Foundry Zombies and Corpses

I have a sneaking suspicion that a good many of you won't know about these Foundry 28mm scale zombies that I'm goung to review. They are part of their Undead range of fantasy figures. Technically speaking they aren't really zombies, seeing as they are listed as UND028 Emaciated Plague Victims. Well, that may be true but just take one look at these poor souls and tell me they aren't zombies. I bought three packs of them - one to use as zombies, one to convert into corpses and one to give to my friend, Roger, who was in need of cheering up as he was about to move house. Always a stressful time. Anyway, let's take a look at my zombies first and then I'll show you how I converted them into corpses.

You get five figures in the pack and they are the five you see standing in the photo above. I'll talk about the zombie crawler later. When Foundry describes these as being emaciated, they aren't kidding. These are amongst the most skeletal looking zombies I've seen and so I wanted to do something different with the paint scheme of them. So I decided to paint them as African zombies, with inspiration coming from the excellent film The Dead, which is set in Africa.

The zombie at the far left of the photo is the village elder, recognisable by his straggly grey hair. He's holding onto half a leg, which he has been feasting on. All of these figures have non-existant stomachs, as if they have shrunk away to nothing, or as I decided in a few cases, like this figure, to show with a lick of paint that his stomach has been picked clean by other flesh-eating zombies when he was still alive.
Next to him is a zombie with an outstretched bloody hand as if preparing to grab hold of a victim. He too, got the same chewed up stomach treatment as the village elder. I also made his sunken left cheek look like a chunk of flesh had been bitten from it by painting it with Tamiya Clear Red (TCR), the best paint on the market for painting gore effects.
The third figure in line has a mane of long hair and I did think about converting him into a female by adding breasts to him but in the end I left him untouched. Quite by accident, I got a piece of sand stuck to the inside of his lower left leg when I was basing him. I didn't notice it until after I'd primed him. I thought about scraping it off but then decided it looked good as a flap of skin hanging from a zombie bite. Sometimes a little accident can bring about a rewarding result! I also painted on bite wounds to his left shoulder and upper right leg.
The fourth figure in line is another of the three bald-headed zombies in this pack. He has his head raised skywards, as if he's emitting a loud moan to alert other zombies of the presence of fresh prey nearby. I gave him a bite wound on his right arm and also where his stomach should have been.
The final figure in this set has been left unbloodied. He is in a walking pose as he slowly advances. Incidentally, if you are wondering what colour I painted these figures in, I used Foundry Bay Brown 42 on them. I have now switched from Citadel paints to the much better Foundry paint system. Two of the things that particularly attracted me to these paints were their selection of flesh tones and secondly was the three tones of each colour - shade, base colour and highlight, which blend together so well. I plan on running a full review of the Foundry paints soon as I am so impressed with them.

Now, I'll take a look at the corpses and the zombie crawler. These figures come with integral metal bases, so the first thing I had to do was remove the figures from their bases, I did this using a good set of model cutters that I'd bought from Heresy Miniatures. They sell some of the best modelling tools. I quickly discovered that these figures were made of a much softer metal than say for example, the Foundry Street Violence range. This made converting them an absolute doddle as it was so easy to bend and reshape arms, legs and necks into new poses. All of them have had a very small amount of Milliput added to the small of their backs to help them lie flat and to strengthen what is a weak part of the figures.
Moving from left to right in the photo above, the village elder has had his right arm reposed to lie flat. His feet were bent at the ankles to lie flat on the ground. His head was tilted much further back, as was his body at the waist. as with the standing figure I made his stomach a gaping hole.
The zombie with the outstretched arm had it repositioned by gently bending it upwards. I also turned his head through 90 degrees so that it faced to one side. His legs were slightly reposed and his feet were bent forward. This was a simple conversion that just involved the bending of certain body parts. Always take your time when bending limbs and be careful not to bend them too far, otherwise they'll snap off. Actually, for a corpse this might not be a bad thing! Even so, I'd still advise caution when reposing body parts.
The third figure in line was the one that had the most conversion work done to her. This time, I did change the sex of the figure and I added a pair of breasts to her chest, which I painted on a black bra. I filled in part of her stomach cavity but left a big, bloody hole on the right side of her abdomen. Her upper torso had to be bent back to help her lie flat. Just as a change from the others, I decided to paint her as a Caucasian corpse. I think the sex change on her has worked well and it's nice to add a female to the set.
The fourth figure in line was another simple conversion achieved purely by bending limbs so that they lay flat and by twisting his head to one side and by straightening his back. I twisted his feet so that they were pointing inwards. I drilled a small hole on either side of his head between his eyes and ears to show that he'd been killed by a head shot.
When I received these figures, I immediately noticed that one of them had been snapped in two at the waist. Normally, this would have resulted in me sending them back to be replaced but in this instance I decided to make good use of the mishap. So I ended up with two figures out of one. The legs were ever so slightly reshaped and I remodelled the loin cloth into a short skirt with Milliput modelling putty. This very simple conversion gave me my second female and again I painted her as a Caucasian. I wanted her to have a nice flowery and summery dress as a stark contrast to the violence of her death.
For the zombie crawler, I had to slightly reposition his hands so that they gripped the rim of the slottabase. I added some bloody entrails to his lower torso trailing behind him. Again, this was a really simple conversion, but it's worked very well. He too, was painted as a Caucasian zombie.
Set UND028 Emaciated Plague Victims costs £10.00 for the set of five figures. However, you can buy three sets for £27.00, giving you a saving of £1.00 per set. Alternatively, wait until Foundry hold one of their frequent sales and you'll be able to get them even cheaper! I like this set a lot. Even though they were designed with a fantasy army in mind there is nothing about them that precludes their use in a contemporary setting. Plus, as I've shown, they're great for converting into corpses. If you're looking for something slightly different for your zombie horde than I highly recommend buying this set.