) a long time ago. I found a sculpting error with this figure too – there’s no sword hilt below the crossbar. The hilt should be visible between his hands – but there’s just an empty gap – and the very end of it should probably extend just below his left hand. I couldn’t be bothered trying to fill the gap, or manufacture a ‘repair’ – it’s not obvious unless you are looking very closely at his hands.

I also noticed after painting and getting ready to type that Theo’s base should be blue/green. His skill set is melee/ranged, so I’ve repainted half the base.

Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #8

I’ve actually completed 5 survivors over the past two weeks, but the fifth can wait until I’ve done a few more.

They are:

– Gregoire (Navarre, Rutger Hauer from “Ladyhawke”)

– Ann (Original ZBP)

– Paul (The Huntsman, Chris Hemsworth from “Snow White and the Huntsman”)

– Silas (Original ZBP)

 

I’ve thrown out three of my “fine” point brushes recently – two had lost too many bristles, and generally they were very scruffy and useless for detail. I was very happy to discover I have a Citadel ‘Detail Brush’ which didn’t look worthwhile until I actually put paint on it – it has a great point and is just what I’ve needed. Gregoire was good to paint – I like the pose and detail and I could happily get to everything. I found that the colours of his cloak on the card compared to the actual figure didn’t make sense. So I got some images from ‘Ladyhawke’ to get a good look at the costume… and painted the cloak to match the movie – black outside, red inside. I’m a little disappointed with the scabbard on the figure – it doesn’t “fold” into the cloak – it just stops – like there’s only the top quarter.

Ann was very straightforward. Very dark blue robes, and silvered plate mail. Probably the fastest painting of any Zombicide figure I’ve done.

 

Paul’s figure is slight and small compared to nearly every other survivor. I’ve never much liked this one because of the proportions. I’d expect a longer handle with that size axe blade, or a smaller blade like on the card. The colours – black, dark brown, red-brown and pale greenish/white – don’t stand out. I used a bit of grey on his wrist-guards, and there’s a bit more highlighting/shading than the pictures show. I probably should have just done either the pants or jacket in a completely different colour! Another failing – he has a short beard on the card (and in the movie) but it’s not sculpted on the figure! I’m not comfortable with fine free-hand painting of detail, but I am very proud of how this worked.

Silas has a lot more colour and variety. I really like the pose, but find it amusing that while there’s bow and quiver on his back, he has his sword out and swinging. Every skill this survivor has is ‘ranged’, not melee!

That’s 31 out of 50 survivors completed!