Since we completed the first two of the D&D Adventure board games (Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon) recently, as well as all of the extra DLC missions for the two, it was time for something a little different. We got out Last Night on Earth and once it was open, I had a look at the models, and decided that since they’re pretty simple, I could probably paint them all in a weekend. Well, it took a week rather than a weekend, but I did complete the entire set. Our first four survivors are Billy, The Sheriff’s Son; Sally, High School Sweetheart; Jenny, The Farmer’s Daughter and Johnny, High School Quarterback. I used the photo-artwork of them on their character cards and in the rulebook as painting guides, though I changed the design on Billy’s t-shirt to something that had a chance of reading visually on such a small surface.
Sally got a bright red fire axe, since that seemed appropriate for the sort of axe that a high school student could reasonably get their hands on. Johnny was just blue tones for his denim and letter jacket, though I lightened his hair a little from the black in the artwork, since the lighter brown/blond tones offset the blues more effectively. I attempoted to add some grain to the baseball bat as well, though it’s a little hard to tell. I also painted Jenny with light brown/dark blonde hair similar to actress Catherine Bach, rather than the golden blonde hair she’s pictures as having since she seems to effectively be Daisy Duke. The Dukes of Hazzard were a little before my time in terms of watching or caring. It was sometimes on TV, but I was too young to care about the hot girl, and wasn’t really into cars – so even when it was on, I didn’t really pay attention or watch it, but I’ve got enough cultural awareness to see a Not-Daisy Duke figure when it’s in front of me (and I have to paint it!)
The second batch of survivors are: Father Joseph, Man of the Cloth; Becky, The Nurse; Sheriff Anderson, Small Town LawMan and Jake Cartwright, The Drifter. Once again I used the character artwork as my general guide, though there’s not a lot on them, really. I attempted some subtle OSL on Father Joseph, due to the flaming brand in his hand. It’s not amazing, but turned out alright – and certainly good enough for a board game model. Becky gained some forearm tattoos that you can’t really see in these photos and was my first ever attempt at painting stockings (and garter straps) as for me the “Sexy Nurse” look borne by the particular outfit that they chose to put Becky in really goes to one place….
That of course being Janine Lindemulder from the cover of Blink-182‘s seminal Enema of the State album, and the video for What’s My Age Again? (linked below!) All the painted depictions of Becky showed her with long, bare legs (and the stockings aren’t sculpted at all, or even implied), but since Janine wore stockinge in the Blink video and album photos…
Sherriff Anderson‘s outfit colours was inspired by some google image searches for Sheriff’s uniforms, and so he got the pinstripe on his legs, and the tiny star insignia freehanded on his jacket shoulders. Jake was pretty easy in comparison, basically just being scruffy and earthy!
As well as the 8 survivors, the game features two sets of seven zombies – “brown” and “green” – so if you have two Zombie players, they can tell their own zombies apart from one another.
So I painted each set in their own palette to distinguish them from one another..
And finally here’s the full set of models from Last Night on Earth – painted in a week, rather than a weekend – but time well spent, I think. Now we just need to play the actual game a little more – though this cohort of painted models also opens up the door up to playing a few other games as well…
As a first little bonus, I fllowed up by painting the “red zombies” set from the Growing Hunger expansion. They also took a week. Unfortnately, there are now even more survivors to get painted up…
As a final bonus, here’s a musical interlude for you. In the spirit of TIM and his frequent musical links, and Becky the Janine up above, here’s some late 1990’s pop-punk for you all. Enjoy!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Great work on the figures as always. Will check out the music link when I get back from walking the dog! 🙂
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Cheers mate – I have to ask – what did you think of the song, and what did you think fo the video? 😀
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I liked both but with the girl being so hot I couldn’t help but wonder if the naked guys had a reaction if you catch my drift!
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Well, they did bounce back when they saw her, but then again a magnifying glass was needed to see anything, so…
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Actually, you might like this Blink-182 video as well. Kind of a thematic visual followup…
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Great work on all, and very impressive that was all in a week. The details on all are just amazing, good call on Becky as that outfit screams kissogram rather than actual nurse
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Cheers Dave – yeah, the characters are all basically tropes (and very much deliberately so) and the specific sexy nurse uniform looks pretty much lifted from the Blink Album/Song/Video…
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All very nice and done in a week too! 🙂
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Cheers, John – shame I couldn’t follow up with the next 8 survivors, but there’s been a lot of other stuff taking my time lately. One bloody thing after another…
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Wow – great work for a week, it’s always satisfying to just power through a project like that. Good call on not-Janine, like you I thought of Blink 182 as soon as I saw Nurse Becky there (although that may be down to your painting as much me being pre-programmed by them making up a big part of the soundtrack of my youth). Good work on the stockings, from this distance I assumed they were sculpted on.
