My Birthday!! ...A zombie and some PDF Stuff

Welcome to the new followers! I hope you will find many things to keep you interested!

Two days ago it was my 28th birthday. I had a lamp which has 2 magnifying glasses built into it from my wife. It really helps a lot when doing really small details on the figures so will be extremely useful in the future (and hopefully help save my eyes!! haha).

From my parents I had a Roman centurion sword! Its a working replica, so it's basically a real centurion sword made how it should be (just made in the 21st century haha).
The centurion sword has solid brass parts, a thick blade and a super sharp point. It also has a leather scabbard/sheath. It's pretty heavy for its size!

I now have a large collection of swords. Mainly Samurai swords (a mixture of Katanas, Wakisashis, and Tantos), about 11 or so I think. Some are display models which have thinner blades and are blunt, and would not stand long in a fight, and some are working replicas. Basically that means they are built how they should be, sharp, and thick blades. I have a real samurai sword from WW2 ... or 1... I think WW2. I have a working replica of the "Kill Bill" sword, which I can't seem to find online anymore. It's all the blunt versions, or ones where the handle isn't wrapped in leather.

Ok... Now Grekwood Minis News:

I have been working on the supermarket PDF. I have been making the shelves to decorate the interior (although not as detailed as Joe's supermarket over at Zabadaks Blog..you should check it out, it's super impressive!!). I have tried to customise each piece on the shelves so that it isn't just colour blocks, so this is what I have so far (below). I still need to fill up the shelves a bit more. I don't want "fully stocked" shelves, so there will be the odd gap or two where products have been taken off by customers, to help add a bit of realism.

Hospital PDF
I do still plan to bring out the expansion pack for this hospital. It may have to wait until early spring as I have a lot of stuff going on at the moment, but I haven't forgot about it, so keep an eye out!

Zombie bust
Last thing: here's a WIP of the zombie bust I am making:

Ok, that's all for now. I need to try and get back into the blog scene, with more blog updates as they are becoming less over the past few months.

Cheers for looking!

WIP Zombies, and Roads...

Once again it has been over a week since my last bog, so here's another one! I don't have a huge amount to talk about as I've just been busy jumping between a few different projects.

I sent off the 4 figures, HammerMan, Princess Bexi, Grekwood in a Fez, and, finally the sci fi alien. They are currently with a caster, but not sure when I'll get those back.

"Roads, where we're going we don't need roads!" (Back to the Future)...
We are currently working on some "road sections" which are designed to be mounted to foamboard (for pavements) and for the base. Although you can use thinner card for the road part. Either way, the pavements have to be on foam board (I guess if you wanted to you could alter it some how).

We plan make them for ourselves, but as I have a webstore, I may as well pop them online in case anyone else would like them! We will make a few different versions, such as tarmac roads with residential style tarmac pavements. Then roads with yellow lines, and then some with paved pathways etc etc. So we should be able to mix and match and get every combo we need.

Next Batch of Zombies: WIP
Here's a little WIP of the current batch of zombies, which is going well. A few of them are finished (such as the ones to the left on black bases). The two in the photo are almost there. The photo is a little old (like a few days), as the two figures have progressed since then. So remember, they are WIP, which means what you see isn't how the final thing will look... It's just a taster.

Clik to zoooOOOOMM

CGD Society Get Together Weekend

Here's a photo of me and Kate from the CGD weekend get together we went to last month... I should have worn the wig... but it was too hot in there! Anyway, who says a pirate can't look after their hair?? :P

Click to zooOOOMM

Ok, that's all for now! Comments as always are welcome :)

A Pirate, A Princess and an Xbox360 Walk into A Bar

Ok, so it's not a joke, but those things are in this blog, so bare with me!!

I spent the past few days making a waistcoat for my costume. I bought some cheap material on eBay, along with some gold buttons. I cut it up and sewed it all together and this is the final product. It looks pretty awesome under all the belts and sashes! I have a few things left to do but it's coming along nicely.

Click to ZOOOOOM

As I have been lacking in the "Miniatures" area lately due to the house move, I have decided to reveal a little something I started working on about a day or two before I moved. It's not finished, so it still needs a lot of work, but I think it looks cool. I have a friend who made a costume which was Dr Who related (part dalek, part human), so I decided to make her into a figure and sell once complete.

Click to ZOOOOM

Xbox360

On a sad note, the Xbox360 stopped functioning properly. The usual green lights are now red, which means it has issues. There are 4 lights, each taking up a quarter of a circle. 4 lights (full circle) means hardware problems, and that it's pretty much stuffed. 3 lights is either overheating problemss, or battery problems. Not sure what 1 or 2 lights mean. Anyway, mine shows 3 red lights. So I took it all apart (which was actually quite difficult despite what tutorials show), and now I just need to put some "thermal compound" underneath the heat radiators/sinks and onto the processors. This should help cool it back down quicker and make it wok again *fingers crossed* as the old thermal compound has been depleted (dried up). I guess photos of that will be in my next blog as I'm still waiting for the compound to be delivered..

