Walktober Raising the Dead- TWD

After last months spell of little done October was a period of hobby recovery.  As the month of September drew to a close I returned to TWD after a long time away and made myself busy.  In addition to the first group of nine figures I was able to get at, and complete another group of comparable size.  Everything went awesome on the the bench and the only reason I ran out of proverbial road on the project was the ongoing postal strike which has thrown a wrench into new all new projects.

What might have been in October becomes what will be in November.  Another crop of Walking Dead models arrived today including some figures from the Fear the Hunters wave.  I've had the time to give them a rinse to prep for priming so they will be ready for next month.

The first group of figures was composed primarily of Woodbury survivors lead by the Governor himself.  I continue to be impressed by the variety, and character of the figures in the range and this first group offered up both which made for an enjoyable painting project.  While predominantly male the challenge of painting different ethnicities, ages, and body types made the batch paint enjoyable keeping it fresh. 

For the most part I divided the figures into smaller groups that used similar palettes and blocked in base colours.  As the painting process went on I dedicated more attention to individual models and finished them up with results that stoked me for another project in spite of some brushes which were getting a bit beat up and approaching retirement.  Fatty Gabe was my favorite of the lot.  You don't see too many fat guys in miniature so such a rotund individual was the stand out model.  The Governor gets an honourable mention for being his bad self and daughter/walker Penny is a nasty and tragic piece of work.

The second band of Walking Dead models arrived within days of the first crew being completed.  Along with the models was a badly needed brush and I think the it's presence shows in the results.  To my eye I saw a saw an improvement in the quality of my line work and more importantly not having to fuss and constantly adjust the bristles as I worked the paint time was cut in half.

There were a few standouts and firsts in group two.  I was lucky to have picked a selection of figures that captured my imagination and attention.  Just in time for Walktober!  The expressions on the faces of old lush Bob and frightened Smitty were a blast to try and bring to life.  I wasn't as happy I could have been with Rick but working around his helmet and extended arm made getting at his face more difficult than the others.

Lilly Caul ended up being my pick of the litter in the second crew.  Hunkered over her rifle as she is she looks capable, cunning and badass for such a compact figure.  The stars were in alignment when I laid down her eyes and I think I managed to capture a bit of that drive and determination there.  First place in the walker category goes to the male walker in jeans and jacket.  He looked as though he suffered from severe road rash or a burn down most of his left side.  I played around with discolouring the flesh there a bit to contrast his otherwise pallid flesh.  I hope to find some other models that will allow me to repeat this scheme.  I think it would make for some excellent badly burned walkers if I can find me some.

The final zombie themed model count for Zom-tober/Walktober (Go with the latter so I can include the survivors and theme the month around the premiere of AMC's TWD Season 9) was 18.  A respectable number that might have gone a bit higher if the strike hadn't drained the tank.  No worry though;  I had other stuff I should have spent more time working on like the other article I'm supposed to blog about for the month.  Let's see if I can squeeze the other one in for a happy Halloween.