Friday 17 October 2014

Zombie Girl in a new light, and Last Night on Earth

What with Halloween around the corner, the Walking Dead Season 5 in full swing and the presence of so many wonderfully painted undead on show in the blogosphere during Zombtober 2014, it was inevitable that I would be bitten by the zombie bug. So I decided to revisit the Knight Models Zombie Girl which I painted a year ago and retake her photos (I wasn't too pleased with the original ones) as well as bring out my Last Night on Earth board game pieces to work on in yet another project.

Knight Models Zombie Girl revisited at lower ISO settings

To properly capture the mood of a horror piece, I went for a darker look in my second photo session with Zombie Girl. As such, I used a much lower ISO setting to reduce the camera's sensitivity to light while repositioning the lamps closer to the miniature itself. Hopefully I have done it justice this time. 

Look closely at the ground to spot a Reese peanut butter bar or a Nestle crunch chocolate bar
A wonderfully sculpted piece that captures the true horror of a zombie
Zombie Girl's clothes sported a Halloween colour scheme

With the new lighting, the Zombie Girl now looks like she is shambling oust from the shadows along at dusk rather than the 'deer caught in the headlights' washed out look. Having the camera less sensitive to light also made the background a pure black which better suited the piece on display.

Before and after a change in ISO settings and positioning of lights

Meanwhile, I finally managed to put Zombie Girl in a video inclusive of the appropriate sad and spooky music. The video was intentionally shot at a low ISO setting for that dark look (see below).


360 view of the Knight Models Zombie Girl
To view Zombie Girl in 360 degrees, please check out the YouTube video below. For videos of other selected miniatures I have painted, please visit my YouTube channel FourEyedMonster Miniatures. Please remember to choose high definition (HD) for the best video viewing option.



Also in a breakthrough of sorts, my son seems to be finally over his fear of zombies. For the first time since the Walking Dead series started, he finally sat together with me to watch Season Five's Episode One: No Sanctuary. The abattoir scene alone is worth the price of admission and is a must watch. Now all I have to do is to convince him to have a game of Last Night on Earth with his mum and I.

Last Night on Earth ... the zombie board game

This zombie-themed board game comes with a set of eight survivours and 14 zombies. Details on the miniatures are pretty good considering they were only meant to be functional board game pieces.  

Any horror movie aficionado can tell you that there are way too many survivors ...
... but hopefully these zombies can restore the natural order of things

These plastic miniatures will definitely be the smallest board game pieces I have ever attempted to paint. So far, I have encountered some problems during prep work. For example, I found it extremely hard to remove the mould lines and I also noticed that details are rather blurred on some pieces.

Smallest board game pieces I have yet to try painting

Despite the issues encountered during prep work, I am still very excited with the theme I am planning for the survivors (maybe) and zombies (definitely). I have a specific theme in mind that incorporates my all-time favourite fictional universe/franchise together with the undead and perhaps the survivors too. Conceptualising this theme (more details will be revealed in a later blog post) has been the easy part but pulling it off, I feel, is a whole new ball game altogether. But if I do, it's going to be sweet.  

http://shireworks.blogspot.com/p/knight-models.html

15 comments:

  1. really good job with that zombie girl!

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    1. Thanks luca, it's an old piece that I took new photos of.

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  2. Great and bloody...excellent job!

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    1. Thank you Phil ... I kinda like painting zombies. Gives me a chance to work on horror pieces without getting too scared as you always feel you have a chance to run away from one if you ever saw one in real life. XD

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  3. I have always thought of painting the LNOE pieces. I love the game- lots of fun. Have you ever played the Martian version? Its different but just as fun.

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    1. Sadly I haven't gotten any game time on LNOE itself. Was all set up to give it a whirl with the missus sportingly getting all the tokens ready but our son at that time was too freaked out by zombies so we decided to give it a miss. Hopefully things will change now.

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  4. Great stuff, as always. The darker pictures suit the subject.

    The music accompanying the video is downright creepy.

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    1. It was indeed creepy. I was lucky they had that particular piece on the free YouTube library. :)

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  5. Nice work! Again!

    Good luck on the board game pieces. My brother and I painted a Risk set once - a looooong time ago. Can't remember if we finished it, but as we both had 15mm Napoleonic armies, we figured why not? I think they were close to 8 or 10mm. My kids and I also painted the figures in a game called Break The Safe. That was much easier 25mm or so figures. It does add to the game! Have fun!

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    1. Thanks spunkybass! I am hoping if I manage to make the board game pieces look nice they would then make it appealing to my son to have a game.

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