Hospital Beds - Now on Sale!!

Short blog this time just to let you know that the hospital beds are finally on sale now, so check out the website: http://www.grekwoodminiatures.co.uk/HospitalBeds.php

Here's a photo of some packaged up beds:

Reminder, contact me for postage if you are outside of the UK. I can't stress that enough as normal postage doesn't always cover countries outside of the UK.

Also, once again, if you want the normal zombie nurses and want to save on postage, then please wait until next week as that is when I should hopefully have the zombies for sale.

If you know of anyone who might like these, whether on forums/facebook or whatever, please post a link to them :)

Cheers to everyone who has commented and been patient the past month or so. It's been a while getting there, but I finally did it!

Until the next blog...cheerio!

Painted 28mm Hospital Beds

I finished painting the beds yesterday. I admit they are not painted to best of standards, but as they are more war gaming pieces rather than "figures" I don't think it matters as much. You can kinda get the idea of what they are meant to look like though, which is the main thing! So here they are set out into their 8 different packs:

Below are he 4 empty bed packs. They are pretty self explanatory.. You can't zoom in though sorry! I uploaded the wrong images, and it took ages to arrange them (it was jumping all over the place!)

Below are the 2 packs which have alive patients in them. The male pack contains one guy sitting up holding a glass, whilst the other lays down with a sick pan thing, because he's just not feeling too good. Female pack has a female sitting up with a bed pan on her bed, and one laying down..maybe she is tired?

Below are the two "zombified" eaten people. And their corpse counterpart before they spring back to life!

These will hopefully be ready for sale on the website early next week!

IMPORTANT: The "normal" zombie nurses will most likely be available the week after (if everything goes according to plan), therefore if you would like both the hospital beds AND the nurses (and would like to save on postage) it is best to wait until the nurses are available. That way you save some postage..

If you plan to wait for the nurses, you can still let us know exactly what you would like to order (bed wise), and we will put it aside for you until the nurses come into stock and you are ready to make your order :)

ALSO... it is very important that if you live outside of the UK, contact me (through the website) with your order so I can calculate the correct postage, otherwise I cannot send it to you using the normal postage as that only applies to the UK.

28mm Zombie Hospital beds - almost ready for sale...

I have some news which I think some of you might be glad to FINALLY hear. The hospital beds will be ready for sale in the next week or two (hopefully). We have cast loads so far, so many that the moulds have started to split (literally!).

Because of the shape of the beds, the moulds require bending quite a bit to get the beds out of the mould. So slowly little bits start breaking off in the mould. Luckily we have managed to get all those beds in the photo out first (see photo).

Click to ZOOOOM

So currently there is a limited availability, but we are going to remake the moulds so we can make more. I am probably going to do some work to the originals to make them pop out of the mould easier (to make it last longer). Nothing visual will change, it's all "behind the scenes" type work which won't make a difference to the actual look of the beds.

We plan to spray them with a white primer (nothing definite yet), because they just look better when they are white (also it'll make painting a lot easier as paint doesn't stick too well to the bare resin). So we thought we'd help everyone out a bit more. Plus white helps show up the detail far more.

Progress on the hospital building has slowed down currently as I am focussing on getting the beds ready for sale as it's been a while since I actually added new stuff to the website...gaahhhhhh...

I think that's it for now... so until next time, all comments are welcome as always! Thanks for reading :)

28mm Hospital Ward Complete!

This is the 3rd prototype, but I think it is the final one. I made the room at the back wider for a couple of reasons: Figures on a 25mm base take up a floor area of 5ft x 5ft, rather than what a real human takes up, about 2ft x 1ft. So a room scale room at 9ft x 9ft can only fit one figure in, whereas in real life it can fit quite a few people. So this was my first problem to overcome. I had to make some of the rooms (day room area/storage room and toilet) a lot larger to fit figures in. So, for example, the storage room is double the size of what it should be to compensate for bases. So it's no longer "true" scale, but it is visually better, and more playable for a game. Ok, now the fun part, here's some piccys!




Overall view of one ward. Notice the back part has been made bigger because of the reasons started above. It is actually more like the shape of the hospital I am basing it on (Llandough Hospital).

Bigger windows in the day room, with an emergency exit in the middle image.

I also created wall corner pieces to cover up joins and awkward corners. It helps make it look more detailed. It's a pain to cut out though, well, more boring that anything lol








Photo 3: So "cool" angle shots... I mean "artistic" shots :P Pretty much jst showing the basic layout. A front desk will be pt where the black figure is. The the small room will have a shower and a toilet/sink in it. There will be enough room to fit a figure, I mean you don't get people sharing toilets!






A closer view of the day room area. The large carpeted area is the day room. It'll have a couple of sofas and a tv in it. The room where banana man is in will be a storage room. I'll be making cupboard out of resin to fit in this room. Finally the small room is a toilet. Big enough to fit one figure in. Again, we don't share toilets!




