Well just like the Star Wars franchise, the story of my undead or as it started the “secret” warband doesn’t appear in the exact order it was made in, or posted in. The reasons for this are many, my mood, time to write verse time to paint, time to take pictures, and other things all factor in to when I do a post.
DOUBLE CLICK pictures for a bigger picture!
I did these fast and used all the tricks I know to cut corners while still having them look good and match the rest of the Warband. Painted all at once I think they came out pretty well for a “mass o figures”
This episode #5 “the Mindless” has figures that are painted sort of far into the project and figures I was frankly not that interested in painting as I thought they would be simple and uninteresting. Heck how interesting is the paint job on a mass of putrid, rotting, flesh going to be? I thought they certainly wouldn’t stand out on the battlefield like the Skeletal Giant” or a group of charging mounted Un-Dead Knights, and I was right they don’t. I approached this build and paint with an attitude of “let’s get this over with”
Mantic has both Ghouls and Zombie sets and I figured this would allow quite a bit of body part/head swapping to create even more variations. Also being plastic a good deal of figure modification was possible (sharpen up the xacto knife!)
I had chosen to use the Mantic Games “Zombie and Ghoul” figures that appear in the SAGA age of Magic book as part of the “Undead Warband”. I looked at lots of other manufactures, many with great looking figures but soon realized that most manufactures had a very limited range of poses when it came to the look/style required to fit into my warband. I kept coming back to the Mantic line since I liked the very dynamic style and look. Their range while still a bit limited but by being plastic “parts” offered more possible variations than the others. As I have said in the past “Plastic figures have grown on me”, yep from hating them to almost loving them sometimes! Mantic Games offered a combo deal on these figures at the time so with a few extra sprues from ebay I was set to create my 24 Mindless!
Primed and ready for paint. I usually use a black primer Krylon spray can primer for metals but for plastics my new “goto” is Alclad black primer with micro filler. It works very well but must be applied with an airbrush.
With all of my paint jobs I spend some time thinking about the look I want as well as WHY that look, and why that look works. Last, I decide how to paint them, style, fast, slow, detailed, blending, washes, etc.… although often all this will change as the build/ paint progresses.
A lot of Ghoul and Zombie figures have clothing or weapons that “date” them or tie them to a theme, the MANTIC figures a generic enough to allow them to serve almost anywhere.
Their flesh is is always in a constant state of deterioration or restoration so my color palette reflected this. I went from near living flesh down to a grey/green rotting look. I loved the exposed bone on many figures and the anguished looks!
The advantage of plastics is invaluable when doing conversions! This pose would be impossible in metal. The figure was originally a squat pose but by cutting, bending, and use of certain arm combination, creates this dynamic leaping figure.
The first thing I noticed when I began to cut the pieces off the sprues and assemble them was that the majority of the figures are bent over in squat, crouching positions, to much so for me, but the trusty Xacto knife, some glue, and a bit of putty soon had them looking a bit more threatening! About this time I realized I was actually enjoying this build and growing to like the figures more and more. The plastic is high quality and easy to work with, flash was very minimal, although mold lines were pretty bad. I figured that the look and the way I was going to paint these guys would hide a lot of them. Building them was fun and I think I got some great poses often swapping pieces from both figure types.
Mold lines like you see on the flesh colored figure at center right were common. I removed some but left many as you don’t really notice them in a group. The sword through the belly was created by me with help from the “bit’s box”
Another favorite pose with a meat cleaver, the camp cook! Clothes were intentionally left drab and nondescript to avoid drawing your eye from the rest of the figure.
Now on to painting. This is where that “why that look” comes into the process in figuring out what “that look” will be. In my mind (a very dusty, cramped, and often dangerous place to roam) Zombies and Ghouls are powered by a dark evil force back into the world of the living, but that initial force can only restore and sustain them for so long. The creatures need to consume the living to continue on and grow stronger, just like a vampire needs fresh blood from the living, Zombies and Ghouls need flesh and brains. So, this governed my thinking when painting them. Individual figures would be built and painted to reflect their current state of re-animation so to speak, some would be just re-animated, in bad shape and wildly looking for more flesh while some of them would be “better” looking more fleshed out and human looking, better fed! Some would be deteriorating, grey-green, falling apart, from lack of food!
Funny how a building and painting session I was not looking forward to ended up to be so enjoyable (really most do!) and I think the final result came out better than I expected! Enjoy and if you do please leave a comment!
“Scabbard? my sword don’t need no stinken scabbard!”
24 figures and every one different! By keeping a consistent palette it allowed me to keep the group look and build/paint quickly as a group even though they are all different.
Several other units are already done and Episode #6 will soon be here!
