Mastiffs by Vendel – a review

An English mastiff

First, a few words about mastiffs (courtesy of Wikipedia):

With a massive body, broad skull and head of generally square appearance, it is one of the largest dog breeds in terms of mass. Though the Irish Wolfhound and Great Dane are taller, they are not nearly as robust.[...]When in 1415 Sir Peers Legh was wounded in the Battle of Agincourt, his Mastiff stood over and protected him for many hours through the battle.[...]The breed is characteristically innately good natured, calm, easygoing, and surprisingly gentle for its size.

This is the dog we’re talking about in this review, or rather, miniature renditions of the breed. I’ve always been a fan of mastiffs, and the idea of actual dogs of war in general. There’s simply something endearing in the mental image of a pack of 100+ kg dogs slamming into basically whoever they want to slam into.

I’ve been drooling over the mastiffs produced by Vendel Miniatures for years. I’ve never really had a use for them, which has kept me from making an order. Enter a friend about to start an RPG campaign and in need of a few guard dogs and hell hounds and what do you know, I’m in possession of seven mastiffs, three of which I’ll eventually keep after painting. Yes, seven, even if Vendel’s site says six. I don’t know if this is just a lucky accident, but I’m not complaining!

There is a variety of poses in my seven mastiffs. Three of the dogs are in fairly neutrally posed, either walking or standing. Two are in more aggressive postures, with one growling and the other reared on its hind legs, leaping at an opponent. The final two would be at home in dioramas: one is sitting and the other laying down, seemingly relaxed. Though you might not expect it from dog models, the miniatures have a lot of character, and the two aggressive ones for example are positively ferocious. Vendel mastiffs are available both with and without collars, these are of the former type. The mastiffs mostly fit on 25mm round bases, As usual, the models below have been given a black ink wash to show the detail better. Larger versions open in a new tab.

Click for a larger version

Click for a larger version

The sculpts are very nice indeed. The miniatures are well proportioned and really look like the animals they’re supposed to portray, which is sadly far too rare in dog miniatures. They’re large and robust, really conveying the feeling of huge dogs well. There were some mould lines and flash present, but nothing terrible. I cleaned up the seven models in less than ten minutes.

Both the subject and the variety of poses makes this pack useful to a large crowd. As said, I’m painting some of these as hell hounds and some as regular dogs. While my friend will keep the hellish variety, my dogs are off to do some zombie/vampire/werewolf-hunting as well as ending up as police dogs and fighting dogs for gangsta gangs and the like. Historical gamers will find a lot of uses for these as well, as they were regularly used as fighting dogs. The collarless variety would make fora  great pack of wild dogs for post-apoc gaming and such. As the size comparison shot below shows, the mastiffs go well with other 28mm minis. Remember, these are big dogs.

Humans from left to right: Copplestone Castings, Hasslefree, em4

The mastiffs can be bought from the Vendel Miniatures website for the cheap price of £7.00 for six (in my case seven) miniatures. Postage to Finland was very, very cheap at only £1.24.

Overall verdict: They’re mastiffs. No, seriously, if this is what you’re looking for, look no further. The ratio of price to quality is excellent, and there’s a ton of uses for big dogs in miniature. The only small gripe I could find is that not all of the dogs fit snugly on a 25mm round base, but this shouldn’t be a deal breaker. If you need them, buy them. If you don’t need them, make up a reason to do so.

FU-UK Zombies now available

The web community Frothers Unite! UK (FU-UK for short) hosted a sculpting competition earlier this year, with the ever-so-lovely theme of  “Zombie Apocalypse”. The winning – as well as runner-up  – entries are now available for purchase at the FU-UK web shop. These are all great sculpts, with two of the three winners sculpted by Sylvain Quirion. The sets are dirt cheap as well, with the winners set costing £7 and the runners-up set costing £18. Both prices include international p&p. You also have the option to purchase both sets for £25 and receive a special zombiefied version of Col. Marbles, FU-UK’s…Colonel.

Seriously, you have no reason whatsoever not to buy these, so click on the images below for more information!

