Musketeer Miniatures Vampire Hunters & Zombies

I'll be honest, until very recently, I had never heard of Musketeer Miniatures. I came across them on the Post Apoc forum, which had a thread listing makers of zombie miniatures. Musketeer Minis was the only name I hadn't heard of. So I clicked onto their website and liked what I saw. Here's the link to where their zombies hang out - http://www.musketeer-miniatures.com/store.php?r=10&rule=Historical&id=34 If you do a Google search for Musketeer Miniatures and find their homepage, be aware that the zombies are listed under the tab for Hazel's Heroes. They are a UK-based firm and their figures are reasonably priced.

I'll look at their zombies shortly, but first I want to review their two vampire hunter figures - Night Stalker and Big Kris, both of whom should be instantly recognisable to fans of the Blade series of films. It isn't that hard to find figures to represent Wesley Snipes' eponymous hero. I know that there are at least two Heroclix versions of him and West Wind make a nice male vampire hunter in their Road Kill range, who is clearly Blade in everything but name. For obvious copyright reasons, the Musketeer version is just called Night Stalker but we all know who he really is. The figure comes in two parts, with the katana and right hand being a separate piece. I was glad of the photos on their website to show how the sword should be fitted, otherwise I would not have glued it in place behind his body. He is a very nicely sculpted figure. The weapon in his left hand is a sawed-off pump action shotgun. He has a row of silver stakes strapped to his left thigh and of course, he wears his cool looking wraparound mirror-shades. You can just make out his fangs, which I must admit, were a bitch to paint. It took me four attempts to get them right!

Much as I like the Night Stalker figure, I was even more impressed with the figure of Big Kris. Blade fans won't need telling that he is based on Kris Kristofferson's character, Abraham Whistler, Blade's mentor and weapons' technician. I truly applaud the decision to make a not-Whistler figure and it sure is a good likeness of him. Of course, the figure had to have his leg splint. I know all about them as my dad had to wear one recently after a fall which bust the tendons in his knee. It looks remarkably similar to the one worn by Big Kris. His weapon of choice is similar to Night Stalker's, although his shotgun is not sawed-off. I can see this figure getting a lot of uses. He'd make a great survivor character in ATZ.

Moving on, here are the three zombie figures that Musketeer Miniatures sell. At the far left is Brian the zombie. Sorry folks, it's not me! My name is spelt Bryan and besides, he looks nothing like me. If anything, he reminds me of Colin the zombie from the low budget English movie called Colin. (Memo to self, I ought to review that film here.) Brian is a teenage zombie dressed in the archetypal jeans, hoodie jacket and trainers. Note the crushed Cola can that I added to his base.  Brian has suffered some nasty injuries - half of his face has been ripped off, he's lost his left arm at the elbow and there is a hole just above his right knee.
In the centre of this group is Drew the zombie and he reminds me of a university student. He wears a sweatshirt and jeans. His long hair has been tied back in a ponytail and he sports a goatee beard, both good reasons for turning him into a zombie! A chunk of his right cheek has been chewed upon. He also has a large bite wound to his left arm and a cut to his left leg. There is nothing remarkable about him, but that doesn't make him a bad figure.
Finally, we come to what has to be the star of the show - zombie Gene Kelly! This truly is a unque figure amongst the horde of zombie miniatures! The very idea of turning Gene Kelly into a zombie would never have occured to me. So full marks to Hazel for originality. He is described on the website as "screaming in the rain" - a rather apt description, I think. Zombies are not noted for their singing ability, or dancing ability, come to that... unless you include the Michael Jackson Thriller zombies! I added a strip of pavement to his base using Milliput modelling putty. I wanted it to appear as if he had just jumped off the pavement onto the road. He has been wounded in all four limbs, although not too badly, but his head and body are still intact. Naturally, he is still carrying his umbrella. As soon as I saw this figure I knew that I had to have him.
All five figures are roughly 28mm scale and will fit in well with many other popular ranges in this scale. Night Stalker is the most expensive of the bunch at £3.50. Big Kris and zombie Gene Kelly retail for £3.00 each, whilst Brian and Drew are a very reasonable £2.00 each. These five figures are well worth checking out. I like all of them but I especially love Big Kris and zombie Gene Kelly.

WWG Burned Out Cars

In a complete contrast to my last review, which looked at my sleek, highly polished sports-cars, I present the WWG burned out car models. These two superb models come from the Bits of Mayhem set and I thoroughly applaud WWG's Matt Lyon for producing them.

They come in two colour schemes - red and yellow. Note how the wheels are splayed out, as if both axle shafts have snapped. It's a nice touch which keeps the cars flush with the ground and helps to emphasise the fact that these really are wrecks.

