Monthly Archives: September 2019

Neglected October plus Orctober & Orcslayer-Tober: Oct 2019 Community Painting Challenge.

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First things first – the July and August Challenge Community Round-Ups are coming. I’d planned to have at least one of them done by now, but I’ve been both flat out and under the weather for the last week, which was supposed to be a time for me to have a bit of a rest. No such luck, of course. So.. they’ll still get done, but my descriptive bits will probably be a lot more concise.

I’ve also been doing a bit of painting myself, but again – not nearly as much as I’d like. There are at least three sets of three models that “should have” been done, like a week ago. Actually, I still haven’t had a chance to finalise the flocking for the final one of my own Awesome August models, so at this point I probably won’t even count it anymore…

Still, the world rolls on, and so here’s the (slightly late) October Challenge Announcement Post. As with last year, I’m going with the Orc theme, so anyone’s greenskins of any type (even if they have grey, brown, ochre, etc skin) will count, that’s across any games or models of course as long as they’re Orc-related (yeah, I’ll allow Squigs).

UPDATE: We’re now also including Orc-Slayers as part of this month’s challenge!

The other part of the challenge, which helps to make it accessable to pretty much anyone is the Neglected Models part. To summarise (since I have no energy right now), this means a model that was started more than 6 months ago but has been left to linger on the proverbial “shelf of shame”.

What’s “started”? Well, I’ll leave that up to you. Anything from “just needs a wash to be finished” to “I glued it together” works for me. The point – as always – being to help motivate people to get stuff finished that has been hanging out for too long. Nothing started that’s sat for more than 6 months? Well in that case, I firstly admire your discipline, and secondly, I’ll take something that you’ve owned for 6 months+ that you haven’t done anything to. Because I’m nice like that.

Usually, I try to comb through previous versions of the month’s challenge to add in some examples by participants, but like I said, I’ve got no energy still, so you get a few of my own Neglected and Orcish models, plucked from the photos stored here on WordPress. Don’t worry about me either, I’ll be fine in a day or three. 🙂

That’s pretty much it. If you might be interested, you’ve got a couple of days left for thinking about it before the challenge starts – though if you’re keen there’s also no reason you can’t be working on your models. Because it’s only about completing models in October. I don’t care when you started them!  😀

There’s also no special criteria as to who can or cannot participate. If you’d like to participate, then you can. Simples.

Oh, and Neglected Scenery counts as well. Because why would it not?

Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak – Berserker Zombie Abominations (Squaddie September ’19, Contrast Paint Experiment #10)

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Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak - Berserker Zombie Abominations

Lobster, anyone?

I decided some time ago that I should paint up some of the zombies from my Zombicide games, and given just how bloody many of them there are, the best place to start would be with the “hero” zombies – which pretty much means the Abominations. So I selected them from my box o’ zombies, washed them down (well, Marouda did that), and then put them in a container awaiting paint.

Then quite a few months went by. Then the Contrast Paints came out. Then at some point, I decided that these boardgame zombie models would be another good place to experiment with the Contrast paints in order to get the models done that much faster while still making an effort to make them look decent. They’re a bit crazy looking, but they’re still better than a lot of the Shadows of Brimstone models…

Zombicide Season 2: Prison Outbreak - Berserker Zombie Abominations

This time I decided to make use of them predominantly as the main method, and then use regular paints and methods for finishing and finer details. With that in mind, and the reddish plastic of the Berserkers (which also serves as an easy differentiator in the game) I went for a (cooked) crustacean kind of look to their armoured plates, using a mix of Blood Angels Red and Flesh Tearers Red, finished with gloss – with patches of pale skin mostly to add some visual interest and break up the large areas of red, even though I could have easily justified the whole of their bodies as shell/carapace. I also did their prison jumpsuits with contrast Gryph-Hound Orange mixed with Iyanden Yellow for that nice, bright look to them. I decided on three colours of hair to make identification in-game a little easier “move the blond one”, etc. The hair strands on top of their head had to be painted in, since the minis were perfectly smooth, and it looked pretty crappy. I also highlighted their spikes and claws with regular paint, as well as painting in their eyes and teeth.

They still have a “painted with washes” look to them, and the left hands are a bit rough, but overall the higher level of detail on these models works much more effectively than the recent Brimstone models I’ve used the Contrast Paints with, giving a much more effective and nicer result. I see more Contrast Paint Zombicide Zombies in my future…

Oh yeah. Three models makes for a squad by the rules of this month’s painting challenge. It also serves to illustrate a strong part of why the minimum for a squad of for 3 rather than 5 or 10. It allows people (not just me) to get boardgame models or larger wargame models that typically come in smaller unit sizes painted up and have them count.