Grekwood Minis Display in Detail

Apologies for not getting around the blogs as much, I have been extremely busy getting everything ready for our first ever show next week, and I have been running back and forth to the hospital as my wife Kate had an operation  about 5 days ago. She is doing better though and will hopefully be home on Monday or Tuesday!

So..Grek Minis news! It's just under a week until Crusade here in Cardiff (UK), the first ever trade show where Grekwood Miniatures will be selling! I have been working hard to put together a display which looks decent enough to "launch us", and I think I haven't done too bad. Here's a few WIP photos of the display which I set up on my pool table which rarely gets used for pool! The edges of the table made things not sit right, but its good enough for a tester.

There are a few things missing from the cabinets as I have them elsewhere for photos. But you should get a general idea in the next couple of photos...






At the front I have the scenery stuff to the left, which I have placed on raised display stands which I made.

To the right (at the front) I have displayed more scenery items including ball bearings, bases, steampunk parts and so forth. I still need to put labels all over it.







Next up, is the cabinet. The right cabinet is all zombies and hospital beds, and the left cabinet is the sci fi/fantasy cabinet, along with putties and glues (and the snow) at the bottom.

If you look closely the Grekwood Sculpt is in the left cabinet. I'm making a label so it'll say coming soon!






In the left cabinet I have put a road section with my new convertible mini (if only it was real!). It's to help give scale and to show that it's what the PDFs should look like.











Next up is the space next tot eh cabinet. This is a "mock up" design, and not the final one. It was just to give me an idea of what it would look like. As I can't take the PDFs with me, I thought it would be nice to alert people that we sell those too.

The Pro Arte brushes and the paints. Those are not the correct paints. They are my collection so they don't all match up. But they will be the proper things on the day. The brushes will also be taken out of their plastic wrappers.

 Finally, here's a little photo of the new design hospital bed undercarriage. They are mainly made because of casting reasons, but they are narrower, which allows figures to "tuck" under the bed more closely, to help with space.







Maybe next year we will get a 12ft table, and actually put the hospital building out on show with our road sections, which by the way, we have 10 different versions now, all of which will be online soon.

Thanks again for all your support!

11 Zombies (WIP)

Here's 11 of the supermarket bunch. I have another 5 in progress, so hopefully I can finish them very soon.

From Left: Female warehouse worker in a high vis jacket. Next is a tall (purposely made slightly taller) worker. He is a bit of an everything, so a cleaner, trolley collector, or whatever else they might want him to do! In the middle is a male warehouse guy, again in a high vis jacket. Finally the two on the end are from the office/management of the supermarket.

I have two more office people to finish, and one cleaner which is almost complete.

From Left: Fish Monger! He's a bit torn up. Then a butcher, again he was made slightly taller as I wanted him to be quite a strong looking character. 3rd is a chef with a rolling pin! Now the last 3 are general workers, so cashiers, shelf stacker's and so on.

I have one "cheese counter" type female to finish, and one female worker.


ROADS
They are now available on the website. We plan to release quite a lot of variations of these. So there will be different paths (tarmac, paving slabs etc), different road types, so plain, single yellow, double yellow, etc.

It's to make it easier to customise your own road.

DISCOUNT
There re only 13 days left on the 10% discount. So if you are in need of sculpting putties, or trees for scenery, or glue, or ball bearings, then go check it out.

Cheers.. Comments always welcome!

WIP Zombies, and 50 Posts!!

I have reached 50 posts!! That's quite a few I think since I only started in April/May 2012!

So I would like to thank everyone who has followed me so far and commented on my posts. Here's to another 50! *holds up imaginary beer*.

To start with, Brummie from Brummies Wargaming Blog has nominated me as one of his 5 nominees for the Liebster Award! So thanks!!

So, umm, What is it??
To be honest, when I read this I had no clue what it was, so I had to Google it. Turns out it is a meme, a bit like one of those *pass on to 10 of your friends and you'll receive a cool message at midnight* type thing (which I assume never happens), but at least this one is nicer and actually has a point to it.

Now for the difficult part.. I read that it is not obligatory to pass this on, which kinda make this easier as I need to choose 5 people to pass this on to. Now I only follow a handful of blogs, or at least a handful which do regular updates. Pretty much most I follow have already been nominated as the one's I follow are all within the same circle, or have over 200 followers! So choosing 5 is pretty much impossible! But I do appreciate the thought! :)

Zombies
So here's some more WIP:

Hopefully you will see my sculpting is getting better, and hopefully it will continue to do so. So from left to right. We have a classic style butcher with sausages around his neck and one of those old style hats. Then we have a female management person with a walkie talkie. Finally there is a male manager, who seems to be a bit torn up!

