1/72 Zombies step-by-step Pt. 3: Zombies complete!

(Update: New camera, new photos!) Zombies are finally complete! Part 1 of this tutorial covered modding figures to make 1/72 zombies, part 2 covered actual painting, and this part will cover finishing touches, including the "magic dip" method for adding outlines and shadows.

IMPORTANT UPDATE (10/2013)!: After using this method on several miniatures, I've concluded that the solvent used in the Minwax dip is reactive to certain kinds of plastic, creating a sticky sheen that matte spray can't kill or contain. This includes the softer plastic used in Caesar Miniatures and Twilight Creations minis used here, plus the material used in Reaper Bones. The Italeri minis used for these zombies seems unaffected, as does the harder plastic used in Warhammer, Arcane Legions, Age of Mythology, and strangely, the soft plastic used by Hat.

I can't really recommend this method anymore. If you still want to use it, make sure it's on plastic that won't react by testing first, or find a way to seal the plastic before dipping (primer and paint isn't sufficient). I brushed on a coat of Pledge Floor Care Multisurface Finish (aka Future Shine) on all my affected minis, and it seems to have alleviated the problem significantly; it may also be enough of a seal to protect minis from The Dip.

1. The first step is to finish the bases. I just paint them with a couple coats of flat black paint. I don't like anything more detailed, preferring as neutral a base as I can so I can feasibly use these figures for a number of scenarios. If I added static grass, for example, they would look strange in an indoor dungeoncrawl.

2. The eponymous "dip" is this stuff: Minwax Polyshades, Classic Black Satin finish. It's wood stain and finish in one.  The figure is mounted here on a battery-powered drill: this is another reason I glue my minis to nails when painting. Some people prefer the control of painting the "dip" onto their figures, but as I find one needs to wipe the dip off no matter what, I like actually dunking the figures in the dip

3. I do this with a box nearby and plenty of paper towels on hand. I open the can, dip the mini while holding the drill, then immediately hold it over the box and spin the drill, to shake off most of the excess dip. Be sure to do this in a well-ventilated area, and to put the lid back on the can when you aren't using it to minimize exposure to fumes.

4. After it's dipped, you'll need to remove even more excess dip. Blowing on the mini while it's in the box will get rid of the globs that tend to accumulate between arms and legs, and a paper towel will soak any dip that pools in the neck and other places. Dab if you want to reduce the amount of dip, and wipe if you want to remove most of it. By the way, your minis usually won't turn out this dark: I have a problem with too-thick dip that I'll need to solve.

5. Give the dip at least a full day to dry (IMPORTANT UPDATE: I've since learned that 3 or 4 days at least is necessary for the dip to dry, or it will eventually turn sticky). Even with the satin finish instead of the gloss, the dip looks way too shiny for most minis. A matte spray will solve this problem, and will also provide another layer of protection. Do this outside on a fairly warm day with fairly low humidity, and be sure to rotate the figures and spray as much of them as you can.

6. Give the matte around an hour to dry: You'll see that it kills the shine and also gets rid of a lot of the blobbiness the dip leaves. At this point you can simply pry the minis off the nail head, and they're mostly ready to go (the nails are reusable). You may want to use a hobby knife or emory board to get rid of any excess glue or paint that accumulated around the nail head on the bottom of the miniature, so it will rest flat on the table.

I hope this tutorial was helpful to at least some of you. As I mentioned, I'm concerned by how dark and splotchy the dip is leaving my figures lately. It's a decent effect for zombies, but I used to get a much cleaner look from this method. I think the problem is that I was lazy about fully sealing the can of dip when I was done with it, which allowed for a degree of evaporation that has now left the dip too thick. I need to figure out a way to thin it with something that won't eat my plastic figures. I'd welcome any suggestions!

Sven's bad day, part 2.

1/72 Zombies step-by-step Pt. 2: Painting

Last time, we performed some simple head swaps to create the Unpainted Undead.

Now let's get them looking a little less unpainted and a little more undead. These are some pretty basic tips here, as my painting doesn't involve much fancy technique, but everyone needs to learn the basics some time.

1.) The first step is to wash the figures with a mix of dish detergent and water, scrubbing with an old toothbrush. This cleans off the mold release agent miniature makers use, which can keep paint from sticking.

2. Next, I superglued the minis to their base, here a 3/4" fender washer. Usually the base that's molded with the figure will cover the hole in the washer, so I don't usually bother with more complicated basing. I then glued the washer to a framing nail, so the mini can easily be handled or kept in a styrofoam block when not in use.

3. I then sprayed the miniatures outside with a white plastic primer. You need a fairly warm, fairly low-humidity day to do this, or the primer won't stick or dry correctly. I make sure to rotate the figures so I cover as much as I can. I'm not totally sold on Krylon as a primer, but it provides a bright, fairly even palette that along with washing the minis will ensure the paint sticks.

4. One impulsive modification I made was to hack at the zombie bodies with a hobby knife, so they looked a little less like the healthy barbarians they originally were and more like the decomposing undead monsters they are. I painted these areas first. If I was smart, I would have also painted the teeth and eyes at the time.

