My zombie horde
March 1, 2010For a zombie blogger and miniatures collector, I have surprisingly few painted zombies, only around 50 or so. Since I was asked to show more of my painted stuff, I figured I’d put up my horde along with some closeups of my favourites.
Here’s my “horde” in full. 50+ models don’t look like much, do they? At the moment they’re a mix of GW plastic zombies, GW plastic Catachans, Mega Miniatures, Recreational Conflict, Ral Partha and Copplestone Castings. Additionally there’s one model each from Heroquest, GW Imperial Guard, Warzone, HorrorClix, and HeroClix.
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I already showed some of my favourites in the post on GW plastic conversions, but there are others as well. Here’s a selection:
The Zombie Patient is a repaint of a HorrorClix model. It’s quite an improvement, don’t you think? Sorry for the horrible quality on the comparison original, I had to snatch it from an older pic and resize it. The promotion picture for the model was far better looking than what I received. Also note the change in lighting. White daylight bulb on the left.
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Zombie Kids are always fun and creepy. The following three are all from Mega Miniatures. The freehand on all models rather shows that I’m not really that focused on neat painting on zombies, they’re very much test pieces to try stuff on. These ended up looking nice enough for the tabletop, though.
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The Chewed Up Shambler from Recreational Conflict is a nice model. I usually give my zombies fast, rough paintjobs and it shows. Here, however, I wanted to try and paint a zombie to the standard that I use on other models, and I’m very happy with the result. If I only had the time and patience to do this on all zombies!
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The Classic is an old Grenadier mini – still available through Mirliton – from the 80s, making it probably as old young as I am. I started my gaming with Dungeons & Dragons (or actually Miekka ja Magia, the first Finnish RPG, which was basically a simplified D&D) with my big brothers, and this also introduced me to miniatures. This Frankensteiny zombie dates back to those days, and it was a moment of great nostalgy for me to paint him. The model show its age, but is still one of my favourites.
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The Neo-Nazi is a conversion based on a HeroClix thug, with a GW zombie hand and head, and the other arm cut off. Simple, characterful and effective in my opinion.
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The Rambo is a GW Catachan jungle fighter. The left leg has been cut up and repositioned and the head glued on in a zombie-ish angle. The hanging left arm adds to the effect. The right wrist that he’s missing was used in the soldier zombie conversion shown in the previous post. This model is a nice example of how simple it’s to make zombies out of other models, especially if they’re plastic. With very little work you could transform a full box of plastic troopers into zombies with limb repositioning.
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The Officer is a metal GW Imperial Guard model from the Last Chancers box set. The left hand was holding a massive weapon, so I cut the wrist off and replaced it with a plastic one from the Catachan set. The model ended up looking like it’s reaching for someone, and the bandages and torn clothing only enhance the zombie appearance. The Officer is another example of a zombie that I spent a bit more time painting as I liked the model too much to just give him a basic zombie slap-on.
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The Jogger and The Beach Bum are my own sculpts, so I naturally gave them more attention than my usual zombie fare. While the sculpts aren’t that great, I think they look very nice painted and certainly don’t look out of place in my horde. The feeling of painting metal that you’ve sculpted yourself, man that was cool.
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Click for a larger version
I’ve got plenty more to paint, and I’m slowly starting to attack my backlog. Anyway, here’s what I have managed to do so far. I’d be happy to hear your comments, as usual.
Dawn of the Lead 
That horde looks great! It has a very consistent look that my horde lacks, mostly because I have painted and based my guys in various different styles over the last 12 years or so.
“zombies, they’re very much test pieces to try stuff on”
I do that too. I try to be neat all right but like you, I tend to treat zombie figures as test beds for techniques and different colour applications. Which doesnt help with the somewhat scattered look that my guys have, that your zeds dont suffer from.
“The feeling of painting metal that you’ve sculpted yourself, man that was cool.”
🙂 Thats a really cool thing to have done. Are you planning to sculpt any more?
Its good to see some more of your painted figures.
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I’m slowly trying to get back into sculpting. Of course looking at fine sculpts for five years (I did those in 2005), I’ve become very very critical of my own work. Should probably just cut me some slack and learn by doing, in baby steps etc.
So, when’s your full horde up and photographed?
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I might be able to do it this weekend, depending on light (I dont have any proper set up for miniature photography so I have to rely on the highly erratic Irish sunshine).
I have a few zombies painted up for boardgames (Last Night on Earth, Mall of Horror) that I really need to go back and finish off properly, so they wont feature.
I played a game with 82 zombies in play about ten days ago, and there should be some photos of that going up at somestage soon. There will be some dodgy game-in-progress shots of that that will show much of the horde.
“Should probably just cut me some slack and learn by doing, in baby steps etc.”
Definitely. Fear of failure and high levels of self criticism can cripple creativity before it starts. They certainl scupper *my* sculpting efforts.
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Nice horde, Mikko! Don’t worry about it being small – these things tend to grow very fast and next thing you know, you’ll be wondering where to store them all!
I particularly like the Mega Minis zombie kids. Whilst some of the Mega Minis zeds are a bit crude I think their zombie kids are great. It was nice to see the Classic from Grenadier. I have that figure packed away with loads of my old D&D figs. I ought to dig him out. Great paintjob on him.
As one of the people asking you to show more painted figures I was delighted to see this post. Big thumbs up from me.
Finally, I’d like to compliment you on your bases. You’ve gone for a similar technique that I use and seeing them all together in your group shot it helps to unify the horde as a whole.
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Thanks for all the compliments Bryan!
Completely agree with you about Mega Minis, the kids are wonderful. The whole zombie line varies incredibly in quality overall, but there are some gems hidden in there. The crude stuff can be usually fixed with a paintjob, too. And the models just ooze character despite the sometimes a bit flawed execution.
I’m working on some WF zombie horde bases using the same basing method. We’ll see how those turn out and how they fit in with the rest of the crew. Fingers crossed!
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[…] Dawn of the Lead Zombies and Miniature Wargaming « The Undead and Philosophy – a review The Man with the Golden Brush April 19, 2010 I have been chronicling the progress of my two age-old zombie sculpts. They were first introduced in this post, then as they got cast they were paraded in two more and finally I mentioned them when detailing my own zombie horde. […]
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