Finally

On a different note, I decided to confront people on a forum who said my figures were "average" and cared little for them. I thought it was just a little rude as it was meant as an insult. So, I decided to join the forum, and reply. I said: Thanks for the compliment! Average means they are not as good as some, but it also means they are better than some out there. Which, when you consider I only started sculpting a year ago, with no prior experience or art background, that's pretty damn good from my point of view, as most have been sculpting far longer and are from art backgrounds.

Turn an insult into a positive, always good :)

Ok, that's all for now, oh I guess more WIP will be up on my next blog. I did plan to post some photos of the roads we have in the pipe line, but that will have to be on my next blog as I need to take photos.

Righty oh then, Cheers for reading and the support! :)

Zombie Apocalypse Guy Finished!

In my last blog I posted some work in progress of an apocalyptic fellow I was working on. Today I finally finished him, so here's a photo:

I made the image "Greyscale" as I used 3 different coloured putties on him, plus the brass parts, so by making it grey in tone it makes it blend a lot better.

The figure will come in 4 parts because of casting reasons. The main figure is one part, but the hooks on his lower back, the hammer, and the chain are all separate parts which will need to be glued in place. Alternatively, the weapon doesn't need to be "glued" as it can be swivelled around to either be a hammer of an axe.

The chain will come separate which I will provide off a large reel of chains. This is because chains are often difficult to cast because of all the holes. So the buyer will be able to wrap the chain around the hammer however they think looks best. I like to think of it as customisation!

The hooks on the back may also cause casting difficulties, so for that reason again I have left them off (I used blue-tac in the photo haha). So again, it can either be left off, or for added detail it can be glued into place under his belt.

Finally, I will also be sending off the Grekwood sculpt along with the "not dalek" figure, who I shall name after the person it is based on, so Princess Bexi, to the casters. Hopefully these will not take too long to produce.

My full attention can now get back to those zombies!!

PDF Hospital Building, Zombies, and Armless Beings

Yesterday I went to my parents house to set up the single story, two ward hospital. It went pretty well. We set up the table with a grass mat, then placed the hospital down, and placed some trees around the perimeter. There was a gap at the edge of the table, so we placed some buildings at the end of the table to make it look like the edge of a town.

So here's a photo of the end product:

I think it turned out really well. We used some resin roads which my dad made a long time ago for a war game with my brother Gareth a.k.a Grekwood. 

Here's a view of the inside. We set up some hospital beds inside, along with some doctors and nurses, but we didn't have any normal doctors or nurses, so they are all zombies... but they aren't meant to be!! That'll be saved for the derelict version (post apocalyptic version) to come at a later date!

Finally I shall end with a photo of  how the table as a whole looked. We  arranged the trees in a way so that they were all in frame. We thought there was no point filling the whole table if it wasn't going to be in the photo. So that explains the weird arrangement of trees below!

I will finalise things today and the PDF file will be uploaded (hopefully) tomorrow or the over the weekend. I'll update the blog/Facebook when this is done!

Oh and here's an image of the Armless Beings now they are all painted :)

Cheers for looking, all comments are welcome as always!

Pirate Accessories and 28mm Scale Hospital!

This week I have been working on my pirate costume. It was in need of a sword and a gun, so using some Amazon vouchers which my wife got for doing some surveys, we purchased a nice cheap gun and sword all for under a tenner (so for free with the vouchers!).


The gun was all silver when it arrived as seen in this photo: (that's not my hand.. it's taken from the Amazon website as I forgot to take a "before" photo...). So, I wasn't keen on the silver finish, or the orange tip, so I decided to give it a make over.

As you can see, I sprayed it gold, then gave it a brown wash over the detail. I then painted the inside of the gun black, and "aged" the tip to give it that "used" look.

I think it looks much better and looks less "plasticy".

What do you think?

Second up is the sword! I bought this for two reasons. Most looked small (short) and kinda of childish (as they are toys!). This one had a longer blade, and quite a cool looking handle compared to bare metal.

However, when it arrived the blade was broke. So I had to pin it, glue it, and stuff some Miliput over the join to make it stronger. The join is noticeable, but at least it wont break now.The blade was also black and not silver like Amazon shows. So I didn't like that. Also the skull needed something... so in my next photo you'll see the difference!

I painted the teeth, and put in a gold tooth, and also painted the blade silver. I wasn't liking that black colour!

Here's the finished stuff... well, the gun still needs some painting on parts (trigger area and such). But I think I have made cheap toys look better :)








Ok, so here's some pictures of the hospital which I thought I posted, but apparently not. There was some questions about whether it was one piece or many. The answer is, it can be either. It's designed to be separate as shown (for easy storage and moving).