5. Instead, I started painting the fleshtones, here a livid blue. It's a little bolder than what's probably realistic (for the walking dead, that is), but I like my hordes to have a distinct, consistent color scheme, and I hadn't painted a blue army yet. You can see that since the wounds are a layer beneath the zombie skin, it makes it easier to paint the skin over and around the wounds than the other way around. This is also why it would have worked better to paint the eyes and teeth first.

6. Here are the eyes and teeth painted in. I typically need at least two coats of paint to cover, so it wasn't that big a deal to repaint the flesh around the eyes and teeth once they were colored. I usually don't bother painting facial details, but the mouths on these minis are very obvious, and I thought the yellow eyes would give some zing to what would otherwise be a very unlively (heh) color scheme.

7. And here's our undead friend with all the color on him. I could have showed more steps, but I basically just blockpainted the zombie's clothes, with a little bit of drybrushing (painting raised areas with a brush with most of the paint wiped off) to bring out the details on the scabbard. Most of the paint I use is Delta Ceramcoat, a craft paint sold in stores like Hobby Lobby, along with some even cheaper brands. If I used tricks like outlining or wet-blending, I'd probably use paint specifically blended for miniature painting, but the cheaper paints are just fine for my purposes.

As far as I'm concerned, the zombies are painted, but not complete. The final steps will take the figures away from their current flat, plastic look into something with a little more definition and detail. Hopefully these will be done by the end of the week (update: zombies are complete!); otherwise they'll be delayed just a bit. Either way, I'm please with how my zombies are looking so far.

World of Warcraft board game minis

Update: The Miniature Market sale is over, but I have a few of these minis for sale on eBay.

Miniature Market is offering its annual Spring Cleaning sale through May 17th 2013, with an additional 20% off all clearance items. I noticed that one such item was the Burning Crusade expansion for the World of Warcraft board game from Fantasy Flight, which is a trove of dozens of great plastic fantasy minis. Unfortunately, they seem to have since sold out, but you can find the expansion elsewhere (Amazon affiliates, for example) for under $30, which is still a fantastic deal.

Anyway, the sale made me think of the WoW board game minis I already have. The figures are 28mm, but a lot of them work surprisingly well in 1/72 scale. There was a time where you could get a lot of figures for the original game on eBay, but that seems to be less commonplace now. Still, the Burning Crusade expansion has one of each of the minis from the original game in purple plastic, so they can still be had.

The first set of photos are figures from the original World of Warcraft game, but again, they can also be had in the expansion. First, a couple of gnolls, a ghoul, and a murloc. I wish I had got more murlocs when they were available, as they make great human-sized fish-monsters in 1/72. The gnolls are arguably a bit oversized (MageKnight gnolls are a better fit, apparently), but gnolls are supposed to be a bit on the tall side. I plan on doing weapon swaps with some Warhammer skaven bits, like I did with the blue gnoll.

An ogre, a large demon Wrath Guard, and a Wildkin. The latter will make a perfect owlbear once I trim the antlers.

An Infernal, which will make a fine earth elemental, and a Drake, which is WoW-speak for dragon, I suppose. I like the poses on these: the Infernal gives the sense of how a giant rock monster would stomp toward you, and the Drake looks like it's regarding a smaller foe in irritation.

Or perhaps like it has just spilled mustard on its favorite shirt. "Dang, I just had this dry-cleaned!"

This next set of photos are of minis that are only in the Burning Crusade set. Here's a Yeti and a Fungal Giant, which is suitable for many sorts of giant monstrous creatures, fungal or otherwise.

Last, a Ravager, a giant undead Abomination, and an Ooze. The Ravager makes a nice generically Lovecraftian or demonic monster. I may want to modify the ooze so it doesn't have a face or arrows coming out of it, but as most ooze minis are pretty expensive, considering they're just amorphous lumps, I was glad to find it.

These are just some of my favorite minis from the World of Warcraft Burning Crusade expansion. It literally has several pounds of plastic minis, and if you can find it at the right price, it's well worth obtaining, even if you never play the game.

Skeletons!

I promised an undead horde of some sort or another. Zombies will come later, but I started painting these guys and wanted to finish them. They're Caesar Miniatures undead figures, with just a few simple mods.

They're a little grimier than I would have liked. I use a battery-powered drill to shake off the excess dip I use for shading, and when it's not fully charged, it doesn't quite do the job. Still, they're supposed to be mouldering skeletal guardians of the ancient sort, so I shouldn't complain.

Other than that, they were pretty fun and easy to paint. Since they're mostly old bones, it was just a matter of spreading enough dull yellow paint around most of the minis, then taking care of the little details.

Sven's bad day, part one.

