67. Stylish Survivors

If you must survive the Zombie Apocalypse, you might as well do so with style and flair.

I've  just finished painting up some Survivors, or at least some hot chicks with guns.  Whether they're surviving or forcing others to survive is still open for debate.

I also painted up a token dude and a dog.  Dogs are great for getting hot chicks to notice you.  So's the bright red hair, but they may not notice you the way you want them to!

Click the pics for a larger view.  These are all 28mm scale figures.  The manufacturer is listed under each picture.  Links to the manufacturer's webpages are at the end of this blog.

Smile for the camera.  The post-apocalyptic camera!

Why, yes, those are nice paper buildings.  Thank you!

These are Copplestone's "Corporate Babes 2," Pack FW46.

I like the rear view.  Perhaps a little too much to be healthy....

This is my favorite figure of the group.  I'm really not that into the whole "schoolgirl uniform" thing, I just like the pose.  She exudes a confidence well beyond her (assumed) schoolgirl years.

Plus I really like the plaid paint job.  I'm a touch proud of that.  It's the first plaid I've ever painted.  Could it be better?  Sure, but I still like it.

I thought about adding blood to the sword, but in general I stay away from overt evidence of the fighting the figures do.  I simply like the clean look better.

This lady is somewhat mature, dressed more for a night on the town, I think, than a business meeting (the fur-trimmed jacket tells me that).  I added the "Morticia" white stripes as an afterthought; just felt she needed a little "extra" something.

I'm not sure where she is going to put that gun when she's finished with it.  The dress doesn't leave much room for a concealed-carry holster....

This is a New Age kind o' gal.  Bright colors, hot pink hair, not afraid to show her midriff.  Anyone who's brave enough to wear, not just a mini-skirt but, a micro-mini-skirt deserves hot pink hair and bright yellow boots!

At least she's got somewhere to put her pistol when she gets tired of carrying it.  She's also the only lefty in the group.

Here's another gal dressed for a night on the town.  She's slightly more elegant in terms of what she's wearing:  but then again, you're always dressed appropriately for the occasion when you bring a machine gun with you.

All in all, she's relatively unadorned.  No gaudy necklace.  No superfluous handbag.  Just a gun and white pumps.

She does have a cute little white bow on her left hip, which is pretty well hidden by the pose.  Oh, and her dress is slit waaaay up.  That probably counts for something.

Here's the last of the Corporate Babes.  She looks all business to me, for sure.  Grey suit, prim hairstyle, no-nonsense facial expression.

She does have makeup on, but that would seem to be the last concession to her femininity she'll make.  "Glass ceiling, my @ss!"

She's high-class.  Notice that those are actual silk stockings, as evidenced by the seam line....

 

Here are the last of the lovely ladies:  two seriously hardcore damsels.  The one on the left is "Dionne (b)" (HFA021) from Hasslefree Miniatures.  The one on the right is "Girl Werewolf Hunter" (WH1) from Copplestone Castings.  They both have two handguns.  They both look totally prepared to kick @ss:  yours, mine, and anyone else who gets in the way!

I've only ever seen either of them painted all in black.  And while black is totally appropriate, I didn't want them BOTH in black.  So I opted for a little photo-negativity, so to speak.  Not only in the clothing but in the hair too.

In other words, I painted one with black hair and white clothes, and the other with white hair and black clothes.  Personally, while the Copplestone girl is a more dynamic pose, I always think she's about to fall over backwards.  Is she running forwards, or diving backwards out of the way, firing as she falls?  Dunno.  I DO know that the Hasslefree girl is much more menacing and composed:  she's coming for you and you ain't a-gonna be able to stop her.

This view isn't nearly as interesting as the view of the other girls, but I include it for completeness' sake.

At last we come to the token male.  I know you've all been awaiting his arrival breathlessly.  This is "Ray" (HFA007) from Hasslefree Miniatures.  Yes, he's wielding a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun, and a cricket bat.  Yeah, that's what I though too.

Ray has had rather a bad day, I think.  He's a bit stressed out.  While on the one hand he's dressed pretty conservatively in khakis and a nice Oxford dress shirt, on the other hand he's wearing a piano tie (circa 1985) and has dyed his hair bright flaming red!  "I've taken about as much of this as I can stand!"  It's obvious he's a little unhinged.  I mean, who wears a piano tie anymore?  ;-)

Here's a rear-view shot, just to prove that I'm fair to the ladies as well.  Enjoy, ladies!

Well, that's all, folks.  I'm afraid I forgot to take a separate picture of the dog.  For all you dog-lovers out there:  my apologies.  However, it is just a dog.  Plus, I have absolutely no idea of where I got it, so I can't link to it.  (It is very odd for me to not know where I acquired a miniature.  I can usually tell you exactly where I was, what time of day it was, and how long it's been in my closet.  Alas that I can't say the same thing about my kids' birthdays!  [I kid, I kid, I almost never forget their birthdays.])

Two more thoughts about the miniatures:  first, I suppose technically these are not purely Survivors; they're really just girls with guns, exactly as the advertising suggests:  "Corporate Babes" with guns.  Second, I painted the bases grass-green to match almost the entirety of my collection, as opposed to the pavement-grey I painted on my zombies' bases.  I really didn't even stop to think about it, as it's practically muscle memory to paint the bases green.  I do think, now, that grey might have worked out better on the whole, but as green is a natural color I think it is acceptable.  Plus, the sand I use to texture the bases doesn't really lend itself well to looking like concrete.

