The Walking Dead: All Out War Project Journal

One of my goals this spring has been to paint my pretty huge collection of The Walking Dead miniatures. I've purchased everything for it, including all the MDF buildings (I think?). It is a ton of walkers and survivors, but for the most part they're easy to paint as they're mostly simple clothes, skin, and weapons.

I want to eventually finish everything, but first I'm focused on what I needed for a competitive game and then I'm focusing on finishing everything for the campaign scenarios that came with each expansion.

The first thing I did was actually send my vehicles, objectives, and barricades out for commission. Nanocraft Painting did a great job with these and was fast and affordable. My intention was to get these done at the same time I was painting survivors and walkers.

The army vehicles, police truck, hardware truck, RV, tractor and ambulance were not painted - they are 1/43 or 1/50 vehicles that work great for the game that I picked up along the way. I glued their wheels so they won't move, to the behest of my 5 year old.

The RV is actually a Breaking Bad RV in 1/43 scale that I found on eBay after watching some auctions for a bit. It is perfect scale and looks just like Dale's RV. I have the MDF one from Mantic but haven't painted it yet, so this one works well for now! In the future I can use both in a big game.

You can see here the highlighting and weathering NanoCraft did on the cars, looks great!

They also painted my barriers. I had picked up an extra equipment expansion so that I had a ton of extra ones. I like the variety and the wood hues. They came out well!

The last set they painted were my objective markers. These look perfect and fit in really well on my boards. The bag of guns in the bottom right is a special objective for some games.

Getting all the extraneous stuff painted quickly, affordably, so I didn't have to do it really helped me focus on the survivors and walkers. I did end up picking up some other scatter terrain though. This store on eBay has a ton of scatter terrain that is painted at a really good value.

You can see here the mattresses, barrels, office equipment, and couches from that seller. They look great and really add some life to a board that might just be cars, objectives, and models.

I picked up some 1/48 scale dollhouse furniture kits to use inside each house. This is a little overwhelming - I have to figure out how I'm going to use them. Do I base them, or do I just glue them down? I don't want them just sitting in the piece because they'll fall over and roll around. Either way, they look great and will be perfect.

Along witht he furniture I picked up some stick on 1/48 scale dollhouse wallpaper and flooring. It looks really great and definitely takes these MDF kits from plain to living. It is not the most fun having to cut them out and make sure they all fit - I probably should have done it before I glued the kid together - but then it would have been hard to spray them.

The last piece I have today is this massive Greene family barn. It is HUGE. I sprayed it red then oversprayed some weathering. I painted the floor and wood brown, the roof gray, and detailed the doors. Finally I flocked the outside part where the base is. For a few hours work I think it came out really effective and can't wait to give it a try on the board.

I finished quite a few walkers, as well. I really only need 17 for a standard game, but this will help when I want to play a larger game. I do still plan on finishing the rest of my walkers for some variety - but I can put that off for now as I have plenty. I did end up going with clear bases as TWD can take place in buildings, a prison, a farm, forest, etc. The only problem I had was the walker feet are rather small so they pop off sometimes as the contact is not great.

I have two crews finished so far. The Woodbury crew at the top has Brian Blake (who would become the governor), Lilly Caul, Raymond, Wes, Bob, and Gloria. I chose these people mostly because they show up in the Walking Dead novels by Jay Bonansinga (which I heartily recommend). Lilly is a great character and I had to paint her first.

I also chose to paint the Greene family as the 'good guys'. Hershel leads his clan with Otis, his teenage daughters, Arnold, Maggie, Billy, and Lacey. The Woodbury crew definitely has more seasoned killers in it, but these folks can hold their own, especially when they're defending their farm!

These models aren't too hard to paint and I'm not going for an 'eavy metal paint job. I basecoat and use an Army Painter wash to fill in the shadows and highlights. Overall I think they look great and they're ready to battle on the tabletop.

Check back periodically to see my progress - thanks for reading!