Wednesday 23 September 2015

Victory Force Zombies 06

And so I come to the last of my five reviews of the Victory Force Zombie Horde set 1 of 100 28mm scale figures. I have deliberately kept the best till last, so enjoy!
This group of ladies are known as the Posh Totty as most are dressed in evening wear. At the far left of the first two photos is Posh Totty 1, who has had her left arm chewed off at the elbow and received a shotgun blast to her left thigh.
Posh Totty 2 is the same sculpt with a few modifications. Her left arm is intact, as is her dress. She wears a light blue patterned wrap around her shoulders and a diamond tiara on her head. She has suffered a bite wound to her right shoulder.
Posh Totty 3 wears a metallic blue dress with a large gold necklace. She was bitten in the left arm, shot in the stomach and has blood pouring from her mouth.
Posh Totty 4 wears a long black dress with a gold necklace. Unluckily for her she has had both arms bitten, chewed or hacked off above the elbows.
Finally, Posh Totty 5 is less formally dressed in a patterned purple dress. She has sustained a massive bite wound to her right thigh and has been shot in the right arm.
This group of male zombies are my Sports Fans. Sports Fan 1, at far left, was painted as an elderly Caribbean gentleman. I planned on giving him a colourful tropical shirt and shorts and so primed his clothing in white. When I looked at him I suddenly realised he'd do as a tennis player instead, so he ended up very different to what I had originally planned for him. He has been shot in the chest and has had his left arm blown off by a shotgun.
Sports Fan 2 is a baseball player of African/American origin. I know very little about baseball and just chose a colour scheme that I thought suited him. If it is the colours of an actual team then that is a pure coincidence. He has been gut-shot.
Sports Fan 3 is a Brit tourist to Mayhem City. I am not in the least bit interested in any sports. I find them all incredibly boring. However, I was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, so I wanted to paint this guy up as a Newcastle United supporter. He is balding, fat and wears his shorts at half-mast to show off his bum crack. His right hand is covering up a gunshot wound to his chest. He also has a big bruise on the back of his head, probably sustained from a fall.
Sports Fan 4 was a young thug from the slums. He wears trainers, tracksuit and a Burberry cap worn backwards, which instantly identify him as lowlife scum. He has been bitten in the right arm.
Sports Fan 5 was a member of a marching band who frequently performed at sporting events. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds to his chest, right arm and right leg after becoming a zombie - hence the lack of blood. So how did he die? Heart attack, most likely.
This next group is a mixed bag but seeing as most of them are hospital patients I decided to call them the Patients.
Patient 1 has his right arm in a sling and has bandages around his head and left eye. Some blood has seeped through both sets of bandages. Most likely he sustained his wounds from a zombie and he turned undead after he had been treated.
Patient 2 is the same figure but was caught by the zombies after he had visited the hospital. The centre part of his right arm has been bitten off, leaving him with a stump below the shoulder and a hand held in place by his sling. He also has a small bite on his left arm.
Patient 3 still wears his hospital gown and so was obviously caught in a hospital at the start of the zombie outbreak. His gown is covered in blood, which is not all his. His one wound is a bite to the right cheek of his bottom. Bummer, huh?!
Patient 4 was an aged restaurant chef who died from multiple gunshot wounds to his torso. Someone really had it in for him.
Patient 5 is certainly one of my goriest zombies. He died very messily from a huge bite to his neck, which also looks to have been snapped, his left arm was severed at the shoulder, right arm severed at the elbow, he has a gunshot wound to the centre of the chest and bite wounds to both legs. Goretastic!
And so I finally come to my last five zombies in this set and because I have kept the best till last I had to call them the Elites. Elite 1, seen at the far left, was a Star Trek fan and wears a replica uniform from Star Trek: the Next Generation. He got shot in the heart. Sadly, his badge did not protect him.
Elite 2 is my favourite figure from this range simply because of the amount of time and effort I put into painting his Jaws T-shirt. Oh, and he has some awesome wounds, which I always love painting! He has lost both his arms at the shoulder and has large bite wounds to both legs, none of which were caused by a great white shark!
Elite 3 is my second favourite zombie figure from this range because who doesn't like SpongeBob SquarePants? This is actually the same figure as the Newcastle United fan shown above, except for his missing arms, which were ripped off at the shoulders, leaving him to bleed to death. He also has a wound to the top of his head.
Elite 4 wears a sweatshirt sporting the Batman logo. He has been slashed across the throat. He was the first figure that I finished painting from this set.
Elite 5 wears a Dub Step sweatshirt, which apparently is a form of electronic dance music that originated in South London, England. No, I'm not a fan of it. I simply copied the logo from a fashion catalogue. This chubby gent was bitten in the left side of his neck.

Without doubt, the hardest part of painting these figures was coming up with colour schemes. Once I'd settled on a scheme, the actual painting was relatively straightforward. I painted them in batches of 20 figures at a time but not in the same order as I've shown in these five posts. The Victory Force Zombie Horde set 2 should be a lot easier to paint because most of them are first responders with clearly defined uniforms. There are some more civilians amongst them but most are police patrolmen, firemen, doctors, soldiers and hospital patients. I bought both sets in Victory Force's introductory sale at a very reasonable price. Both horde sets containing 100 figures are still available for sale from their web-store but cost $250.00 each, which is a lot of money for some very averagely sculpted figures.