Left 4 Dead 2 demo out

The Left 4 Dead 2 demo is now playable to people who have preordered it. That would not include me, with my poorly student budget. I can, of course, console myself with the following trailer/opening demo for the game.

And man oh man, that is some sweet stuff. To the people that created the atrocious – and appropriately named – Resident Evil: Degeneration movie: This is how you do CGI zombie action. Oh, and this is how you do dialogue as well. Oh, and characters.

If only we could get a feature-length film of this.

So, you seen these?

To make up for the lack of updates lately, I’m going to do something useful for a change. “What’s that?” I hear you ask. In reply I will introduce you to some movies you just may have missed, and might keep missing if it weren’t for a blog post such as this one. Not all of these are zombie movies per se, but are close enough to be a part of the genre.

Pontypool tells the story of a small group of people trapped in a radio station building, when a strange mental plague strikes. It turns out that the plague is caused by certain words in the English language, making the life of radio journalists precarious indeed. While the film boasts some amazingly obscure and zany theories about the incident, it has a few very good actors in it. All in all it’s a fun little film and well worth watching if you’re in for some zombie-ish entertainment.

Mulberry Street is a movie about rats. Or rather, people getting bitten by rats and turning into bloodthirsty ratmonsters. Need I say more? Mulberry Street will certainly not win prestigious culture awards, but it is pretty fun, with decent acting and well-executed gore. And I liked the way no character was really safe in the movie. Oh, and the ratmen were actually pretty nasty and repulsive.

Last of the Living is a wonderful, low-budget Australian movie that centers around a group of three friends as they make their way through the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse. The effects and makeup aren’t by any means top-notch, but where this movie excels is in its characters and acting. I sympathized immensely with the characters in the film, and as this is what usually makes or breaks any movie – zombies or no zombies – I found myself liking Last of the Living a lot. Sure, there are clichés and silly things aplenty, but they couldn’t defeat the attraction of the characters. The movie’s pretty funny, too. Not really on par with Shaun of the Dead, but it did give me a fair few chuckles.

There you go, three movies for your viewing pleasure. It’s always good to be on the lookout for stuff like this, as these films tend to pop up in dvd clearance bins, message board discussions, tv-guides and the like. Keep your eyes open and remember to tip me off when you spot something interesting!

Zombie CSU – a review

Good zombie books are hard to find. They often slip into cliché-ridden [insert time of day] of the Living Dead copies or include too much underlined angst or present us with an implausible scenario. Occasionally – and far too often – all of these aspects are present.

Zombie CSU – The Forensics of the Living Dead by Jonathan Maberry takes another approach. It plays on that most fruitful aspect of the entire zombie culture: “What if?”

Hands up everyone who has ever speculated on what would really happen if the dead really rose up and started attacking the living. Probably every zombie enthusiast, am I right? Books like Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z both explore this to very good effect, and I’m happy to say that Zombie CSU is a good addition to the fold.

Zombie CSU looks into a possible zombie apocalypse from the point of view of experts, such as law enforcement, medical and military personnel. The book presents several scenarios familiar from zombie movies, and examines – and often debunks – them.

The book makes for fascin…no, not fascinating but very interesting reading. For those of us not inherently familiar with police and hospital procedure such as crime scene investigation and disease control, there a lot of information here written in a style easily digested and well written. The book was in my opinion a bit heavy on the forensics side, as it explored just about every single aspect of crime scene investigation, not all of which seemed particularly relevant in regards to zombies.

The credibility of a book like this depends a lot on the people interviewed, and Zombie CSU succeeds in this department. The experts do indeed seem like experts, being experienced professionals, lecturers, doctors and university professors. It’s great fun that such people have been willing to speculate on such an unlikely scenario in a serious, professional manner.

The book contains artwork and quotes from a lot of current zombie pop culture names as well, such as aforementioned Max Brooks and Robert Kirkman of the Walking Dead fame. The artwork varies tremendously in quality, but breaks up the chapters in a good way.

