Grekwood Miniatures Werewolves

I'm going to be reviewing a lot of my werewolf miniatures over the next few weeks. I am well aware that werewolves are not part of the undead but I do see them very closely related to the horror genre and I just couldn't ignore them. I have already showcased my West Wind werewolves on my blog (see here - http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/west-wind-werewolves-01.html ) but I own a lot more than just them. I thought it was long overdue that my Lupines share the limelight. So today, I'm going to review four of my newest werewolf figure purchases and these beasts came from Grekwood Miniatures. They were co-sculpted by Keith and Carl Sutherwood.

What is not apparent from my photos is just how tall these creatures are. They stand roughly 43mm tall from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads. This is not a case of scale creep. These are meant to be larger than life. They are meant to be tall (roughly 8-9 feet in real life), powerful and menacing. Each figure comes in four parts - upper body, lower body and two arms. I drilled and pinned the arms to the bodies and used superglue to attach the arms. However, I used two-part epoxy glue to stick the two halves of the body together. Their bases are 30mm diameter plastic slottabases. The gaps between the body parts were filled in with Green Stuff modelling putty. Carl very kindly and very helpfully supplied a small amount of Green Stuff with the figures along with instructions on how to fill the gaps and create the fur effect. Now that is good customer service!

The poses are from left to right, walking, standing with arms outstretched, jogging and running. For more variety you could mix and match body halves and/or arms. As soon as I saw these figures I knew I wanted to paint them with black fur. It's an easy option, I know, but it works so well. I normally paint my werewolves with gloss black eyes but I felt that would not be a good idea with these having black fur. So, I gave them demonic red eyes, which provides a nice contrast. They were relatively easy to make (for an experienced modeller like me) and very simple to paint.
I see these as part of my shock troopers in my tribe of werewolves. When I did my review of my West Wind Werewolves I wrote this - "anyone who has played White Wolf's Werewolf: the Apocalypse role-playing game will know that this figure represents a lupine in Crinos form, the most powerful of their five forms, ranging from human (Homid) to wolf (Lupus). The other two forms are Hispo (a dire-wolf) and Glabro (a human with wolf features)." This statement applied to an even larger werewolf figure but it still apples to these four Grekwood werewolves. Carl's four werewolves are clearly shown in their most powerful Crinos form. Try to keep these terms in mind as I will be referring to them as I continue my reviews of my collection of werewolf figures.
The figures cost £7.00 each but you can buy all four for just £24.00, saving you £4.00. This is what I did. Also note that Carl will supply some Green Stuff to smooth over the arm and body joins. They are also supplied with 30mm diameter slottabases. I can highly recommend them.

Assorted Shadowforge Female Figures

I have a mixed bag for you today. These are three 28mm scale Shadowforge figures that I bought from the Grekwood Minis webstore. Sadly, they are no longer for sale on this site but I thought I'd show them anyway.

I'll start with the US Army medic, Diane Webster. I am sure some of you will object to the fact that she has left her tunic unbuttoned to reveal a very nice cleavage. And the brazen hussy is not wearing a bra. How dare she! If you'd seen this figure when I first bought her the prudes amongst you would have had a fit because she was wearing no trousers either! I have no problems with women showing off their bodies. My attitude is if you've got it, flaunt it, but just for once, I decided this was uncalled for. So I added a pair of trousers and knee-pads from Milliput. I could have covered up her cleavage as well, but decided not to. I must admit that I have no idea what she is holding in her right hand. Is it a pistol, and if so, what kind? Is that a scope-sight on top of the pistol or perhaps a laser sight? Or is it a dart gun? Or some kind of medical device that just looks like a weapon? My preference is for a dart gun firing tranquiliser darts. Note that I have painted her in the same camouflage scheme as my Black Scorpion US Army troops that I reviewed recently. She will be attached to that group.