The instructions recommend that you colour the reverse side of the pieces you cut out in black felt-tip pen before making the model. Good advice, as it would be incredibly difficult and fiddly trying to get a pen or a paintbrush inside after you'd built it. I painted the inside of my cars with matt black paint rather than use a felt-tip pen. That is just a preference I have, as I always "edge" my models with acrylic paint.

The windows have to be cut out so that you can see the burned out interior, which is simply a single piece of card that is curled at the front and back to fit just underneath the front and back windows respectively. It is a simple solution to representing the ruined interior that works well.

As always, my cars were reinforced with thick mounting card, although I did use much thinner card for making the tyres and the curved interior section. Mounting card is too thick to curve easily. I really can't praise these two models too highly. As props go, they are ideal for a game of All Things Zombie or any other post-apocalypse game. My only gripe is that WWG have only produced the pair of them. I'd love to see more of their vehicles getting the burned out wreck treatment.
Incidentally, they are not the easiest of vehicles to build but neither are they the hardest. I'd rate them as a moderately complex build but they are well worth having a go at. Even if you use die-cast vehicles in your games, these are worth making as no one makes die-cast burned out cars. Your only other alternative is to look for resin cast sculpts, of which I know a few, but they cost a heck of a lot more than these.

Vampifan's Zombies

These four 28mm scale zombie figures are unique. They were sculpted by me in the early 1990's, I can't remember exactly when. They were never intended for commercial use. None of them are built on metal armatures so if I did want to sell them I'd have to resculpt them. I just wanted some some zombies to use in a contemporary or near future setting. Back then, most zombie figures were designed for fantasy gamers. Some could be used in a contemporary setting but not many. Fast forward to today and I'd say that contemporary zombies far outnumber their fantasy counterparts.

I learnt how to sculpt figures in the early 1980's when I realised that no-one was going to make the figures that I wanted to use in the role-playing games or skirmish wargames that I played. The very first 25mm scale figure I made was of Judge Dredd. I made a lot of characters from the 2000AD comic, all of which I look at now with embarrassment! Still, my other gamers loved them, and at the time, so did I. George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead film had a massive influence on me. I loved it then and I still love it now. I still think it is the best zombie film ever made, with the original Day of the Dead a close second. So I made figures of the four heroes from Dawn of the Dead and about two dozen zombies from the film. They saw a lot of use in a lot of games. But as I look at them now I just see so many mistakes I made on them and I cringe. Sorry, readers, but I refuse to show them!

Four figures that I made that I do like are the four shown in the two photos above. The zombie in the black trench coat and trilby, carrying an Ingram MAC10 sub-machine gun with silencer is based on a character from the novel The Assassin by Shaun Hutson. He wrote it in 1988 and I was so taken by a review of it that I had to buy it. It is one of the most graphically violent novels I've ever read and I loved it. The undead assassin, Charles Ross, was an obvious choice for a miniature. I guess he's more a revenant than a zombie but if you play a game that uses intelligent zombies then Ross certainly fits the bill. He can speak and he moves like a normal human - it's just that he's dead. I used an old Citadel plastic skeleton as the, well, skeleton of the figure and added Milliput to it. I was glad that he used a MAC10 in the novel, as they are very easy to sculpt! The Assassin has a line of bullet holes stitched across his chest and a chunk taken out of his upper left arm.

The two kids came about as no one made zombie kids in those days. I needed them for a game, so I sculpted them. They aren't that good to be honest but they filled a niche and they hold up well compared to lots of my adult zombie sculpts. When I saw the little girl zombie that was a winner in the Frothers sculpt a zombie competition I was immediately reminded of my effort as she is in a similar pose. However, the Frothers figure is vastly superior to mine. Neither of my kids are wounded, although they both have blood-smeared fingers. I wanted them to look as normal as possible from a distance. It is only when you get up close and see their undead eyes that you ought to realise these are zombies. The boy is wearing a T-shirt with the Batman logo on it.

Finally, the zombie biker ought to be instantly recognisable to any fans of Vincent Locke's Deadworld series of comics. He is King Zombie, a pivotal and powerful character in the series. If you're wondering what the writing on his T-shirt says, it's "Helmet Law Sucks!" He's a biker with attitude and no one is going to tell him to wear a crash helmet! He too, falls into the category of intelligent zombie and he can speak. He is holding a snub-nosed revolver in his right hand and a cigarette in the other. He may be a zombie but he still likes his cigarettes! Once again, I used an old Citadel plastic skeleton for his skeleton and built up the model with successive layers of Milliput modelling putty. Back then, Milliput was the only commercially available modelling putty. I still use it today, but mainly for filling in gaps on bases.

