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!

Bioblytes and Armless Beings

I have just made a few updates to the website. I have now uploaded the following into the Mutants section:

"Bioblytes"

"Armless Beings"

So since yesterday, NEW zombie nurses, Bioblytes and Armless Beings are all now available. So go to www.grekwoodminiatures.co.uk and check them out!

In the Information" tab, I have added a page which shows all "recently uploaded" items. So if you want to check out what has been uploaded and when, this is the place to go!

I have also changed/added to the "Miniatures" and "Accessories" tabs, so they are all updated.

I think those are all the updates to the website :)

As mentioned yesterday, I will write another blog in a few days with information and photos of the hospital building I am...building..

Cheers again!

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 :)

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!! :)

Displays and Resin!

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Share it to anyone who you think will like zombies, or accessories of some form!

I bought some stands the other day so that when/if I go to shows next year I can display the figures nicely. I went with mirrored "step" displays as I want people to see what the figures look like from behind as well as the front. The horizontal part where the figures are will be decorated as mini "diorama" type areas, so road surfaces, grass areas, tiled floors, all depending on what figures are there.

Still no news on those production figures... I'm actually starting to fall behind of production schedule now :( It's a bit annoying as I was hoping to have them back last month, but it's out of my control.

I have been thinking of going down a resin master route. It won't change anything from a customer point of view as I will still sell metal figures (more weighty so you feel like you have more for your money), but the actual master figures which are used to create the production moulds will be made out of resin instead of metal.

This is the process: I make a "green" (or grey if you use procreate), which is then sent to a caster who makes a "master mould" of the green, and then the metal figures which are cast from the master mould are used to create a production mould. The moulds are made under extreme pressure so slight (ever so slight, almost not noticeable) shrinkage happens.

With resin, I think the green is turned into resin, and then that resin figure is used to create a production mould, so hopefully reducing any shrinkage. Also, resin photographs better for a website which might mean I may not need them painted as often.

The main reason is I think it would be cheaper to do the master figures this way, but I'm not 100% sure.

Anyway, that's it for now!

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 :)

Update!

I'll split this blog into two sections, one with things concerning Grekwood Miniatures, and the other for some more personal stuff!

Grekwood Minis!
The hospital beds went on sale a week ago and have had decent success so far, so thank you to all those who have bought some! We cast a few more as stocks were going down, so hopefully we have enough for now.

I plan to continue work on the hospital building over the next few weeks and get that up on the internet at some point as a PDF download. I have started work on my next batch of 16 zombies *insert zombie sound here*. Once again I will be keeping the gender mix to 50/50 with 8 females and 8 males. Most of you know that they will be supermarket based, and again split into 4 packs with a combo deal as always!

I have some rock bases, and some wood flooring bases, which I might as well pop on the website too sometime. Also, hopefully the production lot of figures will arrive soon. I might have to ask about them...

In personal news:
We have been looking at places to move to which has turned out to be a nightmare. We currently live with my parents in a large 4 bedroom house, so everything we are looking at is obviously going to be a lot smaller. So the hunt began...

Over the past two weeks, we arranged to see 4 places. This excludes a couple of places we called up about and they never got back to us.

The first place we saw was nice, but a bit small. The second was larger (from photos) and in a different village, but on the day of the appointment (before the appointment) we had a phone call saying "it's now gone". Third place we went to see we waited for 15-20 minute outside the apartment, and the estate agent never showed up. We called them and they said they can't get hold of anyone in the area. So we decided against the flat because the service was poor. Fourth place; we made an appointment to see a house last Wednesday or Tuesday. Yesterday we had a phone call saying "sorry it's gone". I mean what the hell?!

We asked for an earlier appointment, made it very clear we were interested, and suddenly it just goes before we were even able to have our appointment. It's just rude and wrong to say no one is seeing it until Monday, and then offer it to someone else before we have had our scheduled appointment.

So pretty much all of the places we have looked at have gone apart from the first place we saw.  So we are thinking about moving into that flat... I mean apartment... Don't get me wrong, it's small (might struggle to get a wardrobe in the main bedroom) but nicely decorated inside. Wood flooring throughout, a bathroom and an en-suite. 2 bedrooms and a open plan living space/kitchen.  It just means we'll have to plan wisely and only buy furniture we really need and not just want.

At least this way it gets us onto the "rent market" ladder, and we might stand a better chance at getting another place as we are already in one. Estate agents keep asking "how are you going to pay for it". So by being in a rented place at least they will be able to see we can pay for it no problem.

IF we do move into this flat, it will most likely be short term until something bigger pops up that we like. Who knows, we might move in and actually love the size and not want to move!

Anyway, sorry for the rant!!

Cheers for reading!