ZTV News Team
These two figures come from the limited edition Frothers sculpting competition winners from last year. As far as I know they havent been made available anywhere else since, but I could be wrong. Its a pity if they havent as they are really very nice sculpts.
I have seen pairs of reporters in 28mm a couple of times before, once from EM4 and once from Copplestone Castings. While those figures are also great its the body armour on this pair that makes them stand out a little. Despite the inherent daftness of body armour that fashionably exposes the wearers midriff, the body armour and reporting-from-a-warzone look is very appropriate for a zompocalypse game.
Some real life press in body armour have “PRESS” written across their gear. I didnt have the patience to paint that on to the figures so I settled for five white lines on each of their backs. From the distance that the figures are viewed from on the table it really is much of a muchness anyway.
Reporting live from the hot zone.
The paint job on these turned out ok (apart from the fact that I forgot to finish the face of the female figures watch before I took the photos).
To be honest painting the pair was a chore for a few reasons unconnected to the figures themselves. Between daylight bulbs on my painting lamp blowing at inconvenient times, spilling the entire pot of one of the paints that I was using all over my painting area and finally dropping and breaking the cameraman on the floor when the painting was nearly finished, for a few weeks it looked like these figures were destined to remain unfinished forever. As such I am happy that they got to this stage at all really.
I plan to use the News Team as special objective pieces in games of (Sho.R.T.) AR:SE. They could also feature in other games in a variety of usually scenario specific roles.
Filed under: Miniatures | Tagged: 2010, Survivor |
sho3box 
Very nice painting, love the cameraman’s jeans in particular!
The mishaps you had sound terribly familiar, I can definitely relate. Spilling a pot of paint hasn’t happened for a long time (thank god for those low, sturdy Citadel pots and Vallejo dropper bottles), but I still remember spilling an entire pot of wash over my desk.
I also love it, when a coat of spray varnish suddenly turns white and cloudy. Not as bad as the story one guy on TMP told, where he’d painted an entire regiment and started spraying it with varnish. As he started spraying, he realized he was using his black undercoat spray. Ouch.
LikeLike
“Very nice painting, love the cameraman’s jeans in particular”
Thanks. Rather than just highlight the jeans I tried to make them look like those real life jeans that have doing the rounds for a few years now that are supplied from the shop pre-highlighted, if you know what I mean.
“I also love it, when a coat of spray varnish suddenly turns white and cloudy.”
That happened to me once too often about four years ago. I never use spray varnish now, its too much of a risk.
Hand painting matt varnish on with a wide brush takes very little time, gives a better matt finish than the spray brands that I used to use and never, ever ruins weeks of work.
“As he started spraying, he realized he was using his black undercoat spray. Ouch.”
Less than that has set me back six months plus in terms of demoralisation. Plus you might never have the heart to go back to those figures again after a shitty experience like that.
Like I said, I was glad to get the TV crew finished at all after all of the setbacks.
Thanks for the feedback.
LikeLike