(Lead) Mountain Musings - "CoolMiniOrNot" June 2024

"There’s a zombie plague spreading throughout the populace."

After the utterly lack-lustre past four weeks, it seems clear that my current hobby mojo is still at one of its all-time lows. Happily however, I've recently received my pre-ordered copy of Monty Python’s Flying Circus for Zombicide 2nd Edition by "CoolMiniOrNot", complete with its exclusive Gumby Pack. These "nonsensical creations from the classic television show" have really helped re-enthuse me to once again pick up the painting brush, so for the next month I thought I'd simply plod through the two boxes of figures, and see what it leads to.

Starting with something hopefully rather straightforward, I thought I'd tackle the large plastic Foot which apparently acts as a persistent threat to the survivors in the boardgame. Sculpted by "Big Child Creatives", I've actually super-glued the model to a plastic oval "Citadel" base, to better protect its paint-job, and given it a prime using a combination of "Vallejo" Leather Brown Surface Primer and Heavy Skintone.

"CoolMiniOrNot" WIPs - This Foot has been primed, base-layered and washed

In addition, I've gritted the bases and undercoated the expansion's quartet of suited Silly Walkers. Again, these predominantly black-coloured miniatures should be quite easy to get tabletop ready, and help me regain some momentum as I get back into the hobby. I was thinking about possibly pigmenting each fellow's briefcase a different colour to slightly mark them out - albeit having seen the 'official' paintjobs online I'll probably just stick to them all being brown.

Lastly, I haven't completely forgotten about the pair of 28mm scale Laputian Robot Troopers by "Big Mr Tong" I started working on for Angry Piper's annual "Monster May(hem)" event. Obviously, these super-tall automatons are a little late in getting finished. But I'm still determined to get them ready for varnishing as quickly as I can, and maybe even produce another couple of models once I start using my Mars 3 Pro 3D Printer again.

May 2024 - No change at the top considering I only painted a single figure all month long

Obviously, having experienced my second least productive month ever, my painting area is still awash with all sorts of half-started or barely begun projects. With my current goal just to potter through the Monty Python’s Flying Circus box, I strongly doubt any of these will see much if any attention soon, and in all likelihood, quite a few may well find themselves back in one of 'drawers of doom' - destined not to see daylight for a good month or more.

I am though pretty confident I can polish off a few of these "CoolMiniOrNot" miniatures, and am already eyeing a few of the Marvel Zombicide models I undercoated at the start of the year. These might make a welcome break from the comedic sculpts I'm currently facing, and maybe even me convince me to get the cooperative boardgame out for a spin - something which ordinarily always helps motivate me to slap some figures with a paint-brush...