Tuesday 27 September 2011

Malifaux and Zombie Apoc update

Evening readers, small update time. 3 updates in the space of a few days shocking :P

The Wargames Factory zombies that Rasmus had sent turned up last week, I know a few of you were interested to hear my thoughts on them so figured I would write them up.

here are the 3 that he sent me:



Now Rasmus did warn me that he didn't think they would be salvagable, and he was very nearly right. The sculpt and cast quality is terrible, all the things I have read about the detail especially on their faces being shallow is completely true. I can only just make out the details of the face when they are bare plastic god only knows what it would look like when you have them undercoated.

another thing I have picked up on them is that some of the arms are completely out of proportion being either to short or too long.

Examples of this being the 2 zombies on either end. Their left arms which are cast on as part of the torso are too skinny and short. Then you have the zombie in the middle whose right arm is too long and just looks unnatural.

Now I was expecting all of this, I had chosen to get these zombies to use pretty much as armatures for sculpting my own details onto, and they work reasonably well for that, here is how I got on with converting one of them:


zombie compared to hasslefree model


Carved the face off completely and resculpted it, then resculpted parts of his clothes still need to attach and correct the other arm which is the one that seems too long.

over all here is a summary of them:

Pros:
  • Cheap
  • True scale 28mm so work perfectly with hasslefree zombie hunters

Cons:

  • Terrible casts
  • questionable proportions on some arms

my advice is that unless you are up for the challenge of trying to salvage them as I am then steer clear of them. As I think trying to paint them straight from the box, especially the faces would be incredbily hard.

I shall likely still be picking up a box to convert, Shall see how I go with these 3 first I think. But in all honesty although you will only get 8 for the same price as a box of 30 of these I think you would be better off getting Studio miniatures zombies.


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Now onto Malifaux, been getting the models cleaned up and ready to paint, for once I'm doing next to no conversions as I pretty much like the models as they are. The only exception being Rasputina herself.

I wasn't a fan of the top hat style thing she had so I cut it off and decided to make her a hooded cloak instead. Sort of helps to tie her to the December Acolyte model too. Heres how shes looking:



Pretty much done meaning she will be ready to paint soon, Though the first thing from the box that I shall be painting up is the ice golem who got basecoated today :)

With this warband/crew figured I would put some effort into the bases too, so after a chat with that foul Kiwi known only as Foot_of_Adhesive_tape I decided to give them cobble stone bases. To go with the winter theme they will get snow added but I wanted something extra so set about finding something I could use to make spike of ice.

Inspiration struck and after carving up some GW flying stands I ended up with this prototype base:



The bases and model will be painted seperately with the snow being added once the model is glued on. I'm actually rather happy with the Ice spikes.

well that is it for now, I shall have an update in a few days with some  progress on malifaux as well as the zombies :)

6 comments:

  1. Woo, Malifaux! More stuff to tempt me! :P Good call on the cape and hood, she looks far better already.

    Glad to see the zeds made it there in one piece, I hoping you can do better than me with them. I spent more than 3 hours on one, used every trick I knew, and it still barely looked passable. I'll be getting Studio Miniatures and HF zeds as soon as I can instead. Glad to hear you'll be giving them some serious attention, judging from the work you've already posted they'll actually be nice models once you're done with resculpting them completely...

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  2. Nice work mate. I was considering having ago but i think i will get some Mantic Zombies instead.

    That cloak looks excellent especially the fur trim!

    Keep up the good work

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  3. Thanks for posting, you've really saved them. I was going to give those zombies a shot, but picked up the Victory Forces Zombies deal instead. Glad I did. They're not the best, but they are at least unique and relatively well sculpted.

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  4. Ha you gave the zombie a tie. Classy!

    Nice job on Rasputina as well.

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  5. Cheers Lads :)

    @Rasmus: pick up a single malifaux model to paint go on you know you want too :P

    Think the 3 zombies will be a good test of if I can keep my interest in them, we all know how bad I am for changing projects constantly haha

    @Brummie: cheers sir, the mantic zombies are nice though they might be a bit big as they seem to be more heroic scale. Looking forward to seeing what you do with them :)

    @Adam: Cheers dude and no worries I know you wanted to see what they were like :)

    I'll have to check out the Victory forces zombies :)

    @Feral: who said the walking dead can't look good :P

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  6. I just stumbled across this post in google; and I have to say that I never really cared for the original Rasputina model, but after seeing your conversion work her on her, O want to track down a copy and attempt the same thing. It looks fantastic. great work!

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