My Deadzone progress

[rwwin]

I've been working through the first two factions from Mantic's Deadzone game and have a review of the Enforcer starter force up on my blog.  There are more pictures and details there:

http://thecolorblindmodelpainter.blogspot.com/2014/01/mantic-deadzone-enforcer-starter.html




While the figures were acceptable for the low price paid, they are sadly a slight step backwards from the original Enforcer models released back in 2012.  On the other hand, I wouldn't judge Deadzone on the enforcers alone.  I'm almost done with the plague models and have started on the rebs which are both better than the enforcers.

I've also got the first building done and hope to have some of that up by next week.

EDIT:  Dang it, the picture above was supposed to be the entire starter force, but I flubbed up and left out an Enforcer Trooper.  There should be 12 models in the starter not 11.

[carlos13th]

Weren't half of the enforcers the original 2012 ones anyway?

[rwwin]

Weren't half of the enforcers the original 2012 ones anyway?

Yup, five of the 12 models are the older Warpath models (3 troopers, an assault enforcer and an enforcer with burst laser).

[carlos13th]

Makes an easy comparison I suppose. I was very disappointed with the quality of the marauders so far. Lots of mould lines and ill fitting parts.

[rwwin]

I haven't touched my marauders except to determine all the parts were there.  I've never been a big fan of space orks in general so I figure to leave them until last or possibly sell them off.

[carlos13th]

My painting isn't great so I figured I would go for the Marauders of Plauge first as they are my least favorite.

Wanted to improve my painting with the ones I like least before moving onto the nicer ones.

[Rhelyk]

nice paintjobs, I like the drab scheme. Not too sure about the bright color accents, they feel a little out of place with the military scheme, but they're well done. Camo cloak is especially nice and I'm digging the clear bases.

I feel your pain with the cleaning, got my own enforcers done and have been assembling the plague and marauders now (a friend got my rebs. Really wish I'd gotten them as my bonus faction so I'd have them too). You mentioned on your blog about wire brush cleaning, and I heartily recommend it. Some lines you still need to carefully slice off, but a lot can be scraped off with a blade similar to hard plastic. That gets rid of the line, but leaves burs and scrape marks which are very easily taken care of with the wire brush, goes much faster than a knife alone. It's also good for scuffing the pieces to get a better glue bond.

I think a lot of the problems with the enforcer sculpts are due to mantic rushing them out, knowing they're redoing them in hard plastic and not caring in the meantime. Casting in restic loses about 15% of the volume in a figure, so large details stay fairly large, but it gets more pronounced as you get smaller. The 3d sculpts looked great and shout translate to good hard plastic figs, but the limbs and especially heads as well as some of the finer details get a lot of distortion that clearly wasn't designed against.

I'm finding the plague to be the worst, bad mold lines on tiny (seperate) heads and in cracks and crevices that are hard to get knives and files into. Marauders weren't too bad, and I'm finding I like the figures for them more than I initially did. Gonna be a lot left over even after careful cleaning, and I just know it's gonna kill my OCD later, but it is what it is, I've already spent far longer on assembly than I should have.

[obsidian3d]

I found your blog last night while searching for Deadzone stuff. I had spent a few hours combing through my package to ensure I'd received all my stuff. I'm a little disappointed in the Enforcers because they're my favorite group of the four we got in shipment 1, but for the price paid I think they're pretty good. There are lots of good examples out there for painting them, like yours. I particularly like how you did the cloak on the sniper!

[carlos13th]

How did you do the camo cloak btw?

[rwwin]

Thanks for the feedback guys.  Rhelyk, I agree fully on the plague having worse lines than the enforcers.  The 1st and specifically had lines going everywhere including lots of hard to reach places.

I've read lots of positive things about the wire brush and restic over at Mantic's forums.  I'm cleaning up some of my rebs now and will give it a go.  I believe I have one out in my workshop somewhere.

For the camo on the cloak I used a couple of special grey mixes I was working on when trying to match the current modern US camo scheme.  They didn't really work for that but together they make a nice urban camo.

The lighter grey is the base (a mix of 50% Vallejo Medium Gray #987, 35% Vallejo Black Grey #852 and 15% Vallejo Khaki Grey #880).  Then I went through and added stripes and blobs in a darker grey mix (50% Black Grey and 50% Medium Grey).  I finished up by adding spots again with the base grey mix.  I hope that made sense.  They come off slightly greener in the pictures than they do for real.  I'm not sure if that's the lighting or my camera settings.

[carlos13th]

Urban camo is the look I am going to go for. Maybe digital.