Sunday 27 March 2016

HAPPY ZOMBIE JESUS DAY!

What's occurrin'?

Still not back to posting weekly yet. Twice in one month is an improvement though. I have been working away on more scenery for ATZ, so I thought I'd post my progress so far, better than nothing eh! The bunker is pretty quiet this weekend, people away on a mission in enemy territory(a Vamps concert in Birmingham). So the plan is to get an ATZ marathon in, further familiarising myself with the rules and note taking process before I go "live". Let's hope the plan survives contact with the enemy.

Before we charge off to see what I've been doing, let's not forget the cultural mission. Let the enrichment begin. Another fantastic piece by Savagezombie. I love the underlit effect on this one, superb stuff. It's called Zombie Goodness. Enjoy!

ZOMBIE GOODNESS.

First of all, the roads I made got some love. Just used masking tape to delineate the markings. Then painted them with some white paint. Simples!

ROADMARKINGS.

Some of you may remember the mesh fences I made some time ago. Well they are all based and weathered now. Basing was just drybrushed and flocked. I used some old ink to simulate rust.

MESH FENCES FINISHED AT LAST.

The next photo was trying to show the difference in height between the two sets of wire mesh fences. It didn't turn out so good though. The shorter one at the front is rather obscured by the taller one at the back. D'oh!

TWO DIFFERENT SIZED FENCES.

Can't remember if I've shown these ones before. Made with "craft" sticks, which are basically lolly (popsicle) sticks cut diagonally leaving a pointed end. They give a little more worn and rugged effect to a fence, leaving some nice looking gaps too. Mounted on really thick card rather than the foamcore the mesh fences were based with.

RUSTIC WOODEN FENCES.

The next lot are just corrugated card, some skewers for uprights again based on foamcore. Same deal as before, drybrushing and flock for the base, ink for the rust stains.

CORRUGATED STEEL FENCES.

These smaller fences are the same card with matchsticks for uprights and based on lolly sticks. Filler and sand to make up the ground, then painted and flocked.

SMALLER CORRUGATED FENCES.

The little wooden fences are made from coffee stirrers hot glued onto lolly sticks. Based as the small fences above.

BLUE WOODEN FENCES.

Now I know you've seen these before, well the one on the left anyway. I'd originally made a dozen of them. Well...... my little puppy liked them so much she ate four of them. So I made another set, the one on the right. To make them different to the others I inverted them. Apart from that everything else was the same as before.

REPLACEMENT RANCH FENCES. ON THE RIGHT.

Well that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time remember to try and emulate the DUDE and "take her easy".



Monday 7 March 2016

I'VE BEEN BUSY!

What's occurrin'!

My posting this year has been a little slack to say the least. Hopefully that's going to change from now on. I'm feeling much better now and I'm finally starting to get my shit together at last. I haven't been idle these last couple of weeks either but more on that in a bit. Even played my first game of ATZ! Will wonders never cease?

Before we move on, let's not forget my cultural mission. You know by now I'm trying to bring a little culture to the world of zombies. This mainly involves trying to find different zombie artists and showing some of their work on my humble little blog. Hopefully enriching us all in the process. So this time I want to show you all another wonderful piece by Savagezombie (a.k.a. Chris Bolton). This one is called Fear the Dead. Enjoy!

FEAR THE DEAD!
OK, so after my last post, I decided to re-think the board. After reading your comments and re-reading the rule book I cut some 12 inch squares from stuff I'd been hoarding, namely draw bottoms and the back of bookcases from cheap MDF furniture. It isn't even wood, more like compressed card. Perfect for my use.

I then covered the squares using the two game mats I mentioned last post. This is when I hit my first snag. Even with patching I only had enough for seven boards. Arse! Not enough for the nine boards, making up the three foot square smallest playing area. What to do? Sheldon again came to my rescue. When he kindly donated the urban game mats, he'd also thrown in a railway grass mat that he really didn't like. So I covered three boards with it. Problem solved.

OVERVIEW OF THE NEW BOARD.

I also made up several road sections from card, this was then covered in true Blue Peter style. Yes, sticky backed plastic! I'd picked up some with a chalk board finish, very cheaply, from a local discount store. Just for this purpose. As you can see from the above picture, I still need to paint on some road markings. But it is heading in the right direction.

You've seen all the buildings before, so nothing new on that front. Finally able to lay out a "proper" playing area, I took the opportunity to play my first game. I don't think I made too many mistakes and everything ran pretty smoothly. A few more run throughs and I think I'll be ready to spring it on the WNI. Although playing solo was great fun too. I might need a little longer to be able to post batreps but I'm getting there.

OUR INTREPID BAND OF HEROES LEAVE THE STORE EMPTY HANDED.

The wooded areas, some old 40K scenery I made almost ten years ago, were dragged out of my storage cupboard. The lesson here being never throw anything out.

I then threw a few toy cars on for the photo's, I still haven't glued together my card vehicles yet. To be honest I haven't even dirtied up the toy ones, like I was going to do. Yet another job on the to do list.

A VIEW UP THE STREET.

So pretty pleased with the progress so far, even though there are lots of things to finish.

MY FIRST GANG!  REDNECKS HOLDING OUT IN THE OLD WAREHOUSE.

My first gang made an appearance in my first game. I went with rednecks as opposed to a more urban crew, the figures I had kind of lead me in that direction. I quite like the idea of the local good ole boys tooling up and teaming up to survive.

ZOMBIES LURCHING OUT OF THE WOODS.

You'll recognise the fences too, coffee stirrers and lolly (popsicle) sticks. They are actually finished, just about the only thing that is.

MORE ZOMBIES HEADING TOWARDS ALL THE GUNFIRE.
ZOMBIES AT THE FENCE LINE.

I've also been working on some scatter terrain. The cargo containers are free of course and came from the Combat Storm website. Are cargo containers even scatter terrain?

The "interesting" weathered look of them was the result of a happy accident. I used spray mount to stick the printouts to card. I don't think I shook the can long enough and as a result the solvent stained the printout. Saves me weathering them I suppose.

MORE CARGO CONTAINERS. SCATTER TERRAIN?

I broke out the sculpting putty for the first time in many years, and had a go at creating some rubbish bags. Amazingly, they look almost passable. Well they are rubbish! Should look even better when painted.

POORLY SCULPTED RUBBISH (TRASH) BAGS.

Well, I guess that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time, try and be more like the DUDE and "take her easy".