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Yeah, the best thing about doing tthem all was the start-to-finish, all-the-models-done part. of course, now with the expansions there are more zombies and more survivors and at this point that sharp, fast enthusiasm is a bit blunted.
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I know that feeling but look at it this way, the core game is done, now you’re just building on top of that. You’re not still climbing the metaphorical mountain to get the basic game painted up, anything you do now is a bonus! 🙂
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That’s true. I’ve got the red zombiers painted, and if I actually put my mind to it, I’ll have the Blue Zombies done as well. That will just leave the Purple Zombies, and the two sets of Grave Weapon Zombies. And then all the bloody suvivors. But if I cut them down to a couple at a time…
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Really nice work! You turned what I’m sure were lackluster board game sculpts into something very eye catching. These will really make your games look sharp! I always appreciate how you work pop culture into your painting too.
I was in middle school and high school when Blink 182 came out so I recognized the nurse immediately. I was already into punk by then and found Blink too pop-punk (or maybe just too popular at the time but they were one of the most successful rock bands of that era without a doubt. Do you know the band Bodyjar by any chance? I like some of their songs (strangely since they are very pop-punk) and I’m pretty sure they’re Australian or at least bigger in Oz than they ever were in the US.
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Cheers, Kuribo. I’m still pondering on what exactly I’ll do with the Skate-Goth Chick figure that came with one of the expansions. I’m sure I’ll think of something that entertains me!
I didn’t get into Blink until I went overseas for the first time in the late 1990’s. My nephew loaned me one of his sisters’ CDs for me to burn while I was loading up on music. I was vaguely aware that Blink was a pretend-punk band that seemed to mostly be for teenaged girls (I was well into my 20’s at this point, and my taste in punk had a bit of Ramones and Pistols, but generally went more towards Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra, Rollins, DOA, etc) but he told me that they’re not too bad, so I gave them a chance with The Mark, Tom and Travis show, and (possibly) Enema at the same time (or I may have bought it a biut later, or even when I was gone). I’ve been listening to them ever since!
Bodyjar – I remember them!
Local band from here in Melb, actually. I had to listen to a couple of their songs just now since I couldn’t recall much about them, and yeah, they do sound VERY pop-punk, particularly musically. You just made me think about Spiderbait, actually.
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I look forward to seeing her. I’m sure she’ll look great!
Your comments on Blink are spot on. Pseudo-Punk bands were enormously popular during that period (punk music was as popular back then as I think it has been in my lifetime too) so Blink were hardly the only ones getting in on the act. People around my age have a real fondness for them still.
I heard Bodyjar in one of the Tony Hawk games and they were a band that stuck with me for some reason. Not one of my all-time favorites but definitely good for a listen when the mood strikes. I’ve never heard of Spiderbait, I will have to give them a listen 🙂
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Well, for all of the “hating fame” stuff, Kurt basically wanted Nirvana to be a pop band, and there’s a lot of pop in their stuff, even on the less accessable albums.
if you’re interested in some different takes on alternative pop-rock, you should also check out Happyland, and then the different phases of Regurgitator (because their stuff is VERY different from album to album). A couple of my favourite local bands from the early 2000s…
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Nice blog
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Thank you!
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Lovely painting. It is such a sweet feeling to actually complete a project (notwithstanding the expansions, of course) and one that I’m sure that few gamers will have experienced.
Have you played the game yet?
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Yeah, we played it a few times back in the day, and now once since I painted the figures. Need to re-learn a lot of the rules now, and get some more games in – but we got distracted by Marvel Champions arriving in the last week.
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Great work- decent game too. Played it a couple of times.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Thanks Pete – it’s pretty fun and definitely different to Zombicide, Zombies! and so many of the other Zombie games…
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I dub the guy on the right, with the axes “IRO”!! Haha!
Nice work on these, lovely looking with the paints on them. Did you finish two whole D&D boxed games?! We’ve only gotten through the first scenario on most of those, and it always seems to take forever. Mainly because I end up having to explain all the rules and run everyone’s character for them. “Uhhh, I don’t know what to do…” “ok, give me your cards and I’ll look!” Next turn, same thing…. I’d probably be better off playing Solo!
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Hahaha that’s right? I think we saw him in one of those hats, and the pose and axes seem to fit perfectly. Good call!
The D&D games definiately took awhile to get going, but after a few games the rules became familiar enough that we could run through them pretty smoothly. We also offer ideas to each other about options of things to do without going full-backseat driver, and do the whole “hey could you go do this thing, because then I can do that thing?” thing.
oh, and those rules/phase summary cards are a must for every player!