In the centre of the group is Tatiana the vampire. I was delighted to get hold of her because of my love of vampires. I don't show nearly enough vampires on my blog. I must admit that when I first saw her my initial reaction was to paint her up as Vampirella. But I have a lot of Vampirella figures and whilst she is a close match she is not an exact match. So, she is Tatiana, an Eastern European vampire. Perhaps she hails from Transylvania. That would be so fitting. I am extremely pleased at how well I have painted her mouth. Her fangs are quite noticeable, which is exactly the effect I was after.
Finally, we come to Nina Chi, a sci-fi cop, who I think has a Manga vibe about her. I used to do a lot of sci-fi role-playing way back in the 1990's, and I ran a long-running GURPS Space campaign, and before that a Fantasy Games Unlimited Space Opera campaign. More recently, my sci-fi gaming has switched to Judge Dredd and it seems most likely that this is where I'll use Nina. She is armed with a big carbine/SMG, which could be some kind of energy weapon (blaster, perhaps) or a large calibre projectile weapon. She is just a really nice figure and although I have no immediate need or use for her, that didn't stop me buying her. Yes, I'm just as susceptible to "shinyitis" as any other figure collector.
I know that when Carl got these figures from Shadowforge to sell on his webstore that he didn't get  many of them. It is good for him that he sold all his stock and good for me that I was able to get them before they sold out, but it's not so good for you if you really want any of these lovely minis.

Vampifan's Views 36 - Monthly Musings 20

Vampirella displaying her bat wings by John Bolton

This past month my blog celebrated two landmarks. First up, it reached its fourth birthday on March 16th and secondly, I passed the 400 posts mark. The ATZ-FFO batrep that I posted was my 400th post. Yay, me!
March has been another busy month for me. Getting to play ATZ-FFO for the first time this year was an obvious highlight, and how cool it was for Vampifan to recruit Hannah Vaughn and her family.
I have managed to glue all of my model trees to circular MDF bases of varying sizes depending upon the height and diameter of the tree. I am now sourcing my trees from Carl at Grekwood Miniatures (GM). I recently ordered some weeping willow trees and some beech trees. The GM webstore is well worth checking out for trees as Carl offers a wide variety of tree types. My MDF bases came from East Riding Miniatures and were very reasonably priced.
I have almost finished painting my first batch of plastic figures from the Zombicide boardgame. I am busy painting the six survivors and 16 of the zombies (10 Walkers, 4 Runners and 2 Fatties). Next up will be another batch of 16 zombies plus the fearsome zombie abomination. I am painting these so that they will be compatible with my current zombie horde and other contemporary figures. What that means is that they will all have textured bases the same as my other figures. I have seen lots of examples of painted Zombicide figures but I have never seen any that have textured bases. When I get the second batch painted I'll run a review of the figures and a review of the game. I have played a few solo games of it already, with the zombies winning most games. Individually, zombies are easy enough to kill but once they gather in numbers and attack in force they are virtually unstoppable. It's great fun!
Today is the last day of the Zombicide Season 2 Kickstarter pledge and it is an understatement to say that it has been a phenomenal success. As I type this, there are still about 12 hours to go and they are $15,000 short of the $2 million mark. I hope they reach it. Seeing as their original goal was for just $25,000 you can see just how popular this project has been. My final pledge amount was a whopping big $400.00. I have ordered both games (Prison Outbreak and Toxic City Mall), the zombie dogs packs, every survivor they offered, the extra tile sets and some extra tracker tokens. Roll on September when they start shipping.
On the card modelling front I have taken a break from making ground tiles. I have almost completed the Stoelzel's Derelict Building. For most people this would be a very easy model to make, but you ought to know my motto by now - always go the extra mile. What has really slowed me down in making this are the wooden boards over the windows. I am making all of the boards separately to give them a 3D effect and that is very time-consuming. Expect a review some time next month.

Brummie's Burgers - the newest fast food franchise to hit the market.

Carl from Stoelzel's Structures continues to impress me. He recently announced that he was going to design a fast food restaurant and he asked followers of his forum to come up with a name for it. I came up with three options, of which my favourite was "Brummie's Burgers," named in honour of my fellow blogger, Simon aka Brummie. A vote was held to decide which name would be chosen and to my delight, "Brummie's Burgers" came out top. I won a free copy of the model when it was released, but to be honest, having my choice of name chosen was reward enough for me. What is really cool about this model and further proof of just what a hero Carl is, he included a sheet of signs featuring all the names that were suggested in his poll. Thus, everyone who entered was a winner. I thought that was a lovely touch and very generous of Carl. Incidentally, I plan on making this after I finish making the derelict building. What is not shown on the promo photos I've shown above is that the restaurant comes with its own ground tiles that are compatible with those from the Undeveloped Real Estate set. I will be adding them to my restaurant model, although the restaurant will be detachable from the ground tiles to make it easier for storing away.
April is going to be a very exciting month for me. The highlight will be meeting up with fellow blogger Mathyoo who runs his blog here - http://mathyoo28mm.blogspot.co.uk/ He's going to spend a week's holiday with me before he heads down to London for the big Salute convention. As well as showing him around the area, I am hoping to get a few games of ATZ-FFO and Zombicide played with him. It'll be quite strange to have someone else to game with having been a solo gamer for far too many years. But I am looking forward to it immensely. I will, of course, keep you informed of what we get up to, as I'm sure Mathyoo will on his blog.
That's all for this month. Have a very happy Easter!