BUT!! If you are up to the task, it can easily be made as one large piece as shown below: It would just need some calculations to get the floor and roof as one piece, but it shouldn't be too difficult. Ideally it comes apart as this version is only small, and it's designed to eventually be bigger. But that's your choice :)

In the documentation I will provide all the measurments to make it one piece or separate. So it's up to you then how you want to make it. But keep in mind I will be expanding the hospital with new parts ad so forth.

Anyway, that's all for now. Sculpting has once again begun, so yay for that. I'll do some more in a bit. I tend to split my time between quite a few things (not all business!). Anyway, I hope that helps with whoever had those questions or thoughts.

Feel free to leave comments as usual, but until then, over!

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!

Hospital WIP and Zombie Figure News

Hello there :)

Figure News:

I believe a parcel has been sent my way containing the production figures of the zombie nurses, Mutants with guns (known as Bioblytes) and the demonic guys with no arms! They should hopefully arrive tomorrow. I have sorted out the website ready for upload, so as soon as they arrive I will post it all online. So be on the look out tomorrow!

I struggled to come up with a name for the mutants, but I ended up with "Bioblytes". The first part of the name (Bio) was used because they are biologically enhanced beings (unless you decide that they are aliens from another planet). The "blytes" part comes from a combo of things. I play "Dragon Age" on the xbox360 where a "blight" is known as something evil, and darkness is spawned to pretty much take over the world, and the work is done by loads of evil beings. So I wanted to use this, but I wanted to incorporate technology  (as they are sci-fi based and some have circuit boards built in). So the second half became a combo of "blight" and "byte" (as in bit, byte,megabyte). It can also represent the fact that if they get too close they will bite you (hence the mouths being large and open). Kinda like a play-on word...bite/blyte...yeah..

Anyway, that's the logic behind the name!!

Hospital:
I decided to go back to the hospital and try and sort out a basic hallway to link the wards together, so here are some WIP photos:

I am building the hospital hallway in 3 sections, all partitioned off by double doors. I thought by partitioning it off, it would make gaming more interesting as you have to clear one area to move on to the next. Or you can have different barricaded rooms and move back as they are overrun. The last image is a diagram to show how the different sections are put together to accommodate a different number of  wards. 

As for doorways, I have decided to do the basic "printed on" doors, which people can imagine that they open close. However, I will provide a solution/easy way to make the doors look open. It's all done using 5mm foam card, but the doors will be made with thin card (like that paper card) to give them a more sturdy feel. All will be explained in another blog when I have put together a prototype.

That's all for now. Stay tuned, spread the news, and leave comments. Thanking you all!! :)

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.

Sci-fi and Zombies, it's all cool

Below are photos of my latest sculpts which I have recently sent of to the casters. This is mainly for those who have not seen them on Facebook and the "Boardofthelvingdead" forums.

The first image shows some sci-fi mutants/aliens which have some big guns. Two mutants are muscular, whilst the other two are much less so. I want to say "flabby" but I'm sure that's not "politially correct" these days... I don't care, I'll say it, they are more fat/flabby in appearance.

Click to ZOOOM

The second image shows some sci-fi/fantasy beings. They are mutated once again giving a "straight jacket" appearance. The expansion of the torso has caused their fronts to split open, making this a vulnerable spot.

Click to ZOOOM

Finally, the third image is the NEW zombie nurses. These will be replacing the current zombie nurses with bandages, and will be available for the 4 pack discount deal. The bandaged zombies are being moved to a new page with under the "Fantasy" column, named "Demons". This is because they are pretty much demonic nurses.

Click to ZOOOM

The new nurses have longer skirts, piping on the sleeves, epaulets on the shoulders and "normal" zombie heads. Also, all weapons have been removed. Two have "slight" damage (tears in clothes etc) and the other two don't. This is in keeping with the other 3 hospital packs.

So, I'm taking a few days break, and I'll start working on some more stuff. I think I'll create some bases to go with those sci-fi guys...

Cheers, all comments are very welcome :)

Weird Sci-fi Miniatures

Here's a quick update to say that I finished sculpting the next batch of miniatures. The photo below is of the weird sci fi beings pack which just need pining to "Grekwood" base tags (which I shall do shortly). They work well as zombies, or deformed people who have been experimented on. Maybe that's where the virus started?? The front of their chest has been torn open with a hole directly to their insides, it could be their only weak spot!

Other packs include some 4 nurses (as you know by now) and the other pack will contain some mutant beings with pretty big guns which some people have seen. Everyone who has seen them seem to think they are pretty cool, so fingers crossed people will like them. I'll post photos as soon as I have sent them off to the caster, which will hopefully be tomorrow.

Over and out for now. Leave your thoughts, opinions etc etc All comments are welcome. Remeber follow us on Facebook for the latest news!

Cheers...