Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #6

Only three figures completed today, although I did spray undercoat another dozen ready to work on during the week. I ready should have photographed them before the spray varnish – there’s a fair bit of reflection on Stormcrow. He was an annoying figure to paint, since the card image is all brown with little variation. He’s been partly done (browns) for at least a month before I got stuck into finishing him off over the last few days. He finally got an assortment of browns, with some grey and black for variety.

 

From left to right: Dr. Stormcrow (Kickstarter exclusive, artist Adrian Smith), Glynda (Hero Box), Mizar (by guest artist Paul Bonner).

There is a suggestion that Mizar is based on “Illyn Payne” (Game of Thrones) – the face/expression certainly match, even if even nothing else does.

Glynda is pretty much what you would expect from a melee dwarf character, and Mizar is similarly a straight-forward caster.

Dr Stormcrow is very different from most of the other survivors: His entry skill of ‘Hold your nose’ fits the character perfectly, and I think ‘Zombie link’ goes well with the theme too. The other skills are the best options you could have on a Zombicide survivor – all ‘Combat’ and no specific melee/ranged/magic options – allowing you to work with whatever situation you need each turn, as well as making the most of whatever equipment you have collected.

 

Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #5

I got another four survivors finished! This includes two figures I considered to be the best “ranged” survivors in all the ones that I have.

 

Front view

From left to right: “Ariane” – Wulfsberg, “Cadence” – Guest artist Mark Simonetti, “Genevieve” – Guest artist Paul Bonner, and “Tucker” – Hero Box #1.

Ariane is an interesting survivor. Her skills are quite varied – Jump, +1 Move, +1 Melee, +1 die Combat, +1 to roll Ranged, Spellcaster. I’ve painted her base half blue, signifying ‘melee’, since the other skills aren’t available until red level when a player can pretty much focus on whatever they wish. Tucker has similar variety – Shove, Lucky and Spellcaster up to orange, then two combat skills and ‘reload’ at red. He’s dressed like a priest or monk, and ‘Spellcaster’ defines him as a magic character (orange base) in my mind. (Shove and Lucky lend themselves to any style of play.) For a figure holding a heavy crossbow, I’m suprised that the only distinct ranged skill he gets is ‘free reload’ at red, which I can’t see anyone taking over +1 die combat, or +1 Combat action.

 

Rear view

Now my favourites…

Cadence starts with ‘Marksman’, a great ranged skill to have at the beginning. With the exception of two ‘combat’ skills at red, all the other options are ranged – potentially allowing either up to six (ranged) actions in a turn, or adding +2 dice to any ranged attack.

Genevieve is identical in skills except for beginning with ‘+1 Damage Ranged’. Give her a crossbow, and you can kill Abominations at blue level.

My wife’s favourite game would be one with of these characters with +2 dice options and the ‘Chaos Bow’. (Four hits = Dragonfire!)

I’m quite pleased with my painting on these four, but disapointed with the sculpt for Geneveive’s head. It’s quite thin and the facial expression isn’t the best. In fact the entire figure is a bit taller/thinner than the card image – which I much prefer.

Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #3

Photographed yesterday, but painting completed late August or early September!

 

Front view

From left to right:

Lady Grimm (by Special Guest, Mark Simonetti), Milo (by Special Guest, Naiade), Piper (Isabeau, played by Michelle Pfeiffer in “Ladyhawke”).

Rear View

Like the previous Zombicide figures, I’ve tried to keep colours close to that on their cards. Lady Grimm’s cloak, under-tunic (?) and hair got brightened up a bit, and I’ve left out the scar and odd left eye. I wasn’t likely to paint a scar as fine as that shown in the images, and making her more ‘normal’ looking makes the figure more useful. (My wife is currently using her in our new Pathfinder game, mostly because of the warhammer!)

Milo’s changes are his hair – red, not black or dark brown – and the blue band on his hat. (I wanted a bit more colour.) Piper was a simple paint scheme and finished quickly as a result. If there’s any difference from her card image, it’s that her skin isn’t bright and clean!

I’ve nearly finished painting ‘Klom’ and I’ve also got started on a few dwarves.

 

 

 

Zombicide: BP – Painting Survivors #1

After doing the wolves, I did plan on going back to my Star Wars figures, since I’ve actually finished three and have others started. I’ve been playing Zombicide quite a bit over the last month, and it would be good to start seeing painted heroes/survivors. I’d been procrastinating a bit with the SW figures and I felt like a change, so here’s a group I got done fairly quickly. It does help when you already know what colours you want to use.

These five are the ‘Knights of the Round Table’ from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” I loved this movie when I saw it, but watching it again (to show my wife a few years ago) I found it rather disappointing. (Lots of very funny moments interspersed with bits that now seemed silly or stupid, rather than funny.) Thankfully, “Life of Brian” is still a very funny and well-done film, which stands up well after the passing years. Okay, enough about the movies. Figures, from left to right:

Montalban – Sir Robin the Brave (Eric Idle)

Mortimer – King Arthur (Graham Chapman)

Gilbert – Sir Bedevere (Terry Jones)

Beauregard – Sir Gawain (Michael Palin)

Chauncey – Sir Lancelot (John Cleese)

 

They made a good group of figures to start with because they are all basically the same – chain mail, sword, white surcoats, and belts. Getting fine lines of colour painted around the surcoat edging wasn’t the easiest thing, and neither is painting a lot of colour over or around all the white areas. The green checks on ‘Montalban’ were the hardest. The final work looks great from a distance, but it’s not as neat as I would have liked close up.

I wanted to keep to the colours as shown on their cards, and only made small changes. ‘Chauncey’ has purple (not black) surcoat edging, ‘Beauregard’ has orange edging (the card looks more brown) and I did the shield stripe in orange to match the surcoat (argent a pale tenne), which I think looks a lot better than just black. Gilbert’s shield has a blue fleur de lis with white/blue background (argent a bendlet azure). I didn’t like blue on blue, so I went with a plain white background. The feathers in his helmet also changed to blue rather than black.

 

Finally, the base colour. My wife suggested painting the bases in different colours to represent each survivors combat style or progression – melee, ranged, or magic. I’ve chosen blue for melee, green for ranged and probably orange for magic. Some heroes don’t follow one specific path so I might also do some half and half bases.

You may note that there’s a lot less ‘blood’ on Montalban – surcoat & sword. (It’s mostly on his right hip, and not visible in the pictures.) This wasn’t intentional, but if you know anything about “Sir Robin the Brave”, then you’ll know it’s appropriate!

Edit: I had a sudden concerned thought about my use of the word tabard. As a result, I’ve just been through this whole post and changed tabard to surcoat. Tabards are open at the sides, surcoats are not, as well as being longer with slits at the bottom front and back for riding.