What conclusions does the book draw, then? Basically, that in most cases the zombies don’t really stand much chance against modern civilization. This basically launches my biggest gripe about the whole book:

While the book presents a psychological point of view also, it is sadly neglected in the conclusions. Sure, zombies are slow and and vulnerable, but are you really sure that basically pretty much anyone can deal with them simply by learning simple arm locks and basic self defense? That people – professional or not – will keep operating according to standard procedure when dealing with the dead returning to life? That people will just magically cast aside cultural and political differences and stand united against a common enemy? Call me a cynic (or a behavioral science major), but seems a bit optimistic. The US point of view of course skews things a lot. Most European countries have very very strict gun control laws, and for example in Finland it always makes headlines if a police officer needs to use his sidearm. Lately we have been discussing whether it is acceptable for taxi drivers to refuse accepting passengers with swine flu. Let’s see a society like ours dealing with zombies, let alone some developing country with limited infrastructure. Such themes aren’t touched upon sufficiently in the book.

Funnily enough, it’s this overly confident approach that would in my view cause the situation to escalate in the first place. People are irrational, emotional and more or less psychologically unstable, and society is composed of people.

Overall verdict: Zombie CSU is an entertaining read, which I’d happily recommend to anyone who’s into zombies. Since you’re reading this, you’re probably a part of the target audience. Take it with a grain of salt, however, unless you have total confidence in humanity and its authorities.

Zombie CSU is available in bookstores, I picked mine up from The Book Depository (which is my favoured choice for online book purchases). See also the book’s official homepage.

Vampire Spawn by Reaper – a review

Every now and then you see a miniature that you just have to have. Most miniature enthusiasts know what I’m talking about, and those two that don’t…well, you’ve saved yourself a lot of money. For me this pack was a great example. I found myself returning to the Reaper website time and time again, before my vampire/werewolf project finally justified me buying them. What a happy coincidence!

There was a time when vampires were scary. When they were thirsty, they didn’t look angsty and talk about it, but ripped someone’s jugular vein open instead. When they walked out in the sunlight, they glittered for a few seconds maximum before bursting into flames. They were soulless, merciless, somewhat bestial and most of all plain scary. While not all hope is lost – there is still 30 Days of Night, see it now if you haven’t already – vampires are turning more and more into mopey emo kids instead of being at the top of the food chain. I’m happy to say that the Vampire Spawn (03383) pack by Reaper returns to the roots of the vampire.

The pack consists of two vampires, one male and one female. They both come on integral bases, which fit nicely on a standard 25mm round base. Some flash and mould lines were present, but they’re nothing exceptional and cleaned up easy.

The male is in one of the coolest poses I’ve seen in a while, and he’s the model that originally sold me on this pack. He’s springing through the air arms spread wide and his mouth open, with his hair and shirt flying behind him. From the snarl on his face you can tell that some hapless victim is going to be in a world of hurt in approximately one second. The hands are exaggerated and his long nails resemble claws, giving him a very bestial, demonic look. He is wearing a collared shirt and jeans, with the shirt open, sleeves rolled up and the jeans torn. He wears a necklace with three claws/teeth around his neck and has bandages around his wrists. While the clothing might sound modern, it is actually pretty timeless. You could probably use this vampire in pretty much any time period in the last two hundred years or so. Sure, the jeans have back pockets but it’s going to take only a few minutes to file them off should you want to. There are a few rocks attaching the model to his integral base, but the model still conveys the springing movement well.

The female is in a dynamic pose as well, but her stance is somewhat confounding. Is she springing to the side or is she just crouching there with one foot on a rock, or has she just landed there? I have no idea. Fortunately the weirdish pose manages again to convey the feeling of a vicious predator. She looks fast and threatening,  and her snarling visage and large hands enhance the look. She wears a corset, a torn skirt and fingerless opera gloves. She also has an anklet and a necklace. Even more than the male, this model can be used in many many different time periods. She’ll fit right in as a modern day goth, a Victorian harlot or a wild west saloon girl.

The miniatures are pictured below, and have been painted with black ink to bring out the detail. Larger versions open in a new tab.

Click for a larger version

Click for a larger version

Both models are sculpted by Derek Schubert and the pack retails for $8.99 at Reaper’s Online Store. I think the price is fine  for such quality minis, and the value is even better for us in the Euro zone.

