Zombie Weekend! (shameless plug)

In the couple of years since I started this blog I've never advertised anything, but something's coming up which I'm getting involved in and is very close to my heart: Zombie Weekend!

 

Located near Stafford in the UK, this is going to be a weekend event taking place on the 11th/12th of May.  For a mere £80 you can get yourself a ticket to set up camp for the weekend, and enjoy live music, food, a bar and a fantastic atmosphere! Am I missing anything? ...ah yes, the campsite is zombie infested!  Over the course of the weekend you'll be trying to survive the undead onslaught, and there will be prizes up for grabs for those who can make it through!  Oh and if the zombies get you then you even have the chance to go under the makeup brush and re-emerge as one of the walking dead and prey on your friends!

 

How am I getting involved?  Well as another feather in my zombie cap, I'm going to be one of the walking corpses out to hunt down the survivors from the start of the weekend.  I will be shambling, I will be groaning, and I will show no mercy!  So if any of my UK readers think this sounds like a great way to spend a weekend, or if you think you'll know someone else who'll think this, then all of the booking details are on the above poster.  The more people who turn up, the better tha atmosphere will be (and the more people I'll have to hunt down).

 

Spread the word!

The Kirai Crew Is Complete (for now)

And again a quick entry with one more photo update for my Malifaux crew...

The final model from the Kirai boxset, Datsue-Ba, is now complete.  When I first started on this one I wasn't really looking forward to it, but I ended up really enjoying this paint job.  I think I'd forgotten just how much I enjoy working with browns.

So now the boxset and the two additional Seishin are fully painted!  On tuesday I pick up the Lost Love totem, another 2 Seishin, 2 Gaki and a Shikome (together with scenic bases for them all) so that'll keep my painting table busy for another week or two! And then the crew will actually be complete.

 

I had my first game on Saturday as well, and it was a hell of a lot of fun, far more so than Warhammer/40k ever were, but I'll blog about the gameplay another time.  Right now I'm late for Scrabble...



One more model...

Another very brief entry with a quick update on the Kirai crew.  With two models left from the boxset yesterday I set the task of getting them both finished so I could take a break from painting this weekend (having spent a few solid days doing nothing but!).  However I ended up getting happily distracted and only ended up half-painting my second Onryo, leaving Datsue-Ba completely untouched.

Well I'm going in for my Malifaux tutorial game today so no time to paint Datsue-Ba, but I did get up early to finish the Onryo before heading out...

If I'm honest, I'm not as happy with this one as I was with the first Onryo. Maybe it's because I was distracted, or maybe I've burned myself out painting so much in the last few days. Either way, this isn't my best work by a very long shot, but it should be fine on a tabletop.

So now I'm off for my tutorial. I could paint Datsue-Ba when I get home, but I think I'll take a break from models for the rest of the weekend, and just watch Game of Thrones and play Tomb Raider instead :) I should be getting my Gaki and Lost Love on Tuesday, so starting Wednesday evening I can have another painting frenzy.



The crew takes shape...

Just a brief entry today, with more photo updates from the Kirai Ankoku crew from Malifaux.  I've been painting for just about 6 hours, but that's including some quite long breaks, and have another two fully painted models ready to take to the tabletop.

First of all Ikiryo. This took just over 2 hours to paint, and once again I'm happy overall with the result.

And secondly another Seishin.  I'm extremely happy with this guy, and with one Seishin left to paint I hope I can replicate the job done here.

 

So my task for this evening is to paint that third Seishin, and maybe even do Datsue-Ba or one of the two Onryo.  Then tomorrow I'm actually getting a tutorial in how to play the game, so hopefully my little crew will do me proud!



Early evening edit! Seishin #3 is now complete!

 

Further (very early morning) edit!  I managed to get one of my Onryo painted tonight as well. I'm getting quicker, this one clocked in at 1hr 45mins :)



 

Hobby decision reached!

