April 13, 2013

RAFM Zombie Horde Box Set Painted

Well folks, with all the zombies out there in games, on TV and in the popular media these days, you'd think I would have painted dozens of them by now. Amazingly enough however these are my first but I'm pretty sure there are going to be hordes more of them! (Ha ha, see what I did there?)

Here's my work with a box of RAFM zombies I bought late last summer at Sentry Box for $30. There were ten in the box, and I admit to being a little annoyed at getting duplicates of two of the figures inside. A little creative painting though and hopefully they won't be too obvious among a mass of undead flesh eaters.

Congratulations, you've just had twins...twice!

The lone female in the set is massive in stature. If she were standing upright she'd tower over top of the rest of the figures, and that right arm is almost as long as she is tall. The gore and wounds on her are well sculpted, but do think that she's rather over the top (as are her 'endowments'). Sadly, this figure is also the only female zombie I have in my collection. Are undead dudes just that much easier to sculpt than women?!

Greta the Amazombie

Each of these figures has some nice touches and characterful bits to make them unique, but they were obviously sculpted by different hands at different times so that is a strike against them. The price (in retrospect) was also a little high, as $3/figure is decent, but the sculpts are also only that. If they were all different figures I'd probably complain far less.

I particularly liked the chubby guy with glasses because it reminded me of my dad. Not that I think my dad is a zombie of course, but the resemblance was still there! I tried doing up a plaid pattern on the shirt, green over grey with a square of turquoise at each intersection. It turned out great, and now it's totally zombie-dad. Urgh...

"Dad is that you?!"

All of the figures were first painted with P3 Thrall Flesh for their skin. Clothing was painted on next on a figure by figure basis. I didn't have a plan before I started...I was just going with what seemed to fit the models. The internal organs, blood and exposed muscles were painted with some GW Red Gore and a few touches of P3 Carnal Pink. The bones were hit with GW Bleached Bone and an occasional touch of Skull White. After that was all done I used some Army Painter Soft Tone Quickshade to finish them off.

Sad, lonely, unloved, undead

This was my first time using the Quickshade varnish. I used the splash-on method, which takes some time and care to not over-apply. In a few cases I did leave a little too much. I'm also not sure that I like the colour of the soft tone. It's a rather gritty, dirty brown. That said it does work pretty well for zombies but I'd be cautious with using it for other figures, especially anything white or yellow that you want to stay bright.

Additionally, I think that the Quickshade isn't much of a time saver on small batches of figures. Doubly so considering that I had to apply two coats of brush-on AP anti-shine matt varnish to cut the gloss afterwards. They turned out well enough, but I don't know that I would repeat this process again unless doing the same number of figures or more in a single batch. And then, dipping and matt spray would be way faster of course!

Run, don't walk, to your nearest evacuation center!

What do you think?

7 comments:

Simon Quinton said...

They are quite nice figures. Look very good together in a group and the different colours change they're appearance nicely.

Obsidian3D said...

Thanks very much. I'm happy enough with them and I'm looking forward to adding more flesh eaters to my zombie horde. There are more on the way.

Unknown said...

Quite the horde you have going there!
The painting looks good. The painted twins will definitely blend into the masses. Have you tried reposing the duplicates?

Obsidian3D said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
10x28mm said...

That dude with the boom box... isn't that an old Vampire (WOD) fig?

Obsidian3D said...

The way the two sets of twins are cast means that they're not really re-posable. The skater kid's hands are both connected to his legs (I think), and the suit jacket dude only has his left arm free. Like you mentioned though, I think the different paint will make them less noticeable in a crowd.

Thanks for dropping by to comment!

Obsidian3D said...

Couldn't tell by me. He came in the assorted zombies set I bought last year.

I'll have to look at his teeth and see if he is indeed a vampire. Possible I suppose.