These five 28mm metal miniatures of some Zygons are manufactured by “Black Tree Design", and can be purchased as Code DW405 Zygon and DW424 Zygon Advancing from the Penzance-based company’s "Doctor Who" miniatures range. Unsuccessful in their attempt to "attack an energy conference in London" by the Fourth Doctor, these shape-shifting extra-terrestrials made their first appearance in Robert Banks Stewart's August 1975 BBC Television story "Terror Of The Zygons".
Determined to conquer Earth following the destruction of the Zygon homeworld, the figures were initially undercoated using two layers of “Vallejo” Heavy Orange and drenched in "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson. In the past I've painted all my "Warlord Games" Zygons using a "Vallejo" Heavy Skintone basecoat, but felt that the 'original' monsters from Tom Baker's era were more orange in colour than Steven Moffat's modern-day interpretation.
Each sucker-covered alien was then dry-brushed with (more) “Vallejo” Heavy Orange, before having their eyes 'picked out' using a little "Citadel" Abaddon Black and "Vallejo" White. In order to tidy up these areas, the edges around the creatures' sockets were highlighted with some additional "Vallejo" Heavy Orange, shaded with "Citadel" Carroburg Crimson and carefully dry-brushed with a tiny bit more "Vallejo" Heavy Orange. However, I did try to leave more of the wash showing around the eyes.
With my sudden trip into my "Black Tree Design" back catalogue concluded, I have begun working in earnest on my entries for this month's Zomtober challenge. Sadly, this will be the first time the event will be held without fellow blogger Bryan "Vampifan" Scott of "Vampifan's World of the Undead" fame at least commenting upon people's brain-chomping projects, following his sad death in March of this year.
Resultantly, I have been searching through my lead mountain for something suitable to pigment in his honour, and was rather pleased to find a partially-primed figure of a Blood Vamp from "Wizkids" range of "Horrorclix" models. This James Carter sculpt is arguably a perfect proxy for Bryan's beloved Vampirella, so I have dusted her down and started putting on some basic layers of "Vallejo" Heavy Red over her old(ish) Heavy Skintone undercoat.
My rummaging has also uncovered a couple of other Undead-related "Heroclix" miniatures I thought I might try to crowbar into my Zomtober output, in the shape of Dracula's arch-nemesis Blade, and one of Spider-Man's lesser known main adversaries, Tombstone. Fortunately, both of these plastic models have already been previously worked on, so hopefully they shouldn't take too much more time to get finished...
Thanks Roger. LOL!! I have painted lots of "Warlord Games" Zygons, but this is my first batch by "Black Tree Design". The old posts are indeed slowly sliding across from the old Blogger site, but as Wix lets me post-date them, they are immediately going to the back - I'm currently transferring the 2010 posts and trying to update them a little.
I think a vampire or zombie in Bryan's honour for Zomtober would be a great idea personally; albeit disappointingly, I don't think the event has been particularly popular this year with other bloggers, as only a handful seem to be participating.
Nice Zygons there mate, I thought you had done some of these before so thought this was an old post you'd added to your new site at first. But top work on thjem.
Lovely tribute to Bryan, he did like his lovely "vamps" and that is a really nice figure (with a really nice figure 😉), might have to have a look for one of them myself, perhaps as a tribute to the great man a few of us could paint a figure (perhaps that one unless anyone has a suggestion), in honour of him.
Just an idea, cheers Roger.
Cheers Dave. Simple stuff on the Zygons, though the eyes were a bit fiddly as they're quite well sunken in on the sculpts. I've just found Bryan's painted version of the Blood Vamp on his site, and from the enthusiastic way he talks about her he clearly liked the figure.
Great work on your Zygons Simon, and wonderful tribute to Bryan
Thanks very much indeed, Undercoat. I've used "Vallejo" Heavy Orange on these Zygons as opposed to Heavy Skintone on my Warlord Games ones, as I thought they were a bit more orange back in the classic days of Tom Baker. the Blood Vamp is actually a rather nice mini tbh, with plenty of detail, so hopefully I can do her justice.