Zombiesmith Zombies 02

It's part two of my review of the Zombiesmith range of 28mm scale zombies as I look at the next ten figures. As before, the names of the zombies are taken from the Zombiesmith website.

I begin at the far left with Jawbone. Who remembers the opening of Romero's Day of the Dead, in which one of the first zombies we see is a guy who has had his jawbone ripped off? He was a great looking zombie! This figure reminds me of him. He has also had his jawbone removed. That's surely going to make biting victims impossible though! In addition, a large chunk has been taken out of his left upper arm, he has a small bite wound on his right arm and very nastily, his flesh from neck to groin has been removed (eaten?) to expose his rib-cage and intestines. This is one mighty fine zombie.

Standing next to him is the curiously named Dancer. Do zombies dance? Sorry, Michael Jackson's Thriller video does not count! I guess he's so named because he looks like he could be dancing. This guy is an absolute mess, with more wounds than any other Zombiesmith zombie reviewed so far. The right side of his face has been chewed off; all four limbs have been bitten multiple times; and his stomach has been feasted upon, leaving a gory mess behind. Despite his odd pose he's still a good figure.

Hopper stands on one leg in the centre of this group. I admire Hopper's ability to remain upright as most one-legged zombies end up as crawlers or draggers. It's an interesting decision that the sculptor, Drew Williams, made to have him standing. In addition to the obvious loss of limb, he has numerous bite wounds on his good leg and a couple of small bites to his right arm.

Overalls is another curious zombie. He's wearing dungarees and carrying a spanner in his right hand, which perhaps, marked him out as a mechanic in his former life. Now, someone has only gone and twisted his head around 180 degrees. He won't know if he's coming or going! I wonder if he walks backwards, which would be the clever thing to do, or still goes forward on pure instinct. He is another zombie whose stomach has been ripped open. He has lost his left arm at the elbow and all four limbs sport bites of varying sizes. I still can't decide if I like this figure or not. There's nothing wrong with the sculpting but the head twisting does concern me. Is such a feat realistically possible? I dunno.

The final figure out of this batch is Brokenback and it is clear to see why he is so called. His spine has been snapped in two and part of it is visible in a horrendous lower back wound. With his upper body flopping forward he cleverly uses his left hand to lift his head up so he can see where he's going. All four limbs have been bitten with his right arm far and away the worst.

Droopy appears at the far left of the two photos above. No, not the cartoon dog! This Droopy is a nude zombie that I painted in a similar manner to my Eureka Miniatures zombies, i.e. with a green tinge instead of grey flesh. I counted over twenty separate wounds on this unfortunate victim and I have no intention of listing them all. I do like the way his obviously broken right arm hangs loosely by his side. Presumably, that's why he's called Droopy.

To his left is Huggy and the last thing you'd want from him is a hug! The way his intestines are spilling out of his guts is just so gross. I mean that in a good way as I am such a gore hound! He's the second nude zombie in the range but any sign of genitalia is obscured by his intestines. Once more, all four limbs have been bitten, with his left thigh almost completely stripped of flesh!

In the middle of this group is Chubs, the zombie fat guy. I've already stated that I like fat zombies and this figure ticks all the right boxes for me. I think he's a great sculpt. His belly appears to have split open judging by those three wounds. Both arms have been ripped off at the shoulder, with bone showing through the wounds. Some flesheaters have been playing munchies with his fat thighs - plenty of meat there!

Halfy is, well, only half a zombie. Both his legs are missing, forcing him to drag himself along with his hands. Like a lot of this range, his stomach has been ripped open to expose his intestines, which are spilling out around him. His right eye has popped out of its socket and both arms have been chewed on. Zombie draggers are always a welcome addition to my collection.

The final figure in this part of my review is Headless and I know what you're going to say - why is he called Headless when you can clearly see his head, especially in the back view? Well, truth to tell, he is sold as a headless zombie, so fair play to Zombiesmith for calling him that. However, as such, he was the one figure out of their entire range that I really disliked. In certain games or films a headless zombie can exist, especially in those where destroying the brain isn't enough - you have to totally destroy every body part (Evil Dead readily springs to mind). Such games are not my cup of tea. Call me a traditionalist if you want but for me if you decapitate a zombie then it's the final death. So I was stuck with a figure that I didn't particularly like or want - what to do with him? Fortunately, when I bought these zombies I'd just seen Romero's Land of the Dead at the cinema and I remembered an outstanding scene in the film that provided me with inspiration. In the film, a soldier approaches a standing zombie that appears to have no head. As he gets closer the zombie lunges forward and we see that his head was still attached to the back of his neck by a few sinews of flesh. As he grabs the soldier and bends forward his head flips into place and he bites the totally surprised soldier. Absolutely brilliant! So I sculpted a new head onto the back of his neck, just like the zombie in the film. Now he's one of my favourite figures in the range but, and it's a big but, only because of my conversion.

These final five zombies in this part of my review are the grossest out of the bunch, suffering some really over the top wounds. They were an absolute blast to paint! There is a lot of variety in the poses and in my opinion Zombiesmith zombies should be in everyone's 28mm scale zombie horde. As I mentioned in part one of this review the figures retail at $2.75 each or you can buy these ten along with the first ten for just $50.00. It's a good deal but tune in for part three when I review the last batch of figures (both zombies and survivors) in the range and give details or an even better multi-figure deal.