Lastly, I would like to point out that while I generally don't like to add blood (as I mentioned under the girl with the katana), I did add it to Ray's cricket bat.  This was a color palette choice:  I wanted a darker red to help both offset and draw the eye to his hair.  You'll notice that the bat's handle is dark red too, for that same reason.

The Corporate Babes 2 are from Copplestone Casting's "Future Wars/Civilians" line, as is the Girl Werewolf Hunter.

http://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/range.php?range=FW

Ray and Dionne are from Hasslefree Miniatures' "Modern Adventurers" line.

http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=miniatures~modern-adventurers

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to look at my little corner of the web!

44. Nudity! I Knew That Would Get Your Attention.

So after all my "dipping" I decided to take a short break and paint normal.  I still wanted to get something finished fairly quickly but I was ready for something different, too.  Thus, Snowmen Monsters from Copplestone Castings.  And their Evil Penguin Masters.  Mua-ha-ha-haaa!  (Or whatever sound an Evil Penguin would make when it laughs evilly.)

Moe, Larry and Curly.  Or is it Huey, Duey and Louie?  Or is it Tweedle-Dee, Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber?  The penguins are Frik and Frak.

They were fun-fun to paint, and just so bizarre that I can't not smile whenever I think about plonking them down on the table.  They were also incredibly fast to paint.  I started with a black undercoat, then highlighted by drybrushing first black+black+grey, then black+grey, then grey, then grey+grey+white, then grey+white, then a final light pure white highlight.

. . .

. . .

O.K., I'm totally kidding.

After them, I decided to get a small clan of Cavemen and Cavewomen together for my Adventures in the Lost Lands games.  I continued with my Copplestone figure lineup.  I really like the tattoos on the figures in the painted example photos on the Copplestone website, but at the same time I didn't want to just copy them outright.  I opted not to paint tattoos for two reasons:  1, I didn't want to copy, as I said, and 2, I think it obscures the figure to some degree.  I really wanted to work on the "skin tone" on these figs so I didn't want anything to cover it up.

The four major hair colors are well-represented in Caveman hair salons.

Of course, considering how my skin tone turned out, tattooing may have been the better option.  Perhaps totally blue, all over, from head to toe.  Then again, I could have taken the middle road and just put a small tattoo somewhere, but quite frankly by the time I thought of it, I was ready to be finished and move on to new figs.

My patience for painting is seriously short these days.  I used to be able to spend 8 to 12 hours on a single figure, getting the details just right, and not think twice about it.  Now if I spend 8 hours on 10 figures I feel it's taking too long!  I ain't getting any younger, y'know.

And in case you're wondering about the nudity mentioned in the title of this post, of course I meant that the SNOWMEN are naked.  And the penguins.

You pervert.  What, you were expecting something else?

. . .

. . .

O.K., I'm just kidding again.

I got a couple of topless Cavewomen here too.  I should remark that I prefer my Cavewomen ahistorical, and more in line with Raquel Welch in "One Million Years B.C." without any hint of shame or self-reproach.

Raquel Welch.  Homina-homina-homina.

. . .

. . .

I'm sorry, where was I?  I seem to have lost my train of thought....

In the interest of complete disclosure, I should add that I also prefer historical Cavemen to the ahistorical type.  Not in that way!  For their historical accuracy, of course.  Yeesh!  See below for an example.

Oh look, Raquel's in that picture too, how funny....  Anyway, Cavemen should be wild, woolly, dangerous and dirty.  Cavewomen, on the other hand, have their fingernails and toenails painted, and wear eye shadow.

Hey!  My gaming is my escapism!  You go do what you want with your figures, and I'll paint mine how I want.

On to nudity!  Well, two topless Cavewomen, anyhow.

These are very stylish Cavewomen.  This is my first attempt at a leopard pattern, and a tiger skin.  I'm happy with the leopard, not as much with the tiger skin.  A trifle too orange, I think.  But then I think, who's looking at her loincloth?

Here is a gratuitous rear view, because I don't want you thinking I'm only interested in them being topless.  They look good coming or going.  You'll notice I have not included a rear-view of the Cavemen.  You may thank me now.

Sadly, right after I took these pictures, I dropped the Cavegirl on the far right and broke off her axe.  I was able to glue it back, but there is a join line that wasn't in evidence before the accident, and I didn't have time to repaint it before I had to go to work.  It's not too bad, and as little as I play it will never be a problem.

So I got my "paint normal" urge satisfied.  The four Cavemen took me roughly 6-7 hours, and the four Cavewomen took about 8 hours total.  Like I mentioned earlier, I got no time for spendin' 28 hours on a single miniature like them thar professionals you see online.  I gots mountains of lead figures jest waitin' for paintin'.  I gots to go!

An example of my non sequitur gaming style.  The Clan of the Cavepeople don't know what to make of this intrusion into their idyllic lives...but surely hard flint weapons will soon sort these beasties out!

Thanks for reading, and you can put your eyes back in your head now.  Raquel has left the cave.