Wednesday 9 March 2016

ByronM - Black and White Zombies and Samurai for Curt (125 points)

This entry is more black and white figures for Zombicide and my "entry fee" for the challenge for Curt.

First up are more Zombies for Zombicide.  I keep thinking that I am getting close to having enough zombies, and then keep running out of painted figures while playing games.  Two weekends ago I had some other Fawcett crew members (Kevin, David, Mike and their spouses) over for a game and even after the previous entry this year and last, we still ran out.  I have therefore started many more.  Here is the next batch of them.


This batch contains 14 walkers, a fattie, and 5 runners.  Mainly Zombicide season 1 versions but a few season 2 mixed in. In progress still are a pile of season 3, and a few test versions for berserker (done in shades of red) and toxic (done in shades of green) zombies to add to the mix.


My entry fee for Curt, and I use entry fee as a more appropriate term as I have never liked the made up term Curtgeld.  Oh well, to each their own.  Anyway, I struggled with what to do as the figure for Curt this year, and just could not come up with anything.  Then while doing some black and white zombies I thought of trying to do a better quality black and white as a show piece and if it was the right figure it could be a double hit for the "risk taker" theme.

What I came up with for the figure is Kyuzo of the Seven Samurai. The double risk taker to me is that obviously as a Samurai he is a risk taker, putting his life at risk in every fight, and for me even attempting a good quality black and white after seeing Curt's amazing WW1 figures.


I am used to doing fast and dirty B&W for Zombicide, and this was going to be something different altogether.  I approached it differently from the start.  With the Zombicide stuff I use multiple different paints in shades of grey, all or which have a different hue or base tint (you can see bits of green, blue, brown in most greys) but this figure is done purely with 2 colours a flat black and a flat white.  Added to that a satin finish, a glaze medium, and a washable flat black and flat white.  All coming from an excellent set I picked up from Mig products that is a B&W colour set.


The overall painting was really easy with the flats and glaze medium and I am very happy with how almost everything came out.  I say almost everything as I painted the face about 5x and am still not happy with it, and will probably adjust it again before handing it off to Curt (either that or I expect Curt to touch it up as he obviously has more skill in getting the flesh to look right in B&W).

It either looked to dark or too light, and I just can not seem to get it to look perfectly smooth.  I could get the clothing and the sword the way I wanted, but nothing seemed to work for the face.

I guess the second risk taker part (me doing quality B&W) failed, but hey that's how it goes sometimes...  Sorry Curt, and hope that you can touch up that face a bit if I don't get it quite right before handing it off.  The thought was there, even if the execution was a bit off.


The 20 Zombies should add 100 points to my total and the modern challenge, and extra points for the "Curtgeld" samurai.

Well , this rounds off a busy day Byron, well done. A fine zombie top up the look of it - can you recycle zombies? As for Curtgeld  looks just fine to me!

12 comments:

  1. The zombies do look very fine, and I think the samurai came out excellent! You even painted his eyes without him looking like a wide eyed Egyptian wearing lipstick! ;) I like the difference in the visual feel off texture for skin, cloth, and metal. Very fine work, Byron!
    Perhaps a black and white theme round for the next go, Curt? ;)

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  2. I'm not touching a thing Byron, your Kyuzo is bloody brilliant! Thank you so much. I love the subtle tonal shifts in the greyscale, especially with the upper part of his kimono, and the groundwork is excellent as well.

    I'm definitely going to have to take a look at this Mig line of paints.

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  3. Excellent work - I think we've all been there when not happy with figures (especially faces...) but the samurai looks fab as he is.

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  4. well done Byron ! your samouraï is my favourite in the movie.

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  5. Black and white zombies works for me.
    Black and white Samurai works for me.
    It all looks so very good.

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  6. Nice to see some black and white stuff! Great work on them!

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  7. The only way a Samurai could get even more complicated - doing it in black and white...very cool.

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  8. Congratulations on such a superb take on a classic!

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  9. Oh wow, that black-and-white wizardry is absolutely fabulous!

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  10. Crackin' work, love the Samurai.

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  11. The Zombies are quite nice but that Samurai is a real corker. Well done!

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