Using D&D Minis in 1/72 scale

Like my recent post on Reaper Bones minis, this post is about adapting common gaming minis in a larger scale to 1/72 scale, the preferred scale of this blog. As with the Bones, D&D minis are a little bit more expensive than what you'd pay for true 1/72 scale plastic minis, but they are useful for adding character and monster types that are otherwise unavailable in the smaller scale. Even so, most of these figures cost me less than a buck a piece (I've marked the figures that cost more than a dollar with a $ symbol).

The tricks here are the same as with other large minis: use smaller humanoids as human-sized minis in the smaller scale, and use large monsters in the same way you'd use them in a larger scale. The painted minis are collectible minis from the D&D Miniatures game, while most of the unpainted ones are from the various D&D board games that Wizards of the Coast recently produced.

Here are Klak the kobold sorcerer, playing the part of a 1/72 lizardman; an Air Mephit$, a Female Halfling Cleric$, a Halfling Sneak, Tomble Burrowell$ from the Descent boardgame by Fantasy Flight games,  and a Mephling Pyromancer. This last was a bit of a disappointment: I bought four, hoping for a squad of 1/72 devil legionnaires, but they're a bit too small and slight for that purpose. I may adapt them as halflings, or see if I can do a head swap to give a devilish head to a larger miniature. The cleric and the Descent figure are also a bit small, but believably human in the smaller scale.

A Grell, a Giant Snake, a Cave Bear, a Gibbering Mouther, and a Grick. The Grell looks a bit oversized, but the rest of these monsters look great next to Sven the comparison viking.

Finally, some swarms: a spider swarm and a rat swarm, with a Reaper Bones scarab swarm to Sven's left.

Update: a few more D&D miniatures: a female Halfling Paladin$, a Halfling Enchanter$, and a Halfling Wizard$. This last one surprised me in that it looks like a halfling even in 1/72 scale. Between it and the Mephling Pyromancer discussed above, I'm wondering if there are other D&D minis that would make suitable 1/72 scale halflings.

Kobolds completed

I finished painting my kobolds, my most recent project.

Sorry they look a little washed out. They're Reaper Bones, with some modifications (see here for more). They're shown here with Sven the comparison viking and Mullog the comparison goblin. The ones that stand upright look perhaps a little too tall, but all in all they work great for 1/72 fantasy. I'm hoping Reaper releases some of Ben Siens' other kobold sculpts in Bones plastic to round out my cheap kobold army.

Goblins vs. kobolds! Who will emerge the ankle-biting nuisance monster extraordinaire?

Zombies step-by-step Pt.1: Head swaps

Update: Be sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3 of this tutorial: Part 3 shows the final figures. Also, I should add that I adopted from Paul's "Head swop" guide for this technique, so thanks to him!

I'm getting ready to start my next project, so I figure I should put together a step-by-step guide for putting together and painting miniatures the Cheap Fantasy Minis way. I haven't painted any undead yet, and zombies are the obvious choice. Surprisingly there aren't many generic zombies available in 1/72 scale, but that's where this tutorial comes in. By cleverly chopping up and reassembling existing figures, you can have a miniature shambling horde in no time.

1. Necessary materials include a hobby knife, super glue, a pin vise with a very thin bit, a pushpin with a round head, a suitable miniature for the body (here, a tan Italeri barbarian), another for the head (a gray Caesar Miniatures skeleton), and a pair of needlenosed pliers with wirecutters. I've already separated the heads and bodies with the knife: When doing so, keep as much of the neck on the head as you can, and remove as much of the neck from the body as possible.

2. Take the pin vise and drill a hole in the center of where the neck was on the body figure. Obviously you don't want to drill all the way through the body, but you can go deeper than you'd think. The deeper you can go, the more secure the bond between the new head and body.

3. Position the head in the pliers as show, upside down with the neck pointing up.

4. Carefully drill all the way through the head with the pin vise. Start slow, and make sure you don't continue drilling through your workbench.

5. Add a little super glue to the hole in the body. Remove the head from the pin vise, impale the head with the pin from the top down, and push the pushpin through the top of the head in the hole you just made, as shown. Push the pin as far down as you can, hopefully just a little deeper than you drilled.

6. Once you can't push anymore, slide the head down to the neck and push it so the glue contacts both the head and body. Push and hold in place for about 30 seconds so the glue sets.

7. Use the wirecutters in the pliers to trim as much of the exposed pin as you can. A little bit will still be sticking out: Push on this proud remnant with the flat part of the pliers until the pin is completely inside the figure. You have to push pretty hard, but be careful not to damage the figure. Hold on tight near the head, and you should be fine.

8. Add a little more super glue in the hole on the top of the head. Once the super glue dries, you can apply some wood glue with a toothpick to any rough areas where the two parts of the new figure have gaps or otherwise don't quite match up.

And that's how it's done! Here's Sven confronting the Unpainted Undead, which was assembled in much the same way as described above. The light gray heads are figures from Twilight Creations' Zombies!!! game. The dark gray figures are the same Caesar Miniatures skeleton that I got the skullhead from. I may bend some of their limbs into different positions and use wood glue to make their bony limbs look a little more fleshy.

Next, prep and painting, probably in several weeks. I'll keep blogging in the meantime.