Another angle to show the emergency fire exit door (with signs!). As the wards will be upstairs, I plan to make a little staircase to go up to them.

Finally a birds eye view of the ward... just because!









Something a bit different. This is the floor plan idea that I have come up with and I am building. The wards will be on the 1st floor (2nd floor depending where you live.) The ground floor (or first floor) will have the entrance area, x-ray dept, outpatients and so forth. It is designed so that the building can be as many levels as you like :)



Ok that's it for now. I should get back to design work or building or something...

Cheers again for any comments and for reading!

A Bit Of Everything

Hello!

I would like to start by saying hello and thank you to those who have recently started to "follow" me.

Zombie Hospital

I have been busy all day with the hospital building. I have been taking photos of each stage and writing a documentation explaining how to put it all together. Once finished, I plan to put it on the website as a PDF download which people will be able to purchase. I thought I may as well as you never know who might want it. I have created a number of floor/ward colours, such as light blue, green, red, pink, and tomorrow I will probably make a yellow and dark blue ward. Each floor is checkered with the ward colour and white tiles just to make them different.

Once the wards are complete I will start work on a hallway, well, multiple hallways, depending on how I want to lay out the hospital wards.

Latest Releases

I am currently awaiting a parcel for the new zombie nurses/mutants/demons. I'm not 100% sure whether this is just the masters, or the production figures as well. I hope it's both as I really want to start selling them. I originally wanted to put them on the website near the end of June/begining of July, but there were a few casting delays, but I have been informed I should have them early next week. So fingers crossed for that!

As soon as I recieve them I'll update the blog for people who are interested in them.

Hospital Beds

The new resin seems to have a better viscosity, but it sets pretty fast which is a bit of a problem. Because it sets fast, bubbles are difficult to get rid of as it becomes thick quickly..soooooo... We have an idea; building up the moulds in layers rather than in one go. The idea is to pour a small amount of resin into the moulds, poke it into place to get the detail, and when it is dry, top it up with more resin. It's a plan which I hope works. 

If this fails, then what I might do is touch them up with some putty (the bubbles are so tiny it's crazy), and sell them that way. Once painted you wont know it's there. So that's an option, what do you think?

We'll keep trying, but that is a last resort...

Final thought...

Hopefully over the weekend I will post a blog which shows the hospital coming together! I decided to open up a bag of 50 trees (Tree link!) to decorate around the hospital when done. I am making a few alterations, such as putting them on sturdier bases, and spraying them with green sprays to give more variety :) 

Okie dokie, that's all for now. Cheers for reading if you got this far as it's bit of a long blog without pictures...

As always, comments etc are welcome. If you're new, check out our website. Things will be added next week :) Grekwood Miniatures Website

WIP Zombie Hospital!

Helloo :)Here's some WIP photos of the hospital I am making. It's a prototype so make sure I get sizes/proportions correct. It's all pretty much working so far.


I have started off by making a ward. It will have 8 beds in it, a front reception desk, and a bathroom/toilet in the main ward room. Towards the back I decided to put an "extension" on, which will include a "Day Room", storage room, and another toilet/shower room, as it's a ward, you need a few toilets... one may cause problems :P As it is a prototype, the "proper" ward will have long continuous sides of foam board, rather than a separate piece for the day room.


To the bottom right of the photo is a nice chocolate/caramel shortbread cake... I recommend them, they taste goooooood!

The photo to the right now has interior walls! It took ages to line all the windows up and repaint the walls.

I decided to put some beds in there to show scale along with a few "survivors" from various companies.

Photo to the left shows the exterior view. Larger windows in the day room. A smaller window can be seen at the far end where the toilet will be. We don't want people peeking whilst someone is in there!!!

A close up of the day room shows the banana man chatting up Ashley Campbell from Hasslefree (Nice one banana man!) The plain white wall is a WIP of where the bathroom/storage room will be.

FINALLY... I took ages colouring in all those blue squares(using Photoshop) ...totally forgetting that I could have just created a small area and copy and pasted it all!!!!! Oh well, it's done now and looks pretty decent. I plan to have about 6 wards. Each with it's own unique colour, so pink for maternity ward and other colours for random wards. Makes it a bit different rather than all the same.
The hospital will be quite large, but it's meant to be the main focus/scenario of a possible game, such as clear the hospital of all infected and save any survivors... so there may only be a small exterior surrounding it.

I plan to make it so that it will be a number of pieces which are connected together. So the hospital can either have loads of wards spread over one floor, or be a small but tall hospital or whatever I feel like at the time I play. What I mean is, it's not a set size, it can be altered, so it can be made bigger or smaller and any shape, that's the plan anyway if that makes any sense??

