This project is due to go up on my blog in the near future but I thought that I would put it up here first for you guys to critique.
I have had a couple of packs of Foundry SWAT figures knocking around for a few years. I figured that they would be fun to use in modern zombie games and so I painted them up recently.
Rather than paint the figures up as traditional SWAT teams I decided to go with a more zombie themed look. I based the scheme loosely on the USS team that featured in the first Resident Evil movie. I always figured that they were basically the same type of unit that featured in the Resident Evil 2 PS1 game, the guys who break in to William Birkins lab in the cut scenes (like the unlockable character “Hunk”).
As is always the way with my painting for the last few years the emphasis is on completing the project and making a dent in the ever growing lead mountain rather than individual miniature works of art: I paint primarily to game and so the emphasis of late has been simply "getting it done". Therefore short-cuts abound in my miniature stuff these days, whether using copious amounts of drybrushing or “dipping” or whatever gets the job done to standard that I can live with.
The USS paint job is simple: spray black followed by a grey drybrush. I gloss varnished some of the details to give a little more visual interest, like the uniform on the guys in the movie. The Umbrella logos and the green eye details break up the predominantly black figures a little more too.
The figure on the above right isn’t Foundry: it is a survivor figure from KingZombie. His look is similar enough to the rest of the guys that I decided to paint him up at the same time. It also ties this group of figures to the KingZombie SWAT zombies (below) a little better.
I painted up Sigma Team at the same time that I painted up Gamma Team. All members of Sigma Team are helmetless, which makes for an easy way to distinguish the teams on the table if necessary
The Sigma Team flesh tones were a bit rushed so they could be better really. Deciding to paint the flesh areas after midnight on a boozy Saturday evening also contributed to the slipshod look somewhat
I might go back to the figures and dot in the pupils etc at some stage, but I am just as likely not to bother: they look good enough for my purposes as is.
Sigma Team has a lot more variety in its weaponry than Gamma Team, which was armed identically with a machine gun of some sort (ID-ing modern armament isn’t my strong point). Sigma Team weapon highlights include the sniper rifle in the top photo and a very large (M60?) machine gun in the second shot.
Gamma and Sigma Teams combine to make up a force that I more than large enough for the games that I play these days and although they are far from display pieces, I am pleased with their look.
Finally, I also added a few USS members who had come a cropper when deployed.
The figures are from KingZombie. As has been noted by many they are quite “cartoony”, with large, sometimes banana-hands, big deformed heads and a generally pretty large stature. Despite all of this, I really enjoyed painting them and I think that they look good overall. I rationalise that the somewhat deformed appearance of some of the guys as simply part of the overall effect of zombification on human biology, just in case any of you were wondering
Their appearance reminds me a little of the heavily deformed and made up zombie/possessed Deadite guys from the Evil Dead movies, which obviously is no bad thing.
The KingZombie sculpts are very gory. Up until now most of my zombie miniatures have had an old and rotting look, whereas these guys on the other hand look pretty fresh.
I enjoyed painting the gore on these guys and so I am going to paint my zombies a whole lot bloodier in the next batch. I also hope to get around to upping the gore on some of the poorer examples of the zombie paint jobs in my collection in an effort to make them look a little better, but that may not happen for a while.
The guy on the left above isn’t strictly speaking a USS (SWAT) guy, seeing as he has “POLICE” sculpted onto his body armour. I decided to paint him up with these guys regardless. He is in mid “action shot”. His left eye appears to have just become an entry wound and the exit wound is visible as an explosion of gore on the back of his head as shown in the shot below.
The King Zombie figures came moulded onto their hexagonal scenic bases. I wanted to ensure that there would be no ambiguity as to which USS figures were zombified and which were not so I kept all of the Gamma and Sigma team members on my usual circular bases which were flocked as normal. All of the zombie USS retained their scenic bases which were by and large unflocked. That, in addition to the large quantities of gore on the figures should keep the dead and the undead clearly defined.
Next in the project is a small USS VTOL and a not-Hummer from Pardulon, due some time in 2010.
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April 29, 2024, 03:24:41 AM
March 12, 2015, 07:50:32 PM