My favorite miniatures companies

Caveman chief made from one of Bronze Age Miniatures'
54mm generic male figures.

I took a long look at my collection and pondered, of all them, which could I part with and which would I keep. Which, if a fire destroyed everything, would I replace first.

Two of my collections stuck out, Steve Barber's 42mm samurai range and Bronze Age Miniature's generic figures (from which I've created my post-apoc collection.)

Both companies produce other great figures (if I had space, I'd have bought all of David's ((Bronze Age)) Wasteland Mutants and Frazetta-esque barbarians.)  And hell, I like Steve's samurai so much, I've commissioned two figures myself to be sculpted (one is an archer already seen on my blog, and the second, a multipart unarmored samurai, we just recently started the process on.)

But it's not just the great sculpting that I love; The figures I have from these two companies are those that I've converted the most. David's generic figures are especially apt for those looking to practice converting and sculpting. I love the 54mm generics. You can make anything with those, and I mean ANYthing; I've even seen someone turn them into original series Star Trek characters, something I still want to eventually try out myself.

Though at 42mm, Steve Barber's samurai are a
niche range, the larger scale allows for some
easily attained painting results. 

But until then, I'll continue to add to my post-apoc 54s; I'll be making an all-female Qwik team here next. Anyway, if you haven't visited either company, check'em out. Steve and David are great guys and do some nice figures. And yes, they do other scales besides 42 and 54:

Bronze Age Miniatures

Steve Barber Models

Zombicide 2 note:
Tonight, Bryon came over and we had a painting session. He's painting some old-school stuff his future father-in-law gave him, and I started to paint my Zombicide (Season 2) stuff, mostly to see if they would paint up better than those damn Bones figures*. Unlike Bones, my Zombicide figures took a coat of primer like a champ. And unlike my Dreadball figures, the Zombicide figures had little to no mold lines.

OK, there was a touch of tackiness after priming, but a quick layer of acrylic fixed that lickity-split. I'll be painting up all the survivors, but the zombies I'll leave gray and faceless as the undead mob should be.

Zombicide Season 2 survivor. Painting contemporary
figures is a cinch: Shirt, pants, shoes, weapon, done.

*OK, I don't hate the Bones figures so much now that I've finally worked out a process where the paint won't chip off as easy as dried leaves, so some of them may still be useful to me.

My process, if you want to know: Brush prime with Ceramcoat Black; paint as usual; varnish with Krylon Gloss; varnish with Testors Dullcoat. Easy peasy!

You may be able to skip the gloss coat. I simply did it out of habit. But I (or my patron Jeff, rather) haven't had any trouble yet with chipping paint.