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!

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!!

Zombie Sculpts and Buildings!

To kick start this blog I would like to say a big thank you to Inso (Steven Marchant) for sculpting a tribute miniature in memory of my brother Gareth (aka Grekwood). Here's a photo taken from Inso's blog:

Click to zooOOMM

I will be casting him at some point and he will then be available on the website. Because he is a tribute to my brother, I am thinking of donating some of the profits to the CGD Society, that way it not only helps out Grekwood Miniatures, but it also helps out the charity.

Now I have been working on that Hospital again! I have now completed 4 wards. So here is a photo of them all lined up!

In the photo there is a green, grey, blue and pink ward. They can be stacked on top of each other, or laid flat. If laying flat then there should be a gap between each ward (not bunched together as shown) as there should be a courtyard between each ward with trees and stuff. It is designed to be two stories high (ground and 1st floor) as it is bases on Landough Hospital.

Now some sculpting progress: Here are 3 figures I started the other day, so they are all WIP. 2 males and one female in the middle.The sculpting on these is an improvement on the first batch I ever did. I am making things more defined and including all the detail I can such as a zip on the females clothes. 

The butcher (above far right) has sideburns like the butcher from "the league of gentlemen" tv show (picture right). I'm not giving him an axe though... maybe a survivor for one of my later planned moulds (I'm looking at next year for that though).

The females are more "curvy"... she got booty... Again the sculpting (in person) resembles that of resin plastic figures, so I take this as a sign of better/smoother more defined sculpting. These figures are going to be more torn up that the other ones, so representing more walkers and stumblers rather than just walkers.   

I'm working on the basis that it goes: Fresh zombie (runner) > walker > stumbler > Crawler > Corpse (just this time it remains that way!). The further right you go the more damaged they are. I'm thinking of bringing out a "specials" mould at some point. But more on that another time :P

Ok I think that's all for now. Oh housing news, we found a different place, loved it, and went for it. We're in the process of sorting out all the paperwork, but fingers crossed there will be no issues! It has a great sized 2nd bedroom, perfect for taking over as a sculpting/business room :)

Ok now that really is all for now! Comments as always are welcome! Cheers for reading :)

Zombie Masters... and other beings... coming shortly

Masters for the current batch of 28mm figures arrived today. So they have been sprayed white to show up the detail a bit better (silver is too reflective!). So, without any further delay, here they are:

4 Zombie nurses with "normal" zombie heads. Nice, how badly do you want these lovely ladies to look after you?!? haha

and  now for the behind shot...

 Some demon people. Kinda zombie like, just without arms flapping about. So they have a "straight jacket" appearance.  Their expanded chest has caused the front to tear open, making it a weak spot...or a weapon which squirts out infection?!?

... now for their behind shot...

Now for those mutants with guns! I like these, I know I sculpted them so I should like them right? But it's one of those things where you sculpt something and think...yeah, I really like them. I think I like the amount of detail I managed to put on them, and just because they were something different for me to sculpt.


So...behind shot, tubes everywhere, butts handing out...ummm.. yeah...





Ok that's those sorted for now. I assume that the production castings will be in my hands in the next week or two, but we'll have to wait and see. So I'l update when I know something. But for now, it's one step closer.

Once again, thank you for looking, feel free to use the photos to show friends and people who may like them. All comments are welcome as always. I will give an update on the Hospital beds and building next week. Cheers!

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! :)

Sculpting, Laptops and other stuff

Hey there, I have split the following blog into sections, so feel free to skip to the part which may interest you!

New products on Grekwood Minaitures:

I am sitting here, waiting for an order of ProCreate putty to arrive. I missed the delivery yesterday, so they said they would deliver it today. As soon as I receive it I will post it up on the website ready for people to buy. It'll be £7.99 which I think is slightly less than the RRP.

If you are not familiar with this putty, it's like Green Stuff but I find it much smoother and far easier to mix together. Also, if you haven't already, check out my previous blog for the new resin bases which we are now selling.

Sculpting:

Sculpting is going ok, slow, but steady. I'm really happy with 4 of the new sculpts i've done. They are kinda of mutants who have large guns. They will work for zombie games, or alien invasions, or pretty much any sci-fi game where you want beings who have been experimented on. I think my sculpting on them has improved dramatically. I'll post photos soon, but not too early as I don't want anyone out there taking the ideas and producing them before I can. I'm not saying they would, but it's always a possibility, and I'm paranoid about that kind of stuff.

The new nurses look pretty decent. They are conversions of the current zombies, but I chopped them up, reposed them quite a bit, slimmed them down so they look totally different. They also have normal zombie heads too! In addition to the heads I extended their dress to the knees, added shoulder lapels, and added sleeve detail. I took away the weapons, but added some slight damage to two of them (like with the rest of the hospital packs).

New Laptop:

I recently had to buy a new laptop. My other one just decided to stop working. The screen had been "going" for a few months, so I knew it was on it's way out. Money is a bit of an issue, so I had to go for the cheapest laptop I could find (which did what I needed it to do). I ended up getting an ASUS K53E. It's not the most advanced laptop out there, but it was cheap and still looks nice (which is good!) and it does everything I need it to. 4GB of RAM doesn't seem too high these days, but it's more than enough for me as I don't play games on it (that's what the Xbox360 is for!). I mainly use it to edit photos, use Dreamweaver, and basic Word/Excel files, oh and the internet. So yeah, pretty much a great laptop for only £300.

Other:

Grammar has been bugging me on TV lately when they advertise movies and they say "out on May 25!" rather than "25th". I've said it before, but it seems even professional advertisers are just lazy or have bad grammar these days. I don't have the best, so I'm sure there are errors in this blog, but if you are professional and on TV you should have good grammar!!

Also, why is ASUS pronounced "A-soose" or "A-Zoose", surely it should be "A-sus" as in sus-pect?

Right I better get back to sculpting... but it's almost lunch time, bacon butty I think!! :D