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You probably have a more experienced group too. I’m usually teaching kids or novice players. And for whatever reason, seeing all those stats and powers can melt their brain. I guess just figure with rpg stats a part of so many video games, that there would be some exposure and they would get it easier, but not always the case.
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At this point, three months into Lockdown #2, the group is just myself and Marouda. I guess you’d consider her a semi-novice player, but repetition and frequency of play honed her ability to play the game from a trip to the dentist (for me) to the point where she could basically run the party of all 4 or even 5 characters pretty well if I needed to go to the toilet. Not as well as I could, but you know how that is! 😉
(to her credit, though – she got to the point where she’d be able to see things or strategies that I wouldn’t
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It’s only been 18 months since you posted these 😬 but I came here primarily to say these miniatures are painted fantastically! A really great job.
I’m new to Last Night on Earth and am in the same situation you were in, a metric tonne of miniatures to paint which I’ve only recently started. I’ve only ever painted about 20 miniatures so I’ve got a lot to learn.
I couldn’t help notice two things that really blew me away with your painting.
1) How did you do those great road asphalt bases?
2) How did you do Billy’s tee-shirt? I’m looking at his tee-shirt now and the surface area is about 2mm x 6mm 😮 I could probably put some very rough white blobs at that scale but I can see a skull, maybe wearing a pointy crown and some kind of banner writing below. Any tips?
Anyway, great miniatures fella.
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Thank you! I’ve still got a bunch of the expansioon heroes to wade through at some stage… I’ll probably get to them while I’m working on the Zombicide survivors I’ve got loose and waiting. And yeah, you got Billy’s T-Shirt perfectly, which is pretty cool for me because it means it visually reads as intended. 😀
OK, answers:
Bases:
1) Base coated them with Woodland Scenics Top Coat Asphalt (you can use any dark grey).
2) Stippled on a lighter (mid) grey with an old, mangled brush.
3) carefully painted on the road lines using unthinned paint and a fine brush – kinda dragging it across the bases so it doesn’t cover all of the base fully – think drawing lightly on ashphalt or concrete with chalk.
4) carefully square those off/even the lines out with the original dark grey.
5) wash with a 1:1:1 mix of black wash, dark brown wash and medium/thinner
T-Shirt:
Windsor & Newton Series 7 brush and a few decades of practice. Freehand is kinda my thing that I excel at more than anything else, but I’d practice on junk models (zombie clothing!) and just start with simple things like geometric shapes – start with (say) the back of a red jacket/shirt. Paint a white square on it, which will be pretty blobby (even for me – it’s paint!) Then go around the edges of the square with the same red, and you should end up with a nice, sharp-edged square.
An upper skull is basically a circle overlapping a square, with two roundish blobs for eyes, a smalled inverted V for the nose, and veeeeery thin lines to pick out the teeth..
You might also like to check out a coupe of my zombicide posts that mostly use the same principles for the shirt designs…
You’ve got me thingking… maybe I should do a starter tutorial post on this stuff…
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Thank you so much for the reply to my message. Wow, those Zombicide miniatures are on another level!
I’ve owned two Zombicides, the original Season 1 modern and Night of the Living Dead and sold them both on (regretting it a little) and still the game keeps calling to me. Your great miniatures are intensifying my FOMO 😂
Definitely going to give the road surface look a go. I painted my plain zombies for LNoE all sorts of colours, rather than team green, brown and red, with a plan to paint the bases black with a suitably-coloured strip around the edge. I’m in the middle of painting them all now and I’ve got the black bases painted; just needs the coloured strip.
Like you, I have a heap of expansions staring down at me wanting to be painted 😅
The tips for the tee shirt are really helpful. All I need now is a few decades worth of practise and I’m there 😂 I’ve got plenty of miniatures to practise on!
I did actually go looking for a YouTube channel as I was convinced you must have posted something tutorial-wise on there for your techniques. Seriously you should do it. You’ll have one subscriber straight off the bat! 😂
Anyway, thanks for listening. I’ve got Zeds to paint. If you do post a tutorial I’ve got email notifications of new posts turned on so I won’t miss it 😁
All the best.
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Welcome, mate! There’s always the 2nd edition that I think is out at retail now, and they’re apparently doing a straight-to-retail Army of the Dead verison later this year.
https://cmon.com/news/cmon-raising-netflix-s-army-of-the-dead-on-tabletop
Having them with team-base rims works – I went with the overall clothing colour since I was already doing similar with my Zombicide special infected models. Wondering now if I should paint my Night of the Living Dead models in B&W tones (and needing to figure out how to pull that off!). Not sure if I’ll end up doing a video tute, but some form is definitely on the cards – maybe during the Eater break I can put it together. Still need to finish off the WWII Afrika Korps Armour one…
Hope you enjoy the latest post – some more Zombies went up this evening!
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