22 comments:

  1. I don't know what impressed me the most Bryan, your outstanding paint-jobs on these little fellows or Victory Force's belief these "very average sculpted figures" are worth such a high-price range :-) These are undoubtedly your best, as you say, and I have so many faves that it is hard to list them all. Posh Totty 2 & 5 are fantastic, and you've got to love Sports Fans 2 & 5 as well. I'd go as far to say Patients 1-4 are also incredibly well done my good sir. As to the Elite, well obviously I have a huge weakness for Star Trek and Batman. But as you say that Jaws T-Shirt is just top stuff and my best of the best (as I don't like SpongeBob SquarePants - Having to endure endless repeated watchings as a young parent).

    Thanks ever so much for putting together these cracking postings, Bryan. Hopefully everyone has enjoyed these as much as I have, especially your gore-brother Bob!! I won;t be picking up the $250 deal. But I will be keeping an eye out for a few of the sculpts should they make their way over here for a reasonable price. Hopefully your computer won't crash again. But I am tempted to sneak up North and tamper with it, if these wonderful photos are the result of such an electronic catastrophe ;-)

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    1. Quite often, when I'm painting figures if they are so well sculpted it is a real labour of love to paint them. These most certainly were not very well sculpted figures and yet I still enjoyed painting them. Much of the fun was in coming up with interesting colour schemes and back stories for them.

      The figures you choose as your favourites were all good choices. I'm sure I'd change my opinion of SpongeBob SquarePants if I had to endure endless repeats of him, so you have my sympathy.

      I'm glad you enjoyed these blasts from the past. Pure laziness on my part for not reviewing them much earlier but better late than never, eh?

      I was thinking about the price of this set and whilst $250 is a lot to pay ($500 if you want both hordes!) it still works out at $2.50 per figure, which at the current conversion rate is £1.63 per figure. That's not too bad. But, I must admit, I can't see many people rushing to take up this purchase.

      Heh, my computer crashing turned out to be a blessing in disguise otherwise I very much doubt if I would have taken the time out to photograph this horde. It's funny how things turn out.

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  2. Another zombie prepped for Surgery! I do like the posh totty (and in real life!) The horde grows large still. I am not sure how many marching band you ill need but always good for a laugh/variety. Nice to see them all in such variety.

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    1. Thanks, Clint. I agree that there's nothing wrong with Posh Totty. I don't think I've seen another zombie marching band member, which makes this chap rather unique. Feel free to contradict me if you know differently.

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    2. I was assuming that in your 100 there would be more than one duplicate. If all are different that is Brilliant indeed.

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    3. Every one of the 100 figures is unique. Ditto for Zombie Horde set 2. So, yes, that is brilliant!

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  3. Great work! Just how many Z's do you have in your collection Bryan?

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    1. The current total of painted zombie figures is 1,022. I have no idea how many unpainted zombies I have but it numbers in the hundreds!

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  4. I'm looking for some paramedic zombies, any suggestions please?

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    1. There may be some in Victory Forces Zombie Horde set 2 but I'd need to check for certain. They do a set of 10 random medical zombies for $25.00 taken from the horde set. Of course, with them being random you might not get the ones you want. Zombie paramedics are about as hard to find as normal human paramedics.

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    2. I work with a whole bunch of them (real paras, not zomb...lol) so not too hard for me 😉 I've got some of the patient zombies from VF and the nurse ones in zombie vixen set by WGF but just want to find some paras and doctors for a terrain piece I have in mind.

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    3. I came across this set of paramedics and police from Warm Acre Games' No Go Zone range of 28mmm scale figures -
      http://www.warmacre.com/shop/no-go-zone-police-2/
      Nice to see proper paramedics being made!

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    4. Cheers, they look great! And the bobbys in their hivis jackets are cracking too. Thanks

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    5. I'm glad you like them. I need to buy a set for myself.

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    6. Hi Vampifan, just received that set you recommended above! Some very nice figures, a little bit random with the bases supplied but with some drilling they will look great! Thanks for the steer, now to go unbox the enormous parcel of resin hospital beds, zed Drs and nurses that have just turned from Grekwood! :) again thanks for the steer, I should have them painted over the next week and will pop them on my page (well some of them anyway....)

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    7. That's fantastic news, mate. I'm so pleased for you. I have Grekwood's hospital beds and zombie staff and patients myself. They're great figures. Have fun painting them and I hope you do post pics of as many as you can.

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  5. You certainly kept the best for last Bryan. Some excellent freehand work on show. So many favourites it's hard to pick out just one. Posh Totty #3's dress is a striking colour and #5's flower pattern is great. I'm loving Sports Fans #3, #4 and #5, fine work Dude. Your goretastic (lovely word) patients are a true splatterfest, the gorehounds among us are happy!
    Then we come to your Elites, outstanding examples, everyone a legend amongst zombies. ST:TNG made me literally laugh out loud. Jaws made my jaw drop, amazing. I believe I told you how good I thought SpongeBob was before he had been formally introduced to us all. Batman and "Chub" Step just round out a lineup of what I believe to be your finest work yet. Mucho kudos Dude! It's a shame it's the last one.

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    1. Wow! That's high praise indeed, Bob. Many thanks, Dudemeister! Have no fear though as there are still plenty more zombies to show.

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  6. Bryan when I bought these figs I didnt think much of them except as back of the pack filler. You have done a fantastic job on them, though! Really brought them alive with creativity and good painting. You are always inspiring. Rog

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    1. Many thanks for the kind comment, Roger. I'm pleased at how they have turned out but I agree with you about them being back of the pack fillers.

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  7. Superb paintwork and love all there uniforms and colour schemes. I love the armless one remind of the guy in the monster nation book.

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