Vampifan's Views 35 - Monthly Musings 19

Vampirella by Mike Deodato. Snakes don't bother her!

February has been a very busy month for me, especially with all of the card modelling I have done. I have been churning out new ground tiles to use in my ATZ-FFO campaign from Stoelzel's Undeveloped Real Estate set, which I told you about in my last Monthly Musings. I am going to do a full review of what I have made so far in the next couple of weeks. Suffice to say, I am very happy with my new ground tiles and I can't wait to use them in a batrep. Carl's new ground tiles are the best on the market and I highly recommend them.
Speaking of bat-reps, you will be pleased to hear that I will be continuing my ATZ-FFO campaign in March as Team Vampifan ventures out on its first foray into the suburb of Springvale since the outbreak began. Vampifan will be leading Angie, Big Sil and Gap for the first time in my new campaign. Expect a batrep around about the middle of the month.
In other news, Ryan, who was one of the very first followers of my blog, kindly informed me that there was a copy of the Zombicide board-game going for sale on e-Bay for just £60.00 and that all of the figures were painted. Seeing as the seller resided in the UK, I placed the first bid. I never expected to win the auction even though it still had one day to run. Sure enough, I didn't. Five other bidders popped up and it eventually sold for £85.00, which was way too much for me. To be honest, I wasn't bothered at losing out for two reasons. First up, the figures were not well painted and I'd have had to do a lot of work on them to bring them up to my standard.

At last I have a copy. It's been a long wait.

Secondly, Ryan also told me that Amazon UK were selling it. They were asking £68.99 for it, which I didn't think was too bad. They had a lot in stock so I placed an order last Friday and three days later, it arrived. Zombicide is a game that I have wanted to own ever since I first saw it promoted on Kickstarter last year. I deliberately held off from making a pledge for it as I didn't want to get hammered by the thieving bastards at the UK's Customs and Excises. I've been ripped off by them before and it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, knowing you have to pay up. So I have bided my time until a UK retailer turned up. Thank you, Amazon! So I now have a brand new copy and I have another 71 figures (65 zombies and 6 survivors) to add to my unpainted plastic figures mountain. They are very nicely sculpted and seeing as they are made of hard plastic, they will paint up very well. What I most like about the game is that it caters for the solo gamer. Yay! Hopefully, I'll be able to find the time to play a few games this month, just to get the hang of the rules. Mind you, having read the rulebook, it does seem very easy to play. If you want to see what some of the zombies look like painted up check out Lord Siwoc's blog Brains and Guts here - http://lordsiwoc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/zombies-dumpster-diving-and-good-deal.html Johnny, I'll be copying your colour schemes for some of my zombies!
Earlier this month, I bought the 16 new supermarket zombies from Grekwood Miniatures, along with a pack of 25 deciduous trees. I have decided that I want more trees in my zombie campaign and more variety of trees. So Carl at Grekwood can expect more orders for trees from me, as he carries a nice variety of them and they are reasonably priced. Having used some of my old Games Workshop trees (now withdrawn from sale - why am I not surprised?!) in previous bat-reps I found that the biggest problem with using them was that they fell over far too easily. I got round this by using Blu-tac on their bases but this was a solution I was never happy with as there was always a risk that the Blu-tac would tear the ground tile when I tried to remove it. In fact, this happened on a few occasions. The Grekwood trees are on even smaller bases than the GW ones. My new solution is to stick them permanently to circular bases. To this end, I ordered a selection of varying diameter MDF bases from East Riding Miniatures. These range from 30mm to 80mm diameter. Next month I will glue all of my trees to these bases. I am hoping the large bases will prevent the trees from falling over if I even cough on them! Well, it'll make a change from painting miniature figures.
It looks like March is going to be a busy month for me!

Grekwood Miniatures' Zombies 02

Carl from Grekwood Miniatures (GM) recently redesigned the four nurses with the bandaged heads after numerous demands for nurses with ordinary unbandaged heads. The bandaged head nurses can now be found in the demons section of the GM webstore. and these four new figures are now part of the official Hospital Zombies set.

