Back with the Khmer

I managed to squeeze in a bit of painting this evening and got a teeny bit more done on the Khmer. Not a huge lot, but progress is indeed progress.

The parasol is attached to an howdah. I used a micro drill to get a hole in it then cut off the pin to the right height. Typically I put it on the wrong ‘purple’ elephant! The hero and standard are in the foreground. One will go with the general and the other with a second elephant to act as a sub general, well that is the plan. As it isn’t exactly the world’s largest army then this may change. What may happen is the rider and standard will go onto their own base to act as the hero, that in the long run might be a better idea.

On a different note, the printer still seems to be going okay on the hex tiles, I will soon be able to get some farms printed, these were part of my Gold level tier in the Kickstarter.

And finally, and on another different note, my belated birthday pressie arrived from my mate.

My Precious!

I reckon this is the final book in the collection as sadly they aren’t making any more! I have pretty much all of them in either print or electronically (the majority are print versions).

I was hoping that we would have had some other areas to explore… eg Moria, but sadly not. I was just having a quick look there and someone seems to have picked up the line. 2nd edition was going to cover the Lord of the Rings and Moria so there is hope yet.

Kabuto on the Scrap Heap

If you heard a fell voice on the wind it was probably me explaining (very loudly, with added expletives) why I sometimes hate 3D Printing, I was swearing whilst trying to remove filament from both fans and from the heat block too.

Luckily I checked at the two hour mark rather than the six hour mark.

So if you remember, last night I said I was going for a raft to help secure the print, well one of the armour plates failed and in doing so caused an awful lot of spaghetti. This in turn either went upwards and melted on the heat block or went out and up/down to get itself twisted into both of the fans.

This what what I came in to see…

Please note this is not my printer bed…

You can really tell which one failed…

Spot the culprit!

To be honest, I am not going to waste any more time or filament on this*. This was really just so that I could wear it at a Games day while hosting a game, if I were to be truthful I was already getting a little uncomfortable about potential cultural appropriation. I have set the printer away on some more plains from the Hexon Hills Kickstarter and they are three hours in and absolutely fine.

*wasting time and filament may be reinstated when I get bored, interested or forget what an absolute b*stard this was to print 😉.

Back with the Painting

The 6mm Khmer have had a bit more paint added this evening. I decided to push on a bit more and got most of the spear shafts done. I also went over the armour on the cavalry and sorted out the elephants to get some white undercoat back on.

I got some colour started on the pads on the elephants too.

You may notice my two parasols made from pins and split lentils. I thought these were going to be a whole lot easier than making them out of Greenstuff.

The other thing I managed to make a start on was the printed civilians in 28mm…

I also started to print the helmet, after about 8 hours I pulled the plug on the first bit as the ends were starting to curl. I swore an awful lot.

I have re-sliced everything and added a raft to them all to try and Stop it happening again. As I have printed these, I am beginning to get worried that the finished helmet is going to be huge. Some of the cutting up has caused problems with the slicing as it won’t let it get onto Cura, all in all a frustrating day in the Printer front.

On a totally different note. A little man dropped a parcel off at my house today to allow me to stick a swab down the back of my throat and up my nose. Sadly I have developed a bit of a cough, personally I reckon it is a cold that has caused my asthma to flare up a bit, but we decided to be better safe than sorry. That is me self isolating until I get the results back which should be either Monday or Tuesday.

The worst part is that the cough pretty much went away after the test. I occasionally do a little, single cough every hour or so, but not like it was this morning. I will keep you posted.

Another Night Off

“Lazy Sod!” I hear you cry, however it was my good lady’s birthday today, so we got a take away and scoffed a very awesome Indian meal. Followed by laying about going “Urrrggghhh I ate too much!” However before collecting said meal I messed around in 3D builder chopping up a Kabuto helmet. I have only had it for about 5 months, better late than never I suppose.

As it is full sized it really needed a lot of chopping up, but I. Got there in the end. The neck guard is in strips, each of which is going to take 15 hours plus. The left and right helmet base a day and four hours each and then the helmet bowl in two bits will take another 16 hours plus each. I forgot to note the weight of it all.

It is pretty customisable, with various crests and accoutrements a available.

The helmet bowl itself has a few variants…

I believe that I am going to swear a lot making this, but I reckon the finished product will look pretty good…

A Night Off

Tonight we went gaming and we got possed! We were playing Journeys in Middle Earth. We had narrowly succeeded last week so we’re quite confident this week (how silly we were). We had three characters o; the go. Bilbo, Aragorn and Bereavour. To begin with we were outnumbered two to one, but Aragorn set about the enemy with some initial successes, but each turn more enemy arrived, until Berevour managed to block the entrance. By the end of it both Bilbo and Aragorn had taken a last stand, both survived, but the big baddy boss legged it into the night. We really needed Gimli in their fight as he is a tank, sadly Bilbo isn’t up to much in a one on one with an ork Marauder!

The new files for my LOTR patreon are ready soon….

Some of them are going to be printed before the others, with the Hunter and dog being first on the list.

My daughter was checking through the money pot and came across this rare item…

I say rare as I cannot even remember the last time I was there, at least 20 years ago, if not more. John will be able to let me know if the place actually still exists. I know the Spanish City at Whitley Bay disappeared a few years ago, so this might have gone the same journey. Random Trivia quiz, The Spanish City appears in which song by Dire Straits? Sting from the band ‘The Police’ used to hang out there too.

