Sunday 12 October 2014

Zombicide Zombies - Season 1 Runners 02

Today I want to show you my eight Zombicide season 1 Runner zombies that I have converted. These are, for the most part, simple conversions.
The first two zombies in line (going from left to right) have had leg and body swaps with the shorts-wearing zombies shown below in the last two photos. All four of these Runners have the same upper bodies. Doing a leg swap seemed an obvious thing to do. Fortunately, Zombicide figures are made of a hard plastic, so it is very easy to cut them with a craft knife. I cut the figures at the waist. In order to get a good join between upper body and legs I used a pin drill to drill a very small hole in the centre of the flat surfaces of both parts. I pinned the two halves of the body in place with a small length of wire (actually cut from a paper clip) and I used superglue to glue the two halves together. I added a small amount of Milliput to cover up the slight gaps between the two parts. The upper body parts were posed slightly differently. The one at the far left is facing front, whilst the second one is twisted a bit further to his right. To help further differentiate between the two, I painted one as an African/American and the other as a Caucasian.
The third zombie in line has had his right arm cut off. I added a bit of Milliput to the stump to show the bone sticking through. I also added a small amount of Milliput to his head to cover his baldness. Underneath the right foot of each figure is a small tab which helps raise that leg from the ground. These tabs have been hidden by my basing materials (sand and cat litter). However, for the fourth Runner in line, I cut away this tab and glued his foot directly to the base. This had the effect of making him lean forward slightly more than the others. It is not a very noticeable conversion from my photos. So in order to show that he was a conversion I gave him long hair with a small blob of Milliput sculpted into shape on his head.
On this second batch of zombie Runners I simply replicated the conversions I did for the first four. So, to start off with, we have two more figures who have had body and leg swaps. The technique was exactly as before. Once again, the bodies have been posed slightly differently upon the legs.
The third Runner in line from the left has had his right arm cut off. My Fatty zombie chef (shown last time) ended up with his arm. Once again, I added a bit of Milliput to the arm stump to show this was not a clean cut and to show the bone. The fourth Runner in line also had the tab raising his right foot cut away and I glued his foot to the base with superglue. From my photos, especially the one above, you can see his pose is much lower to the ground than the other three. He looked to be a lot faster than the other Runners so I painted him with dark skin like a zombified Usain Bolt.

22 comments:

  1. Great post (once again) and love how you've made just the odd tweak here and there in order to produce a different looking piece. Very brutal the way you're chopping models in half and lopping off an arm here and there :-) I'd be interested in what paints you use for the skins of your zombies as they look very good and grey, and as you point it, its easy to identify a non-Caucasian zombie - something I'm not very good at doing myself.

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    1. Thanks, Blaxkleric. I'm a big fan of the Foundry paint system. Regarding the painting of flesh tones, the majority of my zombies are given a base-coat of Foundry Granite shade 31A. This is followed by an ink-wash of Citadel Nuln Oil (black ink). I then give the models successive dry brushes with Foundry Granite 31B, Foundry Granite Light 31C, Foundry Slate Grey Light 32C and finally, Foundry Arctic Grey Shade 33A. That sounds like a lot of work but dry-bushing can be done very quickly and dries almost as soon it goes on, so you can set up a production line if you're painting batches in one go. For African/American zombies I omit the last two dry-brushing stages and instead give them a Citadel Agrax Earthshade ink wash. I hope that helps.

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    2. Helps enormously thanks. I'm just trying to paint up Solomon Grundy for Zomtober and just can't get the undead wash mixture for his grey skin right. I'll give it a go using your method but with Vallejo (as I don't own Foundry). Thanks for the fast response :-)

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  2. Looking good my friend, looking very good. Perhaps I should do some more Cardio (rule 1).

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    1. Thanks, Clint. I should certainly exercise more.

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  3. Nice conversions Bryan they look excellent and love there paint schemes as well.

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  4. For some reason, I cannot now get the idea of "marathon zombies" out of my head. Imagine if long-distance runners were infected and were chasing you - they might not be fast enough to catch you over 100 yards, but I (for one) would probably drop of exhaustion and be caught before the full 26 miles!

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  5. Your a braver man than me Bryan.
    Brutally cleaving zombies in two just to convert them. They are very good conversions though, because they don't look like conversions.
    Nice paint too Dude!

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    1. Many thanks, Bob. Cutting some in half just seemed like such an obvious thing to do for me.

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  6. great idea on the body swap and love the choice of colours Bryan!

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    1. Thanks, Adam. I'm really happy with these guys.

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  7. I agree with Zabadak ... sometimes the simplest solutions yield the best results. Nice work!

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    1. I completely agree with you, FEM. And thanks as well.

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  8. Those are great Bryan, the leg swap works really well - especially on the second batch.

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    1. Thanks, Mathyoo. I agree - the leg swaps have worked out very well.

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  9. Love those conversions very subtle and very well done.

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