Carl has made a couple of other changes to the figures. First of all, they have all lost whatever weapons they were carrying, and secondly, the length of their uniforms have increased to knee-length. They now look like proper nurses.The first decision I had to make was what colour do I paint their uniforms? White was an obvious choice but I'd already painted the bandage-headed nurses in white uniforms and I wanted a complete change for these ladies. Having visited my local hospital many times last year when my father was ill, I decided to go with the colour schemes used by nurses in the NHS nowadays, i.e. blue and mauve. Yes, I know that my ATZ campaign is set in America and that American nurses may wear different coloured uniforms but I'm not that bothered. They look good to me and that's the most important criteria.

The nurse at the far left wears the mauve-coloured uniform (Foundry Deep Mauve 58). She has a small cut on her face and a bite wound on her right leg.
The blue that I used on the other three nurses was Foundry Deep Blue 20. The zombie nurse second from the left has a small cut to her left arm and a bite woumd to her right leg.
The blonde-haired nurse has had a a bite taken out of the right side of her face and a second bite on her upper left arm.
The zombie nurse at the far right of the group has sustained a couple of bite wounds to her legs. I smeared her hands and lower arms in blood, which most probably has come from a victim she has attacked.
These are a nicely sculpted set of figures and I am sure that they will appeal to zombie fans far more than the bandage-headed demons, whom they have replaced.
The four Zombie Nurses in Uniform retail for £9.50. If you haven't bought them and the other three Hospital Zombie sets, you can buy all four sets for the reduced price of £34.00, saving you £4.00.
Incidentally, I'd like to point out that Carl has made a model of a hospital, which can be downloaded as a PDF file for you to construct yourself. You will need foamboard to build it. It currently consists of a couple of wards and a connecting corridor with entrance. Whilst this does sound rather basic, further expansions are planned, including the option to "zombify" the interior with lots of blood splatters and gore aplenty. Guess which version I want to make? The PDF costs just £4.00 and can be found on the GM webstore. It's worth buying just for the best set of building instructions I've ever seen on any card model!

Grekwood Miniatures' Zombies 01

Grekwood Miniatures is a new kid on the block in the field of miniature figure companies. It was founded by Carl Sutherwood, aka Rovanite, which he set up in memory of his brother, Gareth "Grekwood" Sutherwood who sadly passed away, far too young, in July 2011. I knew Grekwood from the Forum of Doom and we were good friends. So, I have more than a passing interest in the success of Carl's new venture. His first releases in his range of 28mm scale zombies were four sets of four hospital zombies - doctors, nurses and patients.

First up are the zombie patients, two female and two male. The female zombie at the far left of my photos above and below was either obese or pregnant, going off the size of her belly. I'm guessing pregnant as there is something deeply disturbing about a pregnant mother turning into a zombie. I couldn't resist painting her groin all blood-soaked to hint at some unseen horror. What if she was killed just before she gave birth? Is her undead baby trying to wriggle its way out of her womb? Perhaps it's best we don't know.
The female next to her has her right arm in a sling. I painted her in slippers and white socks. I like the fact that Carl has sculpted ID bracelets on all of the patients. It's a little detail that could so easily have been overlooked. Both females are having trouble with their hospital gowns covering up their backsides. Epic fail! She is heavily blood-stained but not all of it is hers..

And yet the two male patients show how wearing a hospital gown should be done without any sign of bum cleavage! The first male patient, in the middle of the group, has a plaster cast on his lower right leg and foot, although his toes are visible. I painted his left foot as if he was wearing a slipper. The blood around his chin, neck and upper chest is from a victim he has fed upon.
The figure at the far right of this group is much, much older than the previous three, with balding grey hair. Note the bloody hand print on his backside. He still clutches on to his wheeled stand with the IV drip still attached to his arm. Once again, it's a nice touch that makes him stand out from the crowd, although it's not a totally unique concept. I know of at least two other zombie figures holding onto their IV drip stands. 

Theses next two photos (directly above and below) show the doctors who would be in the front line when the zombie apocalypse kicked off - surgeons in scrubs. Again, there are two males and two females and it is refreshing to see a 50/50 split between the sexes. Too many companies ignore the female species. The doctor at the far left of the group has arranged her ponytail to the left side of her head, which gives her a very interesting look. I like it. She has been bitten in both legs and arms.
Her female colleague to her left looks a mess with blood all over her, but how much is hers and how much is from other victims? Note the name tags on the chests of theses figures. Another welcome little detail that could have been overlooked. I like the way her training shoes have turned out. They are quite chunky and I mean that as a compliment.