Overall verdict: There really aren’t enough scary vampires around in miniature, so Reaper’s offering is a welcome addition. The clothing makes the miniatures suitable for a lot of settings and time periods, which makes them very useful indeed! I can’t really fault anything in these babies, which is probably why I bought them,  but if I have to come up with something critical to say, I think that some people might find the rocks on the integral bases inconvenient for rebasing and difficult to remove. Other than that, they’re excellent!

In the biz, part 2

As I mentioned in my earlier post about my sculpts getting cast, I now have a second model out!

This obese jogger (they’ve named him Jerry the Jogging Zombie, I love it) apparently wasn’t fast enough. I wonder why, I really do. Pictures © Black Orc Games.

As you can see, Jerry isn’t a very complex sculpt or anything, but I ended up liking him a lot. I guess I have a soft spot for chubby people getting caught up in a zombie apocalypse. The slab base was eventually replaced with a tab, so Jerry is 100% slottabase compatible.

All the comments I made on the first one apply here as well. So thank you ever so much, Black Orc Games!

Pick up Jerry for $1.00 here. And while you’re at it, buy Zeek too. Jerry really needs a friend right now.

All you kind people who requested the Zeek freebie miniature earlier, I’ll chuck a Jerry in there as well. Two zombies is always better than one, when you’re looking to spread the infection love.

Dawn of the Lead hits 5000

One milestone has finally been reached, as DotL received its 5000th visitor on Tuesday. Thanks, everyone!

A special mention goes out to fellow bloggers John of the Screaming Alpha and Bryan of Vampifan’s World of the Undead for their constant support during the whole existence of this site.

Like Kanye West would put it: “Dawn of the Lead is a good blog, and I’ma let you finish writing, but those two blogs are some of the best blogs of all time!”

The Foundry Hitmen review is coming. Seriously, it’s coming. I mean it.

In the biz

As funny as it sounds, I am now officially a part of the miniature wargaming business. Some of you might recall that back in May I posted about a few zombie models that I’d sculpted ages ago and managed to enter in Black Orc’s Mini-Sculpt program. I’m now happy to announce that the first one – an unlucky beach bum that has been dubbed Zeek the One Armed Zombie – is available from Black Orc for the low (and appropriate) price of $1.00.

So, from this:

The original green from 2005

Became this:

The cast mini for sale @ Black Orc

While it’s definitely not a perfect miniature, and not even a very good one, I’m as proud and happy about it as a dad  might be over his kid’s first tottering steps. Someone has actually cast a mini I sculpted, put it on sale and even had a professional painter paint it. Now how cool is that? Cooler than the other side of the pillow, I think.

Now here’s the fun part for you, loyal(I hope!) readers: I’m going to receive 20 copies of this miniature, which is a lot more than I need. Hence, I’ve decided to give out five copies, one copy each to whoever requests it in the blog’s comment section. Just drop me a line and we’ll sort out the details in private. Of course I will be devastated if five people don’t show up, but I trust in the nature of people to snatch up anything if it’s free!

As a final note in this post I have to stress how thankful I am to Black Orc for making this all possible. Visit their site, buy a few miniatures for $1.00 each and support a company doing valuable work for this hobby of ours. Even if you don’t care for my sculpt, there are some real gems in there. Check out this post from Rogzombie for examples.

Oh, that wasn’t quite all of it. I have another mini coming out in the future, with one or two more greens getting ready to be shipped to Black Orc. I’ll keep you posted.

ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction

The Rakkautta & Anarkiaa (that’d be Finnish for Love & Anarchy) film festival is kicking off in a few days, and a friend pointed out to me that a new zombie movie is airing. Advertised as “a political zomedy” ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction pokes fun at US politics while delivering fine-looking zombie action. See the trailer, it’s worth it for the ending sentence alone.

Zombie comedies seem to be a bit of a hit these days, and I really don’t fault it. As with many things in life, something that can’t – or rather doesn’t – poke fun at itself can quickly grow stagnant and uninteresting. Most of the zomcoms I’ve seen also demonstrate a love for the genre as a whole, with nods to classic films, attention to gore and adherence to genre tradition. Is there something more to ask for?