RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

What's occurrin' then?

Right dudes and dudettes guess who`s back, returned from the wasteland. My sincerest apologies for my unscheduled hiatus but real life has a found a way to kick me in the arse once again. Hopefully now something resembling peace has returned to the bunker, this can blogging malarkey can continue

Things have pretty much ground to a halt on the hobby front, I haven`t picked up a paintbrush in almost a year. So things could take a little while to start rumbling along and will probably be a little rough around the edges, just like me!

Nothing to show you all this time, this is just to announce that I`ve reanimated and things should get back to normal sooner rather than later. Well that`s all I`ve got for this time dudes and dudettes, don`t forget the way of The Dude. Take `er easy

SCATTER!

What's occurrin'?

I've been immersing myself in the fascinating area of our hobby known as scatter terrain. What diversity! Loads of inspirational sites visited but as usual frugality won the day. I found some excellent tutorials on an old scenery forum called Terragenesis. I don't know if any of you are aware of it,  go check it out, a fantastic resource of D.I.Y. scenery. As well as the D.I.Y. stuff I've made another attempt at card modelling using some free to download printouts. Although printer ink is more expensive than champagne, nine times more, hardly frugal. Saying that you can still get a decent amount out of one cartridge.

Before we move on to the meat of the post, let's not forget our usual enrichment. The cultural quest continues this time with another fine example of Savage zombie's work. It's called Zombie Doodle. Wow, if only I could doodle this well! The flies are a lovely touch. Enjoy!

ZOMBIE DOODLE!

So, first of all my tiny collection of vehicles got a "crap" wash. Gives them a real world grime coat and makes them look less like toys.

PRISON SEEMS TO BE LETTING OUT EARLY?

A very important first step in this process is to give them a coat of matt varnish. I used a cheap acrylic brush on varnish from a local discount store. It stops the wash just sliding off. Don't worry about being too tidy at this first stage as any brush marks etc. just add to the effect at the next stage. I didn't even bother to mask the windows, although that might improve the look of a vehicle your band of survivors are going to use regularly.

IS THIS AN ILLEGAL CHOP SHOP?

I then mixed my "crap" wash. Taking an empty paint pot, I put in a little black paint, then added some dark brown emulsion from a tester pot. These were only small amounts of paint, a brushful of black and two of brown. The pot was then filled with water and shaken vigourously for a minute.

SPORTSCAR IN THE APOCALYPSE? REALLY?

Put plenty of newspaper down and slap the "crap" all over the vehicles. Leave to dry. Further coats can be added until you are happy with the desired effect. Although these only got one coat. Because of the matt varnish the "crap" wash covers stickers equally as well as the bodywork!

THAT'S A FUCKING BIG SUV!

Moving on from the vehicles, let's get to the scatter terrain proper. These dumpsters were free to download (of course) from the Combat Storm website. Assembled as instructions. To make them sturdy enough to contend with the rigours of gaming and storage they were stuck to "credit" card plastic bases. Which were then sanded, painted and flocked.

FEATURING COMPULSORY DUMPSTER PORN. LOW RES MIND.

Various details were added. The pallets were made from coffee stirrers and matchsticks, following an excellent tutorial article on Terragenesis (the old site) by Snitchy the Dog. I sculpted the rubbish (trash) bags from greenstuff, they look a lot better now they are painted.

A BLUE DUMPSTER.

The other bits and pieces are from the bottomless "bits" box, mostly 40K stuff. I also used some of the boxes from the stack I had previously downloaded by the amazing papercrafter Tommygun. Posters used were kindly provided by The Tollman.

A PALE DUMPSTER.

This final one was made by cutting the shapes of a dumpster from plain black card, using the downloads as a template. Apart from that, the same process was used to build it. A lot more wear and tear was painted on this one, it was really plain.

A NAUGHTY DUMPSTER.

A few side on shots of the dumpsters to better show the added details!

A ROW OF DETAILED DUMPSTERS.

It's worth mentioning the silver fuel barrel below. Made from paper and wire, again following a superb tutorial found on Terragenesis. This one is by bug_bait. I've made a bit of a production line of them now. Same with the pallets.

MORE DETAIL PORN.

A small barricade, useful for blocking alleys and such. Toy car, old Tamiya fuel drum, cut glue sticks, kitchen roll and some simulated barbed wire.

MAN THE BARRICADES!

More free to download card terrain. Vending machines from Tommygun. I think this is known as "street furniture" by the cool kids.

GRAB AN ICE COLD COKE AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Finally, more boxes. Boxes are a bit like zombies, you can never have too many of them. These little ones are really fiddly. A new method using old photo's has vastly improved the performance of these free to download printouts. All by Tommygun again.

BOXES, BOXES EVERYWHERE! FOUSANDS OF 'EM.

