HAWKs Launch Second 2015 Armies For Kids Project.

This past Saturday, members of the HAWKs (Harford Area Weekly Kreigspielers) got together to work on painting a second Armies for Kids project for next year's Historicon.  The club had already decided to do a 40mm American Civil War project for Historicon 2015 based on generous donations from Maynard Creel, Ed Mohrmann, and Phil Kearnan.  And, since the ACW project was so far along, the club decided to start another quick and easy project based on a large box of assorted WWII plastic 1/72 infantry that had also been donated by Ed Mohrmann.

     Hawks members Buck Surdu and Duncan Adams had spray primed the over 1500 plastic WWII figures with either khaki for Allies, or grey for Germans, and mounted them on sticks in preparation for Saturday's painting bee.   And for a few hours that morning we sat around and gave basic paint jobs to about 750, mainly American, Allied infantry.   After a late midday lunch break, with sore backs and cramped hands, the painters broke out the Red Dragon Inn game and played that to unwind.

The plan now is to get together another time after the holidays to paint the German half of the project.  There were some support weapons included in the lot of figures, but what we'd really like is if someone could donated some 1/72 tanks, so each kid could get a tank with each army.  So, if anyone has some old tanks they no longer want, please let  us know.

Even Edward the cat wanted to help.

But , alas, was defeated by his lack of opposable thumbs.

Zombies Part II & Horrorclix Zombie Hunter Conversion

As I explained in my entry from three weeks ago, our club is embarking on a zombie project. Everyone is responsible for painting 20 zombies since non of us wanted to paint hundreds on our own. I showed the first ten zombie figures I had finished in the entry three weeks ago, and today I am showing the second ten. We are using the Wargames Factory plastic zombies and I really love their multi-pose options and conversion potential.
I also completed a female zombie hunter that I converted from a Horrorclix figure.

Here's a shot of all ten zombies in my second batch.

This is a closer look at half the group. I'm really pleased how these turned out.

These are two of my favorites; the Life Guard and one that's taken a close range shotgun blast to the chest.


Here's a view of their backs. I love the irony of a zombie being a "life guard", and James 'Tank' Nickle gave me the idea for the shotgun zombie with the big hole in front and all the smaller exit wounds on the back.




This is a closer look at the other half of the second batch.

This is two of my favorite conversions; the crawling zombie who's lost his lower legs, and the doctor zombie that has large shoulder damage from being a zombie's lunch.

Here's a view from the back of these two.

This is another favorite; the swimmer zombie. I'm really pleased with how the floral pattern on his swim trunks turned out.

Here's a back view of the swimmer zombie.

This is a zombie hunter converted from the Horrorclix "Runaway" figure

Here's a back view. I love the teddy bear on the back pack.

Here's a look at the original Horrorclix figure and the conversion side by side. The original figure is holding a hacksaw in her left hand which I cut down to to look like a pistol.