So until the compound is here...cheerio!

28mm Hospital almost complete!

Here are some more WIP photos of the hospital I am building.

A day or two ago I decided to finally put a roof onto the building. So I spent part of yesterday putting all the wall pieces together on the computer, printing them out, then glueing them to the ceiling wall sections. So here are the photos.

Front Angle: in the middle of the "link" hallway, I will be putting an entrance door. maybe a small step to get into the building, maybe even a ramp for disabled people (need to cover every possibility!).

Rear Angle: That's pretty much all it is!!

 Front: The entrance will be in the centre. I still need to put the paving stones around the top of the "ceiling wall". There are some already on at the back of the left ward.

Finally here's a photo of how it all breaks down for easy storage. We plan to have 10 wards made (full scale ward for a game (2 story building). So they all stack nicely on the top shelf of a cabinet.








I have had a bit of trouble making this, not because it is complicated, but because the foam board I was using was dodgy. It's meant to be 5mm thick, but I found myself working with 6mm and even 7mm thick foam board (from "The Range"), which varied in thickness from one end to the other. So when putting the building together there are some gaps. Anyway, it's designed for 5mm foam board. So as long as that is used there should be no problems.

My dad bought a few sheets from Hobby Craft about a week ago (it was less than £3 for an A2 size sheet). They are all 5mm, so my dad is helping to build a few extra wards as I'm busy packing (house move), and trying to get a bit of sculpting in here and there. I have build 5 so far, my dad is going to make 4, and I need to make one more to take photos of for the documentation (which is almost written).

Anyway, that's it for now, oh that figure in the photo is a new sculpt, but you probably can't see it that well as it's far away.

Cheers for reading :) I'm hoping to have the "basic" singe story hospital online in September.

Hospital Building Progress

Here are some photos of the hospital. I have positioned them in some different layouts to give ideas of what can be done.

  To the left is the "basic" hospital. I plan to pop the PDF online with one ward colour (grey), and the 3 hallway parts shown (which are shown in grey). It will allow the builder to create a ground floor, 2 ward hospital for smaller games. This is perfect for the "Mega deal" of hospital beds as each ward fits 8 beds (so 16 altogether!).

 An expansion pack will be released later which will include a 4th bit of hallway (the part connecting to the green ward). This allows the ward to go as wide as you like. It will also include a stairs/lifts to get to a further floor, and new wall prints for the "longer hallway" part, which will accommodate for the lifts/stair doors.

As the expansion pack allows you to go wider and taller, I will also provide a "fire escape" stairs to connect to the exterior (left).

Photo to the right shows the the "basic" size, which goes up to a second level. I will also be working eventually on an entrance pack, which will connect to the mid section. It's not essential, it's just something hard core gamers might like as an "add-on".






To the left is the "ultimate" layout. It will have 3 wards along the back, and two wards on the front, and an entrance in the middle. This is the design I am aiming to build, although it will take up

Right: Shows how the lift/stairs and entrance would connect to the centre piece of hallway/corridor.

Finally, an alternate layout which I might do one day. I'm only doing this as a side project when I get bored of sculpting and stuff.

That's all for now with the hospital. I'll probably start uploading stuff to the website for it next month. Ohh totally forgot, so a few weeks ago I was talking about moving and houses all going too quickly. About a week after I wrote that blog, a new apartment popped up online, we went to see it and agreed to it there and then! It has a great sized 2nd bedroom, which is perfect to make as a proper office/workroom. It has a master bedroom with ensuite, main bathroom, and an open plan kitchen/lounge. The lounge is a little on the small side, but it should be good enough to get a sofa and dining table in there (with the TV and bookcase of course!). We get the keys on Sept 6th, but we plan to move in on the 7th. So we've been packing things up, which means a lot of my sculpting/hobby/business stuff has been packed up!! But it's ok, I'm keeping a bare minimum of stuff out to keep me going!

Righty oh then, that's all until next time. Cheers again to everyone who has bought some of the recent items!

28mm Zombie Nurses NOW AVAILABLE!!

Super quick blog just to let you all know I have just uploaded the new zombie nurses with normal heads to the website. So they are now available to buy! :)

I will be uploading 2 more packs of mutants in the next day or two as I just need to finish off the packaging up and so forth.

I'll do a "proper" blog in the next day or two, with updates of the hospital building and the other mutant packs.

Cheers for all the support and encouragement, it means a lot :)