The Diner at the End of The World ~ Part 2

It took me a bit longer than I'd anticipated, but I finally got my abandoned roadside diner painted and suitably ruined. I still have a couple of little things to do, like outfitting the kitchen area a whatnot, but it's 95% done and ready enough to be put on the table.

I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice and sturdy and has enough room to move figures about without things getting cramped and in the way. I would have liked to add more detritus and junk but I decided to keep it uncluttered so figures will fit easy. I'm looking forward to using it.

So, if you have a hankerin' for a foot-long dog or a hot cup 'o joe, head over to Big Ed's where the Big Eaters meet!

 With some figures for scale.

The Diner at the End of The World

Every zombie apocalypse worth it's salt, needs a diner.

After discovering the "affordable postage" charged by Sarissa Precision and their lovely models I put in an order. I really like their retro American stuff and in particular the diner. So I added it to my cart. Then deleted it. Then added it. Then deleted it again...

I kept seeing a big sheet of card leaning up against the corner and it kept whispering to me; "You can make a diner yourself... You, can make one out of that card... You can make one... You can make one..."

So I didn't order the diner (I ordered a bunch of other stuff instead!).

I took a trip to a craft shop and bought a few blank mdf table place-mats. I printed out a black & white tile design I made a few years ago and stuck it to a piece of card (7.5" x 10.5"). Then I glued the card onto the place-mat.

That's the floor. I then started to put the building together around the floor tile.

Everything is just 2mm card. Since I took the above pic I also added a refrigeration room and pantry to the top right corner.

The windows are made from a big piece of clear acrylic packaging which I sandwiched between two layers of wall.

The tables are mounted on map pins with some card added to give them a bit more height. I'll use some more map pins and a bit of putty to make some bar stools and toilets too.

So, now it needs to be painted. I'm a bit stuck for a colour scheme. Red seems an obvious choice for a diner but I want to steer away from red. I'm not keen on yellow either because it's a shitty pigment and I'll have to do several layers to get good coverage.

Blue...? Green...? Orange (maybe)... Brown...? I'm just not sure yet.

I just realized that I haven't done the front door.

Some Street Furniture

Not much to report but I thought I'd add something to keep things interesting.

I took a visit to Knights of Dice (they're about 10 minutes down the road) and got some things to make my streets a bit more interesting. KoD make very, very nice models and I have some pieces, but their larger buildings are not really what I'm after. I'm after a mundane look and KOD don't do mundane.

Anyway, I got some dumpsters and their pallet-jack set. I did the first set of dumpsters and made them straight up, as designed. I then made a third one and tried something different, so I roughed it up a bit and filled it with junk. I have a fourth one to do and I'll do that one differently too. The logos on the dumpsters are just something I knocked up on photoshop. They're just printed on paper: cut ou, glued on and scuffed up.

The pallets and pallet-jack are nice. The jack is an interesting little model that looks really great. It has some very detailed parts and and I'm amazed at the level of precision that Kod can do with their laser cutting. It will add a nice level of detail to my zombie apocalypse street terrain.

And a posed shot to see how they mix with some other terrain.

Survivors of Apocalypse Zed

I got some new survivors from Hasslefree Miniatures and added them to my current bunch. I mounted them on clear bases and decided to re-base my other survivors onto clears bases while I was at it. So I got in touch with Viv at Knights of Dice and got a bunch of clear bases from him.

I also have two more lots of figures on their way. Some from Studio Miniatures and some via Lead Adventure Forum.

I still have a more to do but here's what I've done so far:

The new guys first:

 The older guys:

 A new crew from Old Glory.

 And these guys.

Wire Fences

I made some wire fences. I wasn't sure how to do this and a saw a few different methods using various materials. I went searching for tulle as a local shop and I didn't like it because it was much too fine. But I found a plastic pencil case which looked really promising...

 I cut up some bamboo skewers.

I drilled some holes into sick-up sticks and glued them in.

I then covered the bases with impasto medium and sprinkled some grit.

 I sprayed them.

 I painted the bases and flocked them.

I painted the poles gunmetal & then 

cut the pencil case into strips and glued them on.

A New House

I've been working on a good sized house to add to my terrain. It's made from card stock and, although it isn't perfect, I'm pretty happy with it. I still need to add a bunch of props (beds, TV, dining table, bathroom stuff, etc.) and I haven't done the doors for upstairs yet. I might also add a study to the ground floor and a cellar door.

I designed the majority of it using Photoshop. This involved a lot of time scouring the internet for images & textures, then linking & blending them together to make them look half decent. The props in the kitchen and the garage roof are from Wordworks Games. But I'll probably make a more suitable garage roof at some stage.

Now that I have the basic files sorted I can do a little bit of alteration and create another house with much less effort. Maybe somewhere a little less pristine... where the situation turned out a little bit more violently.

As you can see from the pics it's two stories with an attic. I already have some terrain suitable for the basement.

These are for use in skirmish games and when I say that  I'm mainly thinking: Zombie Apocalypse!

New Zombies

Since I've been delving into the impending Zombie Apocalypse again, I decided to update my zombies. The figures I previously used were mainly the Wargames Factory multi-part plastics. They wen't the best so I also sculpted a dozen or so figures too.

So I dragged them from the grave once again and had a look and I wasn't happy with them. The metal sculpts are okay (although the painting is sub par) but the plastics are pretty crappy. Really, it's the male zed's that are crap. The female plastics are okay. I think these were a later release and the quality is better.

So I hunted around and decided to get some Zombicide figures. They're pretty nice as far as zombies go but the poses are a bit repetitive. And what's with all the bald heads? But they come in at about $1.50 per figure and that pretty good when I'm going to need a few dozen of them. I can fix some of the  repetition issues with a bit of green-stuff and conversion.

So here's the first few figures.

They make a nice mob and they're definitely better than my older figures. But the old ones will still be hanging around for when I need big numbers.

Also, here's my sculpted figures with their sub-par painting.