Category Archives: General

It’s Bloggerin’ Time!

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Now that I’m (briefly) getting a chance to catch my breath before work goes into mental overdrive as we plummet to the end of the year, I’m trying to sort out and catch up on a few things. yes, the Community Challenge roundups for the last three months are now in process, I need to clean up the War Room (again) so I can take some Army-In-Progress Photos like I planned to but didn’t do for Army August, I continue to unfuck my blog from the stink of Photobucket (All my old Zombicide Posts are now Free! – Go Check ’em Out if you’re interested!)

I mean, I don’t mind paying for a service, but I won’t be extorted, so you know, fuck em.

Anyway, I also want to clean up some of the blog links I have, and obviously I need to remove the dead links, and the ones to blogs that haven’t been maintained for many months or even years now, and those whose bloggers have disappeared from the face of the planet entirely.

I also intend to remove those blogs that I don’t have any interaction with, and whose authors don’t have any interaction at all with this blog. Unfortunately, the WordPress/Blogspot divide does cause a rift between the communities (and I hate the lack of a simple “like” option for Blogspot) but such as it is, that there are many bloggers based on one side of the fence who make an effort on the other. So it is what it is, but I see little point in linking on my page here to bloggers who don’t interact here or with myself. Unless, you know, I’m keeping the link there for my own reference.

The upside of this, and the reason I’m posting this instead of just getting shit done behind the scenes like we all usually do – is that I figure it’s also time to update those blog links. So if you’re someone who is a part of this community, don’t already appear on my blog links on the sidebar, and would like me to add you, then let me know. I’d also ask that you add a link to this blog on your own. If you’re already on the sidebar, it’d be cool if you could add me if you haven’t already. Oh, and I’m also happy to add links to people in the book review circle that us painting/gaming geeks have crossed over with.

Obviously any of you who wish to update your own links with one another can thrash (or thresh) that out with one another in the comments here or anywhere else you’d like to.

Reaper 50153: Berkeley, Zombie Survivor

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Reaper Miniatures 50153 Berkeley Zombie Survivor

A kind of random model today. This was one that Marouda and I picked up from a gaming store a few years ago because it looked cool on the peg. Then it naturally sat around for a long time, before evventually being opened, started, and Neglected for …I dunno. A couple of years?

Anyhow, I found it recently, and so stuck it amongst the masses of models on the painting desk, and there, it stood. Still neglected as I worked on other models. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t feeling much on the models I was working on, so I asked Marouda to pick out a couple of models for me to finish from anything on the table (with the caveat that I can always say “nope, not painting that one right now” if I don’t like the choices). The two that she picked were Berkeley, and one other model that’s still WIP.

Reaper Miniatures 50153 Berkeley Zombie Survivor

Pretty straightforward model, all things considered. I went for a nice triad of main colours with red for the hair, white for the top and blue for her jeans. A couple of shades of brown for her other kit for a more realistic overall look compared to a lot of the Warhammer stuff. In particular, I’m really happy with how her jeans came out (especially in hand). I was in two minds about adding tattoos, since the model’s arms are really fine, and I didn’t want to muddy them up. On the other hand, she looks like she’d have some ink, so I compromised and kept it to a couple of really subtle, part-hidden ones on her person. I wanted the chainsaw to be realistic, and wanted to go for orange for the plastic casing rather than use red or yellow. That’s also where I used some Contrast paint as well with thinned Gryph-Hound Orange over VMC Light Orange. For me, this is how I see the most use of Contrast paints working for me. After I was happy with the orange, I had to figure out something to do with the chain cover, since the plain off-white looked boring, so it was google time to find a brand that fit, since the names I’d most likely use have their own standard colours (Stanley uses Yellow, Bosch uses green.. that sort of thing). I found Echo, and they also use a font that I was able to reasonably replicate at that scale, so that’s where the branding came from.

It wasn’t until the model was completed that I actually noticed that the long strip of torn denim hanging from her leg to the ground that kept annoying me was in fact, a dismembered zombie hand. At that point I wasn’t willing to clip it off and have to repaint the mess it’d make of part of her jeans, so yeah. Long strip of ripped denim. Just unsee it! 😉