As a follow on from my previous entry regarding my entry into the world of Malifaux, I have made my choice regarding my first crew.  Well actually I made the choice yesterday, But I haven't had the chance to blog since then.

Kirai Ankoku won by a hair's breadth. I'm sure I will pick up Nicodem in due course (zombies FTW!), but right now the japanese spirits won for the fact they look amazing, and the fact that Nicodem requires an entire legion of zombies to be painted.  So yesterday I picked up the box above, plus an extra pair of Seishin.  I've also ordered Kirai's Lost Love totem and a pair of Gaki to round off the crew in the meantime.  On top of those I also splashed out on Vanessa and the alternate models of Nicodem and Lady Justice - these three just to go in the display cabinet and look awesome.

So yesterday was spent assembling and basecoating the models, and today I made a start with the painting!

You'll have to forgive the poor photography, it's the best my phone could manage and sadly doesn't do justice to the highlights.  I started with my Kirai model.  It's been about a year since I last painted, so I wasn't sure whether to start with my crew's Master or sharpen my skills on a less important model.  In the end I made the decision to start with the most important piece, so I didn't feel I wash rushing myself.  This took roughly 5 hours to paint in a single sitting, which by my standards is pretty good.  The oranges and blues are colours I haven't worked with before so I'll probably learn to do better, but right now I'm happy with the way she's turned out.

Once she was finished I wanted to keep the momentum going, but without starting another 5 hour model!  So seeing as I have 3 Seishin to paint and they're fairly basic, I decided to wind down by painting one of them.  Once again the blue was an unfamilir colour, but with a nice big area to work on I just kept lightening and layering until I had something I was happy with.  This guy took me roughly 2 hours, and once again I was very happy with the result.

Tomorrow I'm aiming to do Ikiryo (Kirai's spirit), and the other two Seishin, which will leave me with Datsue-Ba and the two Onryo to paint over the weekend. Then next week I'll pick up the rest of the crew and get them all painted.  I'll probably need more Gaki and Seishin, but these should be enough to get me started with the hobby.

 

So there's my crew choice!  Expect more photos to follow shortly!

 

 



A new hobby

I have a new project/hobby! And there's nothing I love quite the same as a new project.

 

This weekend saw my birthday, and I have a tradition of always booking off the week surrounding my birthday.  This year it fell on a Sunday, so I booked the following week off, meaning I'm at home with a strict course of R&R for the next 7 days!  I've got season 2 of Game of Thrones and season 1 of The Borgias to watch, Volume 3 of the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files to read, and Tomb Raider, Assassins Creed Brotherhood, Revelations and III to play.  But I don't want to spend the entire week sat in front of the TV so I have something else to occupy my time.

 

MALIFAUX! :)

I used to play Warhammer 40,000 quite frequently, but drifted off when it became too expensive to keep up with new models and updated rule books.  I was always a slow painter anyway, and having a completely painted battleforce always eluded me.  I don't regret ever taking it up, as I still love the lore (as has been mentioned before), and I have a display cabinet full of beautifully painted miniatures, so getting back into the world of tabletop gaming seemed to be inevitable.

The beauty of Malifaux (as well as the wonderful steampunk style and fantastic universe in which it's set) is that it's very much a skirmish game.  Rather than opposing armies taking to the field of battle, small gangs engage eachother from city streets to sewers.  Even I can paint a team of 6 models!

As a zombie fan I'm leaning heavily towards the Resurrectionist faction as I pick my first gang, and I have it narrowed down to a shortlist of three:

Oh and the other beauty of this new hobby? It hasn't cost me a penny :) The rulebook and card deck were both birthday gifts from my friends Kayleigh and Dan, and when I choose my gang that'll be a gift off my friend Martin.  All I need is to dig out my old modelling/painting tools, buy a new tube of glue, and I've got myself a painting project for the week.  I'm going to make my gang decision tomorrow (as well as buy a few models which won't fit into my gang but will make beautiful display pieces), and then on Wednesday I'll get to work!

 

So expect more Malifaux updates in the near future!