By painting the third doctor in line with grey hair, I have made him a senior consultant. He has a vicious bite wound on his right leg. I thought his nose looked a bit small, so I decided that the tip of it had been bitten off. Before painting any zombie I always take a close look at them to see where, if anywhere, their wounds are. Some are obvious, like missing limbs. In this case, I'm not even sure if this was meant to be a "proper" wound, but what the heck, it works for me.
The doctor at the far right of this group is bald-headed, making it harder to age him, although I'd say he's older rather than younger. I painted most of the blood on him around his neck area to suggest he was bitten in the throat. Upon reflection, I'm thinking that such a wound would have produced far more blood and thoroughly soaked the front of his jacket. So perhaps this blood is from a victim he has fed upon.

Still sticking with the doctors, this next set shows doctors in long coats. More specifically, long, WHITE coats, which are ideal for showing off blood stains! Once again, there are two female zombies and two male zombies in this set. At the far left of the group, the black-haired female has been bitten in the lower stomach and upper left arm. Blood can be seen dribbling from her mouth.
The second female doctor in this set also wears a cool pair of training shoes. Note the stethoscope draped around her neck. She appears to have died from a gunshot wound, just below her left breast. The exit wound in her back is quite large. As with most "blonde-haired" women I see nowadays, her black roots are showing.

The male doctor standing third in line is the only one to have buttoned up his coat. I think that he's another zombie with more blood on him from victims than from himself. I gave him a cut to the side of the head and a bite wound on his lower left arm.
The doctor at the far right of this group was painted as an African/American with darker skin than my other zombies in this set. I painted his skin as I would a normal Caucasian zombie but finished him off with a Citadel Devlan Mud ink wash. It's a simple way to do dark skin tones on a zombie. He, too, has a stethoscope draped around his neck. He wears a yellow tie, which has been loosened at the neck.

Finally, we come to the four nurses, and these are different to the rest of this range in that these are based on villains from a computer game. I forget which one, as I don't take too much interest in computer gaming. What makes these different from the others is that they are all armed (and know how to use their weapons) and all wear bandages around their heads, in the style of an Egyptiam Mummy. In fact, these might not even be zombies but demons (see later for more information). From a distance the bandaged heads aren't that noticable and when viewed on the tabletop, they look just like normal zombies.

I don't how it happened but I forgot to take a rear view photo of these nurses. it was only when I transferred my photos from my camera to my computer that I realised what a cock up I'd made. So, I hastily corrected my error. I used my flash gun on this photo rather than my usual set up with daylight lamps. You can see that the colours don't exactly match up with my standard photos and the flash has caused some shadows to appear. Apologies for this, but you still get a fair idea of how they look.

The nurse at the far left holds what looks like a sledgehammer to me. It must be heavy because she is struggling to lift it.

Next to her, this nurse brandishes a knife in her right hand with evil intent.

To make the third nurse in line just slightly different to the others, I altered her skin tone to make her an African/American using the same technique as the doctor mentioned above.

The nurse at the far right is advancing slowly with her knife held by her side.

Due to numerous requests, Carl has resculpted these as "normal" zombie nurses without the weapons and bandaged heads. They will replace this set as part of the Hospital Zombies deal . This set will be moved to the Monsters and Demons range, which is why I thought they might be demons. I'll review the new zombie nurses as soon as I get them and paint them.

I am a big fan of these figures. The quality of the sculpting is very good and for 28mm scale figures none are over-scaled, which is a good thing. Hospital zombies were such an obvious choice to make with staff and patients certainly being amongst the first to succumb to the zombie plague once it started. To tie in with this range, Carl is working on making resin cast hospital beds and a card model hospital, which will be available to buy as a PDF file. Personally, I can't wait for his new stuff to be made available.

The four sets are available separately for £9.50 each. If you want all four sets, Carl offers a discount deal, which will cost you £34.00, giving you a saving of £4.00. Note that when the new zombie nurses become available they will replace the bandaged headed nurses in the deal. We all know that there certain miniature figure companies that we admire and trust implicitly and sadly, some that we just want nothing to do with. Take it from me, Carl is one of the good guys and his company deserves to succeed and flourish. Please support him by buying his products.