If I was to remake these figures today, I'd do a much better job on the kids but I doubt if I'd be able to improve on the quality of the Assassin and King Zombie. Nowadays, I almost never sculpt any figures. Most figure manufacturers cover what I need so there is no reason for me to sculpt. Long may it continue as there aren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything I want to do!

WWG Sportscars

These four sleek-looking sportscars come from the WWG Bits of Mayhem set. You have a choice of four colours - black, red, white and yellow - to choose from. I've made one of each colour.

As you would expect, they are quite low to the ground. I should have included a figure in the pictures to give a sense of their size.

Can anyone recognise what make of car they are? No, I couldn't either, not that I'm very good at car recognition. According to the instructions that came with this set, this is a Lambourarri. It's good to see that WWG designers have a sense of humour. Actually, I like the name. It is obviously not meant to represent a particular sportscar, rather it is just a generic sportscar.

One of the problems with WWG vehicles is that each particular vehicle has the same number plate. Although to be fair to WWG, in this case, four alternative number plates are provided as optional extras. However, it is a bit of a cop-out as they all contain the same six numbers and letters of the original, only they have been rearranged differently. I suppose it would be an easy enough task to kitbash some new plates as well as some vanity plates, which would be cool. On the other hand, given how small they are, who's going to notice? Still, I'm a perfectionist when it comes to my card models, so I will make each one different at some point.

These side views show how sleek the cars look. I must warn any potential builders out there that this is not any easy car to make. Basically, you have to make the front half and the back half then glue them together. Looking at the instructions, I couldn't help but think how incredibly fiddly it looked and the joining of the two halves seemed fraught with danger. I totally ignored the instructions because of the way that I make my card models. I began with building the roof and working down from there, making the sides next, follwed by the back, then the front and penultimately, the undercarriage. The wheels went on last.
I have mentioned countless times before that I print my models out onto photopaper and glue the parts to thick mounting card (or artboard if you live in the USA). As a consequence, when I cut the parts out, I also cut off the tabs for joining the pieces together. At first glance, this may seem like a dumb thing to do, but it does make sense. You see, mounting card is thick enough to glue to itself along the thickness of the card. Therefore, there is no need for locator tabs. Plus, the thickness of the mounting card would totally screw up any nice flush joins if I left the tabs on. Often, I have to cut the mounting card slightly smaller than the piece I'm gluing it to just to get a snug fit. It is a very different technique to the one shown in the WWG instruction guides but it has become second nature to me. The primary reason that I build this way is simply because I want my models to last. There is no question at all that my way is a lot more time-consuming than that recommended by WWG but my models will surely outlive me!
One other point that I want to make about my four sportscars is that some of the joins around the windows were not as smooth as I wanted. So I added a thin strip of modelling putty to them and smoothed them with my finger. The result - perfect edges. I was able to do this because of the strength and thickness of the mounting card. Finally, when it comes to "edging" (i.e. colouring in the edges) my models, I always use Citadel acrylic paints. I prefer to use paints to felt-tip pens because I can match the colours far better and the paint helps to seal the edges.
I built these as a batch of four rather than making them individually to save time. Build time was three days, working at least a couple of hours per day. They were complex models, compared to say, the pick-up trucks, but the end results are stunning. I'm very proud of them.

Foundry Figures Victorian Monsters

At the start of the year I promised more figure reviews of undead types other than zombies. During the Christmas holidays of 2009 I ordered this set - BCVIN6 Monsters & Mistresses - from Foundry Figures. The set comprises of eight figures, all approximately 35mm in height, which may be too tall for some collectors but not me.

I'm sure that regular viewers will have noticed that the backdrop that I have used for photographing these figures has changed from the usual grafitti covered concrete wall, pavement and tarmac road. I did not think it was appropriate for Victorian era monsters so I built this little set from the WWG Streets and Sewers of Himmelveil TerrainLinx sets. The cobblestone ground tile came from the Sewers set, whilst the walls are from the Streets set and the Sewers expansion set. I'll use this backdrop for any figures from bygone days or a fantasy setting.

The first two photos above show the bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster. They come as individual figures and as a vignette featuring them both together. The sculptor has clearly been influenced by the 1930's look with Boris Karloff's portrayal of Frankenstein's monster and Elsa Lanchester as the bride.  I think it's a good decision as theirs is the look that most people associate with these two characters.

The figure of the bride is very static but that is probably a good thing as it suits the character. She is not as tall as some of the other figures in this set but hair-do does make her appear taller than she really is.

The bride and monster combo is a delightful sculpt. The two figures are essentially the same as their individual versions but with a few subtle differences. I love the way that their heads have been slightly tilted so they lean in to each other and the monster appears to be smiling. How sweet! The monster has draped his arm across the bride's shoulders as if to say, she's mine! However, note the bride is holding a large carving knife behind her back. Does she fully love the monster and trust him?