So that's all for now. Hopefully tomorrow we'll try casting the beds again so fingers crossed. Oh apparently the zombie nurses are being case today... so we'll see what happens with those. Fingers crossed they'll be ready soon (I know I keep saying that....).


Cheers for reading! Now I'm off to eat some fish and chips...yum! :)

Finished! 28mm Hospital Furniture

I finally finished the hospital beds today..yay! It's taken a while but I finally got there. I've taken a few quick photos, so the quality isn't great, but you can get a rough idea.

The plan for tomorrow is to make moulds of everything and hopefully cast one batch to check that everything is ok. Sunday I will begin painting them, and hopefully early next week I'll be able to post a photo of how they all look painted. In the mean time, if they turn out ok, my dad (he's the one who does the resin casting) will cast loads ready for me to package up!

I have only made 4 base parts, so in the photo which shows everything (last photo), only 4 are set up correctly.

If you didn't see the prices/pack contents/discounts, please see my previous blog which I posted yesterday. Otherwise, cheers for looking and I hope you like them :)

Postage: For those who haven't been on my website, there is a red banner at the top which mentions that people from outside of the UK need to contact me for postage. This is because Paypal only lets me set postage rates for one country. Depending on what and how much you order, it may be covered by the normal postage. Sorry in advance for any issues it may cause...

LAST THING! I've put a discount (reduced price) on the 45mm Monsters and Demons (apart from Executioner Steve).  It's a permanent change :)

Okie dokie, cheers for reading once again! Now, I shall rest with some TV!

WIP Zombie Hospital Beds

I have been working on some hospital beds since my last blog. Here's a photo of the progress:

Starting from the left:
1 nicely made bed (ready for a patient)
1 untidy bed (Maybe a dead person has risen and is now a zombie!)
1 storage bed (Gotta have somewhere to store all those excess pillows and blankets. There is also a medical box which is full of umm medical stuff...or weapons?!)
2 corpses (bottom one is male, top is female. More noticeable in person because of the "bumps"... yeah you know what I mean)

The next bed is of a male who couldn't make it out of bed in time. He has been fed upon, with intestines hanging out and part of his brain scooped out. I plan to do a similar one for a female too, different injury type though.
The others will be a combo of male/female living, and some which are fed upon. I should be able to finish them next week and will get casting straight away.

NOW I NEED HELP!! - So I have a question regarding those barrier things which stop people from falling out of the bed. Should I put side barriers on some beds or not worry about them. They aren't difficult to make, but they will only be able to go on some beds because of casting reasons. When they are in place (lifted up) I can do them (only about 4 beds would need them), but when they are lowered to the side of the bed they will cause casting problems as I am using 1 part resin moulds which always have one side which is flat... so they would't cast properly. So my question is, should I just leave them off and not worry about them, or should I just put them on 4 of the beds?

ZOMBIE NURSES... There has been a delay casting them. I've been told moulding should start early next week. So it's looking like I will have them ready for sale around the beginning to mid July... (hopefully the beginning) sorry! It's completely out of my control. Just wondering, who is likely to want them?

Cheers for any input and you time!
Me!

Zombie Hospital Furniture

I would like to start off by saying a big Happy Birthday to my brother Gareth! He would have been 29 today. I wish he could be here to celebrate with us. We plan to have a meal along with some cider (as he liked cider), and then we are also planing to send up a birthday balloon with a note attached to it. It still feels at times that he is still here, and I have to think about it sometimes to realise that he isn't. I still can't believe it, like it hasn't sunken in. I know it happened, but I just can't comprehend it. It's like my brain refuses to believe what happened, and every time I start thinking about it, everything just shuts down. Anyway... it's his birthday, and I hope wherever he is, and whatever he is doing, that he has a great day, and we'll always be thinking of him :)

Now...zombie stuff...

After reading replies to my last blog it gave me a lot of ideas to consider. One that made sense for me to do right now would be some hospital furniture to compliment the hospital range of zombies. Don't worry, I will be bringing out other zombie ranges, this was just my first.

So, I made some beds, mainly 2 poses, sitting up and laying down. We cast them in resin this morning and I painted one (VERY roughly). These will provide a solid base foundation so over the next week I can dress them up to house sheets/pillows/people alive/corpses etc etc.

So here's one of the "base models", like a prototype. The base hasn't been cast yet. It's not complete as it only has a basic mattress on it. So final ones will be all kitted out in various situations. I've made plans which cover pretty much most scenarios, so depending what you are aiming for it should be covered, whether it's a ward of corpses, a ward with patients who need protecting, or a ward which has recently been fed upon, or simply an empty ward... it's all included :P

Oh by the way, that's a bananaman which Gareth sculpted for the Hasslefree "Dress a Kev" competition :)

I have heard no news about the recent set of zombies which are with the metal caster, but I plan to get these beds finished in time for release with the new zombie nurses.

Cheers again for reading. As always, all comments are very welcome.