In case you are wondering the place itself was a part of a seaside town arcade that was opened in round about 1910, it was the small brother of Blackpool Pleasure beach. It is called the Spanish city as the original concept was actually made of wood and canvas and then painted up to look like a Spanish city as a group of toreadors came to put on a show in round about 1906. They came every year. The actual frontage itself is about 60m long with a depth of about 70m.

This is it in about 1910…

Khmer…Further Work

I didn’t get to eat until gone 20.00 this evening as I became dad’s taxi for my eldest. I drove home to pick up the new car, and then drove into Lerwick to pick them up and to take their friend back home, which was pretty much back at where I work… so I am actually surprised that I managed anything tonight.

But here we go… progress….

Heavy infantry and Heavy Cavalry
Heavy infantry with the light chaps and ladies at the back.

John has suggested I add a parasol to one of the elephants to denote the general so I will give it a try with a pin and a teeny bit of Greenstuff. Funnily enough on the Irregular website the elephant shown has one…

I am gaming tomorrow night so may not get much done… we are carrying on with adventures in Middle Earth. Luckily we managed to get the first mission finished last week before we were overrun by baddies.

Khmer…Making a Start

So after last night’s struggle to paint anything, I was a teeny bit more productive this evening. I actually managed to get a base coat on pretty much everything apart from the cavalry.

This army has a lot of elephants but none that scream general at me. So as it happens one of my individual miniatures is on a rearing horse, so I will add that to a stand of hefalumps to denote general quality. I am also going to blag one of my Ashigaru Nobori carries to give it some sort of banner.

Okay not accurate, but it will add a little something extra to help with the command base. Now as I have said before, I haven’t got a clue about the Khmer, So for all the purists out there…sorry. These will be simply classed as type, heavy infantry (or whatever the manufacturer tells me their designation is.

As I was painting the elephants this song kept going round and round in my head…

So I thought I would let you all join in too… all together now… one, two, a one, two, three four….

Hopefully I will think of a different song tomorrow…. I have now been hooked on PUBG by my son… off to jump out of an aeroplane and try and find a suitable weapon before some other sod nicks it…

I Picked up a Paintbrush

Picking up a paintbrush was actually hard work. I really had to force myself to do something. I am actually not sure whether it was the fact I came out of work at 18.00 and had dinner at 19.00 or whether it was the fact that I decided to paint 6mm individual figures, or a combination of both. I did manage to also get some paint on the Torri. It is in the ‘looking crap’ stage at the minute. I reckon it will get somewhere better soon.

I also got my Khmer army undercoated ready for Shenanigans with a paint brush soon.

Whilst putting them on their lolly sticks I was a bit miffed to find that I had an odd number of bases of one type. But with time pressing on, I got the rest sprayed before it got too cold or damp out there. I walked in, opened the box file with the paint in and there it was, sitting smuggly in full view. I am now convinced that some form of secret society exists to cause chaos and mayhem in the war gaming fraternity… they hide your lucky dice for a start!

Here is the smug little sod!

To be frank… I would need a capital letter at the start of my name… sorry rubbish teacher joke there….Here is another one… you have been warned….

I really don’t have a clue what a Khmer force looks like… or what minis are what well to be honest elephants I can spot, but as for the infantry…

Until tomorrow….

A Cross and a T

I went exploring today, more of that later, but after I staggered back in full of fresh air and fish and chips, I decided to try making my fences into a T junction and a crossover. So I set about playing in 3D builder and within 5 minutes I had a T (including ages getting the individual files to merge). I then set about using the T and added another arm to make the cross.

A bit of stringing but otherwise ok.

I measured the original printed walls and they sat at 13mm at the top of the tallest piece of fence. I therefore shrank these down to 13mm with the dimensions locked to ensure everything reduced by the same percentage amount.

I would say I have successfully matched the two bits into the rest. I am pleased with how they turned out.

I am printing another pair and will see what I can come up with. I intend trying the same with the stone walls. These may prove trickier than the wooden ones as they have tiled roofs.

So it instead of adding too many different things to this Blog, I started another one that is more about Shetland. So here is the link to my visit to a bit more of Shetland’s wartime past…http://outaboutinshetland.home.blog/2020/09/06/soe-shetland-and-the-norwegians/

Let me know what you think. The idea is so that my daughter who wants to start blogging has somewhere that she can use too.

Test Compound…

Yesterday I was messing around with 3D builder, building a wooden stockade to go with the 6mm Samurai (to be honest they will be useful for all of the armies).

The design using 3DAlienWorlds STL’s

This is the printed piece…

Now it isn’t perfect by any means and the top of gate posts failed both times, but I am really happy at how well the printer coped with it, as can be seen it will hold up to four of the printed buildings nicely. It could also make a useful compound for a shrine or small fortification.

While I was messing about putting the buildings on, I noticed my neglected 15mm Samurai on the shelf. I stuck a Couple of peasants and water buffalo in and voila a pen for 15mm farmers to keep their animals in. Yeah I know they wouldn’t be of that construction , but pretty multi purpose nonetheless.

The fences would be more like the ones in the foreground above…

A quick change of miniatures and voila… livestock pens….

What I am going to try now is use the STL’s to make connections so that there can be a T and a + to allow different configurations.

Off gaming tonight, the Starship Troopers game is on hold for a bit as my mate (who had the stroke) needs to have a steady run up to get it ready to go. So as I don’t have anything planned then we are going back to Middle Earth in a different way…