The individual figure of the monster has him shambling forward. The musculature on his chest is well sculpted and he has a feeling of great strength about him. The bolts in his neck are prominent. If I was to be picky, I'd have to say that his head and hands are slightly too big and his legs appear to be too short.

These next two photos show two more figures from the set - the mummy and the female vampire. I ordered the skeletal Santa separately.

The mummy is not an an exceptionally great figure although he is well sculpted. As you would expect he is covered in bandages from head to foot with only his face exposed. I wanted his face to look like dark dried leather so I painted it with Citadel Bestial Brown then gave it two separate ink washes, first with Citadel Devlan Mud, then with Citadel Badab Black. I painted the teeth with Citadel Bleached Bone and dotted the eyes with Citadel Skull White. I did contemplate giving him a sand covered base painted to fit in a desert setting but opted for my usual urban rubble base instead.

I bought the skeletal Santa because I wanted a zombie Santa for my horde. He was the closest I could find to fit the bill. How was I to know that a couple of weeks later Studio Miniatures were going to release their Christmas zombies set? Skeletal Santa still makes a good zombie as there are so few bones on display. I've painted his bones in my usual pallid grey flesh tones that I use for the majority of my zeds, rather than paint them as bone. When you see him close up you can't tell the difference. Either technique works well. It just depends if you want to use him as a skeleton or a zombie. I love the way he has been sculpted. His base was a separate component and the section of roof and chimney stack is a great touch. On my base it is just a piece of rubble that has fallen to the ground. Note the toys in his sack and left hand. They are all scary monsters like ghosts and demons. This is a superb figure that I rate very highly.

The female vampire was instantly recognisable to me as I know she is based on a painting by Chris Achilleos. I have the book of artwork she appears in. She appears to be rising from the ground, as her feet are not visible. Her flesh tones are almost white. There is a hint of blue there from the Citadel Asurmen Blue ink wash but it is quite subtle. Her unfettered breasts stand tall and proud. She certainly has a nice rack! I particularly like the way her long black hair is blowing in the wind. It should come as no surprise that I like this figure a lot.

Finally, we come to the three humans in the set. I could have kept my Himmelveil backdrop for the dominatrices but not for the monster hunter with the flame thrower. She had to be photographed in a contemporary setting. Actually, this gives you a chance to compare the two backdrops without having to flip back to previous posts.
The way the two dominatrices are attired is just how you'd expect to see them dressed. I always say, if it ain't broken don't fix it. The lady on the far left is unnamed and is just called the Dominatrix on the Foundry website. Her cat-o'-nine-tails whip looks particularly nasty with its studded metal barbs. One lash of that will certainly strip flesh from the body. Like the bride above, she looks a lot taller than she is because of the way she has styled her hair. Her pose suggests she is in a contemplative frame of mind.
The other dominatrix is called Sadie Stern on the Foundry website. It would be hard to come up with a more appropriate name for her - Sadie reminds you of sadist and Stern tells you just what kind of demeanour she possesses. She could be the twin sister of the other dominatrix or they could be the same person but dressed slightly differently. At first glance they do appear to be identical but note that Sadie's boots are only knee-high not thigh-high. Also, Sadie's basque has shoulder straps, whilst the other one hasn't. The Dominatrix is wearing ear-rings but Sadie isn't. Finally, Sadie is armed with a small dagger as well as her cat-o'-nine-tails. Her right foot is resting atop a small circular box.
The vampire slayer called Hot Wax by Foundry is well equipped to take out a whole nest of bloodsuckers. You don't see many contemporary figures armed with flamethrowers and even less females so armed. The small bottle she is holding in her right hand will, no doubt, be filled with holy water. Of course a flamethrower is an ideal weapon to dispose of any undead threat. I could see her working well with a group of like-minded slayers. All three females are great figures and I wouldn't want to cross any of them!
Set BCVIN6 Monsters & Mistresses costs £40.00 for all eight figures. However, they can be bought separately for £5.00 each or £11.00 for the Frankenstein bride and monster combo. Skeletal Santa also costs £5.00. I scored by ordering them when I did as Foundry were offering a 20% discount on all of their figures as a Christmas gift incentive. I'd been after this set for a long time so I was glad that I waited. All of the figures are very well sculpted. As with all Foundry figures they come with integral metal bases but more often than not, these are far too small, so I ended up sticking them onto slottabases anyway. Apart from anything else, it helps tie them in with the rest of my figure collection. I think the two things that might put some people off buying them is their price (too expensive?) and their height (too big?). As a fan of all things undead, I thought this was a great set to buy and Skeletal Santa is a cracking good figure.