I guess that's all I got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time, follow in the DUDE'S wake and "take her easy".

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".

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".

SCRATCHING AN ITCH!

What's ocurrin'.

This lack of motivation seems to be lasting longer than usual! Still no painting done. I thought I'd post a few pics to get peoples opinion on something. This blog is into it's second year and initially was to track the progress of my ATZ gaming journey. The progress has been severely sidetracked by my very slow painting of my Zombicide figures. All three seasons! I justify this by the fact that I will be using them for ATZ, to myself at least, until now.

OK, let's not forget the cultural mission. This time I have another masterpiece from Savagezombie aka Chris Bolton to show you. And it's a cracker! This one is called Singlet Zombie, classy or what? Enjoy!

SINGLET ZOMBIE.

Well, I still want to play ATZ and I'm itching to get a few practice games in. To try and scratch the itch a little, I  tried to set up a playing area. So I guess what I'm after is the answer to the question, is it enough?

I know that a lot of it is unfinished, that will be dealt with eventually. I just really want to walk through a few games to get the hang of the rules, before I spring it on the Wednesday Night Irregulars. Which won't be for sometime yet by the look of things.

So I'll let you check them out and hopefully you can leave your opinion.

VIEW FROM NORTH TO SOUTH.

I do have a couple more questions. How many PEF markers do I need?

ISOMETRIC FROM NORTH WEST CORNER.

How many zombie spawn markers do I need?

ISOMETRIC FROM SOUTH WEST CORNER.

Not too many vehicles at the moment, I've printed out 8 more. They're stuck to card and have been cut out, just need scoring and gluing.

A CLOSE UP OF SOME SHIPPING CONTAINERS.

This card modelling is not as easy as some people make it look! Cough, BRYAN, cough.

CLOSE UP OF WAREHOUSE ENTRANCE.

The ground tiles came courtesy of Sheldon, what a Dude! The darker one is from a DUST tactics set, whilst the lighter one came with his Deadzone stuff.

THE COPS MUST BE DRY CLEANING THEIR UNIFORMS. I GUESS BLOOD IS A STUBBORN STAIN.

So these last couple of weekends I have been really busy watching sport. Weekend before last there was a little thing called the Superbowl, some of you may have heard of it. That same weekend saw the Six Nations rugby championship kick off, well I am Welsh!

VIEW FROM THE WESTSIDE.

This weekend saw a continuation of the Six Nations, so that kind of put paid to that. Got to cheer the boys on, see.

VIEW FOM THE EASTSIDE.

Don't forget The Walking Dead is back from it's mid-season break tonight, woo hoo!

Well I guess that's all I've got for this time dudes and dudettes. So until next time y'all keep walking the right path, following the DUDE'S footsteps and "take her easy".

NOT DEAD YET!!!!

What's occurrin' ?

Happy New Year everyone! Yes a little late but I found that after the festivities I needed a bit of a lie down to recover. Must be getting old! The blog is also two years old now. Wow, never expected that. I've only just dug my paints and minis out, so no new stuff to show this time, don't worry normal service will resume shortly.

More cultural goodness again. Another beautiful piece from savage zombie aka Chris Bolton. I love this one, black and white, and really creepy! This one is called Zombies_Sketchy. Enjoy!

ZOMBIES_SKETCHY.

It's been awhile since my last post, my apologies, haven't really done any hobby related stuff since my last post. Real life has a funny way of sneaking up on you and kicking all your plans in the ass. A serious lack of motivation has also played it's own part. This seems to be a problem that I periodically continue to suffer with, the meds do help but not all the time.

Anyhow, I hope everybody had a great festive season and I'd like to wish you all a very belated Happy New Year. I'd also like to thank all my followers, commentors and lurkers. The blog has dragged itself to the two year point and I'm more than convinced that if it wasn't for you guys (and gals), it would not have lasted anywhere near this length of time. So thank you, one and all!

I haven't made any resolutions regarding the hobby, or anything else really. I'm not going to be reviewing last year either, I'm sure there was a lot I could have done more of, or stuff I could have done differently. Lessons were learned, so let's leave it at that.

Christmas this year suffered from the austerity thrust upon us by the wonderful people in government. Cheers Bastards! So gaming goodies were in very short supply, but I did get something other than socks.  My son very kindly gifted me more Zombicide goodness in the form of Paolo Parente's survivors box featuring Dylan the Handywoman and Maki the Scream Queen, plus their zombivor counterparts.

LOVELY CRIMBO GIFT FROM MY SON.

These two will join the painting queue and be dealt with in good time, like everything else.

TWO MORE SURVIVORS CRAWL FROM THE RUBBLE!

Let's hope 2016 continues better than it has started. For me at least. I haven't even visited my usual round of blogs, something I hope to rectify soon.

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