40mm Japanese civilians

I've been away from painting the minis for the past several weeks while working with a new deadline at the newspaper, but I managed to finish a few these past few days.
I can't remember the name of the company, but the ferns (which were repainted) and the wind-bent tall grass (not repainted) came from a set of mainstream model railroading scenery (mainstream enough to be available at Hobby Lobby.) The bush of blue flowers is also from that same company.
The flowers the flower vendor is carrying are from hugeminis.com which recently shipped out the tufts as part of a kickstarter campaign.
It's getting to the point where I'm about to have more civilians than fighter; no problem with that -- I love a well-populated game!
I have several more figures on the table yet, mostly conversions of the same poses -- did you notice the flower vendor and the peasant walking in the wind are the same figure? They just have different heads and reposed arms (+ the flowers for the vendor.)

40mm zen garden and WIP

My latest terrain piece for my 40mm samurai collection: The bamboo wall is made from a strip of place mat, the path and zen rock garden are sculpted from green stuff, the flowers are hibiscus shrubs by JTT scenery, the base is a 120mm round by Proxie Models, and the woman is by Steve Barber Models.


FYI, if you like Japanese minis gaming, I recommend the Fuedal Japanese Miniatures group over on Facebook. I will be posting much of my Japanese stuff there, too -- the posts here and there will be a bit the same, just in case you prefer one-stop-browsing :)


I have one more 120mm base left, so I think I will do a rocky creek with plenty of ferns. Might be a while, I still have a bunch of new converted Japanese figures to paint!

40mm painted Japanese townsfolk

Here are recent commissioned sculpts from Steve Barber Models, all painted. These are the figures as you can purchase them. Later, I'll have a few more based on conversions of these and other figures.
It was nice to do some larger scale figures after a year or so spent on painting board game figures. It was also nice to break open the basing supplies -- it might be over a year since I've actually done any scenic bases!

We have, from left, a (happy) woodsman, Komuso monk, and a peasant woman. Nothing was changed with any of them, though, the peasant woman comes with an alternate pack (smaller bundles of wood.) The packs are separate, and I made sure to have Steve sculpt every angle of the packs so that they could also be used as pieces of scenery/accessories (many packs are not sculpted on the side that will be attached to a figure.)
I have a couple more 40mm Japanese figures to paint (with another batch in the post.) Elizabeth also has a copy of a Komuso monk to paint -- her first large scale figure. And then it's back to the Rise of Moloch figures -- so much to paint!

New 40mm sculpts by Steve Barber

New commission pieces by Steve Barber Models! Sorry for the poor photo quality, I wanted to get these posted. They are, from left, a Komuso monk, a woodsman, a peasant girl, and a conversion made using the woodsman, a spare head of an old man, and a pack option that goes with the peasant girl (all packs are separate and interchangeable to provide plenty of conversion options.) The girl's pack is a basket of persimmons.
I have more commissions scheduled for the future! The next year or two will see a couple travellers of the Tokaido road, a boy with a pack horse (the boy will also be able to hold the hand of the peasant girl here,) a Buddhist pilgrim, a running messenger, and possibly a shamisen player (walking as a busker.)

Conan: Kushite witch hunters

These are the Kushites from the Conan board game (by Monolith.) I've also painted Ageera and Amboola here so I could make a full squad of six figures -- why? Because I'm using this set not to play Conan, but with Zombicice: Black Plague! And they cleaned house the first time we played with them.
These were also my first set of figures painted using a new tiny brush. So the beads and ornaments were easier to do. I've wanted to paint these for so long, but had been intimidated by the details -- until I got that brush (the brush is nothing special -- just a $5 student grade watercolor brush with a good point.)

World of Smog: Rise of Moloch

When these arrived, we launched into painting them with gusto. I think my girlfriend is past learning the painting ropes and is now gaining some great experience; most of these were painted by her within a week!
I'm not going to describe these figures in detail, but this batch is enough to play the first two scenarios provided in the base game. My girlfriend has also painted a few miscellaneous figures for the next scenario(s), but I'll post those later.
Why am I falling behind? I also received my first copies of my latest 40mm samurai commissions from Steve Barber Models which I've been prepping -- it's been a long time since I've prepped metal figures. I'll post those sculpts soon (priming and painting yet to be done, too.)
For now, enjoy Rise of Moloch gallery:

Santa for Zombicide Black Plague

 In my previous post, I showed some of the themed teams we use for Zombicide Black Plague; I also mentioned some of our custom survivors; here is my favorite customized survivor: Santa!!
If you have a little bit of skill with green stuff, here are the few steps I took to make Santa -- there was no cutting or bending; it was all adding, sculpting and painting.
I started with Arnaud from the hero box. He has that great ornate tunic. And I like his torch as an homage to fireplaces. Along with his beard, hat and fringe, I also gave him some longer Viking hair in the back, as well as a backpack and a small tribute to his bag of toys.

BUT OF COURSE, I will be giving Santa his own group: Santa and the Elves.

Zombicide Black Plague: Themed teams

My girlfriend and I have been playing a LOT of Zombicide Black Plague lately, so much so that we make our own scenarios and create many of our own characters.
One thing we like to do a lot of is to create and use teams of survivors based on a theme. Here are a few of those (there are more, but for another day):

My personal favorite, the barbarian males. We don't play zombie wolves, so we house rule Jorvak there with
"ironclad: Runner" instead of "ironclad: Zombie wolves."

The barbarian ladies simply lay waste to any horde in front of them. We love this group almost as much as our dwarves.

We love creating custom survivors (and using crossovers).  The bear starts with a double-axe, and the dwarf brewer starts with a dog! (I should have put a dog in there, darnit)

A Shortage of Dwarves: We love this group (we take only 6 at a time.) They play great, too!

The knights look fine but don't seem to fare as well in a game together; might just be our playing style getting in the way.