Zombicide Invader: Last of the Aliens

11.25.2022

Back in Feb. I first posted pics of starting to paint Zombicide Invader. My goal was to paint everything (158 minis) by Christmas. Christmas is a month away. With these 4 done, there's 6 left to paint.

I'm horrible at painting non-human-people. Animals, aliens, robots, etc. Unless I have a painting guide for every detail on a given mini, I tend to not "see" what those details are. I'm not sure why this is the case, but I've always been this way. These aliens (and pirate) from Zombicide Invader have color schemes on their character cards, but I'm not going to go dig out those cards. I searched the intergoogle for color schemes I liked - and i didn't like any. So, I made the bad decision I usually make, which was to wing it. Normally winging it ends up with color combinations only found in comic books from the 60's and 70's. Non-60's/70's wing it color pallete!

The aliens in this batch were pretty much out of my comfort realm. A stereotypical Martian. Green is a given for me, but how to not make it too cartoony? I embraced the cartoony, but managed to tone it down with silver/gold metallics. Cat-Woman something, who ended up with a Leeloo Dallas Multipass inspired Orange/White color scheme that worked well enough to cover up how the "fur" and face turned out. Pig-guy, who's skin color got primed over twice to cover up "too bubblegum pink" and "too much people" and ended up with something in between with a lot of washes. Dirty pig guy in the end, I think. And the pirate (why?) with a bulbous, maybe a bat-sloth on his shoulder. A bat-sloth that a shape but not really any details (maybe I over-primed?).

This is the last of the aliens in the Invader set. All that's left are people-heads atop armored bodies. Those armored bodies will get the Starship Troopers color scheme, with which I'm not overly worried about messing up.



6 more to do, and a month to do them in. I've got a good feeling.


gaming miniatures Zombicide Invader

Sarissa Trailer No. 2 & 3

11.15.2022

A mere 7 months after finishing my first Sarissa Trailer I've finished not just the other one, but both other ones. Other two? Both of those.

On the first trailer from April I painted and weather everything before punching the pieces from the MDF. This time I was going to try a slightly different tactic which would hopefully help those MDF-colored seams from sticking out. Since I knew, in theory at least, how this trailer was supposed to fit together, I was going to try to color match the white and striped parts after punching the pieces but before gluing it all together.

And it worked. Pretty much.

I don't think some of my lines are as straight as before, and maybe some pieces don't fit as flush as I would like, but it works. And it didn't take forever to get together, with the associated fretting if any of it's going to work. The special bonus was that I didn't glue any of the walls. With primer, sealant, masking, sealant, stripe, sealant as my process, those layers provided a tight enough fit where things came together. Maybe it'll all fall apart later, but for now it's a nice snap together model.

One thing I waited to do until everything was together was to weather the trailer. Honestly, I had forgotten I had weathered the 1st trailer before putting it all together. Since I had already added the plastic (transparency paper) windows I didn't want to get carried away with weathering and the needed heavy layer of sealant after. Thus, a milder weathering was added. I also skimped on the interior, leaving it primer-white with some paper printed wall decorations. I used my delayed weathering as an excuse as when I went to apply sealant I didn't mask the windows. The sealant helps make for dirty windows where you can see inside, but can't make out any details.

Lastly was the Airstream trailer. I was curious as to how this thing was made since it's an MDF kit. Turns out it's an inner MDF frame with a cardstock shell to bend and glue on. With it being an Airstream my plan was to apply silver spray paint, but the cardstock that comes with these kits tends to soak up spray paint if you're not careful. Luckily I have a plan B - a silver Sharpie and some colored brush-pens to add a little color on the door (because that was a lot of silver) as well as blue-in the windows.

As with any mostly-cardboard thing that has to be applied to curved surfaces, it worked but not as well as I hoped. There's gaps, but I was already starting to tear things apart to get them to fit in the right spot so I left it at good enough.

Now with 3 trailers I can start a proper mobile home community.


gaming miniatures sarissa precission

The Zombicide Invader Six - Speed Paint Edition

10.27.2022

Last Week I had my first post in a month with 3 so-so minis. Now, I have a much better batch to show off.

I had already started on 1 more armored mini, with another one primed, when I told Jerry I thought I needed a break from armor. He wholeheartedly agreed, which is what any good friend should do. I picked 4 more minis devoid of armor and primed them. To make it even more fun, I decided to break open the Army Painter Speed Paint set I bought sometime last year. I've read mixed reviews on these - mainly that they will sometimes reactivate the paint they're layered on. Since you can't learn unless you do, I went and did.

Didding worked out well. Partially because I had 23 paints to choose from in the kit, I had fun using little bits of different colors here and there. The Speed Paint Leather works a lot better for me than the Citadel Contrast Leather. That seemed true for most of the browns. I ran into the paint re-activation problem when adding a purple (Citadel) wash on top of a couple of layers of purple Speed Paint. I think I salvaged it, as it was on the butt of a purple jumpsuit. Now a very highlighted purple jumpsuit. The 2 armored guys also got a taste of some Speed Paint dabs here and there.



Now there are 10 more minis left for Zombicide Invader. Some have armor. Some do not. 1 is an alien pig.

The weather is also in the sweet spot for me to get back to putting together buildings, well really 2 Trailers, for Potham. I want to finish ZI, but I also don't want to wait again until it's too cold to get outside for multiple passes of spray paint. I don't do well when I mix my focus, but we'll see what happens on the next post.


gaming miniatures Zombicide Invader

Zombicide Invader - 3 More Good Guys

10.20.2022

3 more non-zombie Good Guys for Zombicide Invader. This isn't much to show after almost a month of no updates, where I've undoubtedly been toiling endlessly painting these little buggers. I was trying to up my game on painting details. It halfway worked. While I think I did a better job painting and bringing out those details I concentrated on, overall these minis just seem... kind of ok.

Playing around with my selection of metallic paints for armor bits looks ok, but everything seems more muted. I tried out some of the colors I forgot I had, like Gunmetal Blue. I should remember that's to be used sparingly on accent bits, not most of a backpack. I'm still getting splotchy skin - maybe it's time to go back to adding a pale/flesh coat before skin-like contrast paint, instead of applying directly to white primer?

As it is, these 3 are done enough. There's 3 more that I've been working on a little bit at the same time, so maybe there won't be another month before the next update. Maybe.


gaming miniatures Zombicide Invader

Zombicide Invader: 3-Guy 2-Guns

09.26.2022

A continuation of my Zombicide Invader Good Guys (I think) progress, as 2 gun thingies and 3 people thingies get checked off.

I really needed some color choice help on the guns. Even looking at what other people have painted, I didn't find a combination that I liked and thought I could pull off. As it is, I stuck with some simple colors hoping to not make things look too cartoonish, while still trying to keep the metallic look to things. I'd give myself a solid C on those.

For the trio of people, I found a black with red lining color scheme I liked for the clothes, and I had fun trying that out. I've done some similar things in the past, but this was the first time I went into with forethought and took into account not just she colors and shadows, but also the nooks and crannies where I was going to put the wrong color of paint while trying to get to another part. These turned into a weird balance of good and bad discoveries. I'm not sure what I did different than normal, but the skin was splotchy. For the (outer) black coats, I used a purple wash to try and bring out some shadowy highlights. That's a trick I picked up from all of the Batman cape painters on YouTube. For a first attempt at it.... not too bad.

I seem to take horrible pictures of minis with a gloss seal. Picture-wise the details seem to be covered up on these, but with a naked eye they're not that bad. or maybe I have a forgiving eye?


gaming miniatures Zombicide Invader

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