A (Quickly) Painted WF zombie + size comparison

[Braxandur]

Yesterday when I arrived at home I found a package from Wargames Factory, containing my zombies and celts.

I know there is quite some debate about these models so I decided to take some more crappy pictures to give everyone another chance at saying how ugly they think the models are

first off a size comparison shot, showing (from left to right)
West Wind German Zombie - Games Workshop plastic - Wargamer Factory plastic - Mega Miniatures - Copplestone - Griffin miniatures


For me the important thing with these plastics is that I can build a large horde which I can paint easily and will still look good. So the amount of time i put into painting the miniatures is an important factor. I don't want to spend a lot of time making a masterwork. Basecoat, wash highlite. that should be it.

However, with metal miniatures I never get around doing that. They just deserve more time and I easily spend a few hours on a miniauter.

With plastics I care less. If I need to move them in large quantities, I can just throw them in a big box. they won't really chip that easily.

So those are my reasons for trying the WF zombies.

I spend a total of 1 hour on this zombie. Which includes removing from the sprue, cleaning up, glueing together and painting. I watched also an episode of Dexter in the meanwhile.






for one hour of work I'm happy enough. And yes, that's just paint plain on the sprue without an undercoat. I already tested a while ago how well GW foundation paints stick to plastics and found that an undercoat is not really neccesary

I glued the rest of the sprue together and took some pictures of them as well, to give a feeling of what you get in the spue and what kind of a poses you can end up with, I didn't remove any mould lines yet though. so they can look a bit rough.





I also wanted to see if these can be used for making large hordes. (Damn you Akula for showing them hordes) and this is the resulting picture:


*edited to remove some typos

[anevilgiraffe]

everything aside, that is short... looks like they've kept historical sizing for a non-historical range...

[Pil]

Thanks for posting, they look more tiny than I had imagined (smaller even than mega miniatures!). The casting doesn't look very good from the sides but I guess for filler they're alright. Can I borrow a sprue or two from you?

[Braxandur]

Indeed, they are pretty tiny. Not what I expected, and probably didn't help with the level of detail they tried to incorporate.

Main reason I put one together and gave it a lick of paint was to see how it would look next to other models. After that taking some picture to (at least) show the size to "the public" seemed decent. :p


some more picture with one next to a hasslefree zombie hunter (Kev was wondering about te size)





And yes I've got some sprues for you Pil

[Unforgiven]

I'm convinced..I'm totally buying some!
Thanks for sharing, very nice looking zombie...especially for one made in 1 hour 

[AKULA]

Thanks again for taking the time to post the photos Brax.

As I mentioned on Frothers (clearly as part of the secret Frothers conspiracy to bring down WF  )

Sizewise - looks alright - certainly better than the GW plastic, that just looks wrong on so many different levels.

Anatomy of the WF ones still looks pretty awful, although admittedly better than some of the daft renders), but given that if i buy some, i'd stick them in the middle of another horde base, that wouldn't be as much of an issue, as if i wanted them based individually.

What gets me is the mould lines, the way that they don't genuinely seem to sit well together, and the amount of prep you had to do, before painting.  The bases don't help, as they make them look like a bargain bag of green plastic soldiers out of poundland - not a factor once they're based up, but just adds to the flimsy look of them.

For me, an hour per figure seems like a huge amount of time, to be spending upon this standard of sculpt - i'm not criticising your painting as clearly a lot of that time is removing them from the sprue, trimming mouldlines, glueing etc etc 

To put it into perspective, the 46 zed horde base i did, took about 4-5 hours, not including drying time, for the milliput base - the 29 zed horde (the second one i did) took about 3 hours - ie 10 figures an hour - my point being that little or no prep time was needed - yes of course, some of the figures cost more (actually some were from as little as $1 per figure, not including "spare" lead i had lying around), but even assuming the cost per metal figure was higher, i've saved time (and in my book, money), with the quicker prep time.

Still toying with the idea of a few sprues, but i can't help thinking i'll get bored after the first dozen minis....

 

In summary - cheap in cost, but not in time?

 

[Braxandur]

It was indeed 1 hour, including watching Dexter at the same time. Cleanup was less then 2 minutes, glueing everything together took some time. I just like to try a lot of option before deciding how to put a model together. I think I spent about 30 minutes on choosing which head/arm/torso to use and how to put it together.

If you care less how the poses are (like in a mob) you can cut down enormously on the time I took. Cleanup was actually faster then with most metal models since the plastic is very easy to scrape away. (So there is a benefit to there not being a lot of hard angels )

Sure metal are prettier and I'll keep on adding those to my collection, but I like that I can just throw them plastics in a box and they don't get damaged easily.

[AKULA]

i think someone mentioned using a hot wire to melt off the mouldlines (I guess it wouldn't help with the hands though).

Thanks again for posting.

 

[Braxandur]

Maybe worthwile to mention (I only noticed this when putting everything away)

The painted model is the smallest of the bunch. most are a few mm taller. (I used the shortest legs )

I did try the trick with the hot wire, but will have to practice this a bit more before it will be faster then using a knife and it combines less well with watching the telly at the same time... (way easier to fuck up the miniature or yourself)

[P_Clapham]

I just picked these guys up today.  Interesting they kept it at the more "Historical" Scale.

[majorsmith]

im not impressed with them, the GW ones are far better

[Curryman]

Thanks much for the pics, Brax. I've been waiting on the fence about getting some of these because of concerns about their scale. I had no idea they'd be even smaller than the MegaMinis zeds which are currently the smallest in my horde. When a hasslefree girl looms over a zombie, THAT's a tiny zombie.

I'll still likely end up buying some. I'm a sucker for zombie variety.

-Curry

[Yorkshire_man]

they look bloody brilliant to me and the sort of zombies i really mean,not the GW ones (not sure what they are ??).
On the small size sure,but that lumbering/slow/moaning type brilliant.Perfect for conversion and modelling up HUSSAR!!,for me they work because i loved "PLANET TERROR" and these zombies work so well in fitting into all of that genre.

HUSSAR HUSSAR HUSSAR!!
thank you for the photos and review most helpful

Just a shame i cannot get any until later this week,the order for wargames has been hels at british customs

Cheers all

 :DYorkie

[answer_is_42]

Well, they're an improvement on the Romans/British, but not by much...

Hussars? I see no hussars! I'd buy some Zombie hussars if they were made though, that would be cool.
 

[audrey]

Here are some more photos for reference that I took.

Hasslefree, Cold Wars, Wargames Factory, Cold Wars, Wargames Factory, Hasslefree.


Foundry, Wargames Factory, Foundry, Wargames Factory, Zombie Smith.


Also this shows the figures as bare plastic and as primed. I don't think it is losing any detail.


I don't have any painted examples though. That will be later.