Longest Print… Ever

Well I think it is… I decided to print a Twylite samurai castle that came with the samurai buildings already printed. So I ran it through Cura and sliced it. Total print time 26 hours 51 minutes

It is a lovely model, with one major flaw… I made it too big. I bumped the size up to 140%. I know castles are big, but this seems very big. It’s not really a problem as it can go with my 10mm Forces if needs be.

Another flaw is that the stairs don’t actually go anywhere. They meet a blank wall. I am sure that I can make something and stick it on. Next question…what colour to paint it 🤔.

If truth be told I am lucky to have it at all. I popped in at the 18 hour mark and found this dangling from the side…

It is actually the base of the layer above the first roof line. I haven’t got a clue what happened, but the layer that was being printed was a bit of a mess. So I snipped off as much of the spaghetti as I could with the only thing handy, a pair of kiddy scissors! Structural integrity will be compromised to some extent, but at least I got a completed print.

Now part of me quite fancies printing this again at 100%. Print time should be faster, possibly 40% quicker.

I deliberately haven’t painted this evening as I have spent a lot of today hammering and sawing and my arms are buggered, on the upside I managed over 10,000 steps 😂.

More of the same tomorrow. Hopefully the bloody midges won’t be out, they were a nightmare today.

Small Japanese Town

Today I set the Ender away and printed myself half a dozen new houses to go in the town.

I must remember to add the roof to the gates!

The buildings are from Twylite games and the walls are from my favourite maker of Japanese things 3DAlienWorlds. I dropped the size to about 18% or so and I don’t think they look too bad.

I would have undercoated them but it has been up to 40mph winds today so no spraying for me. Weather is better tomorrow so hopefully they will get done soon.

We will see how the resin and filament compare when they are painted. The resin weighs at least twice the weight of the filament.

Monks and the Walls

Tonight I finished the monks, added some of the tufts I made, rather than add the ones I bought as they are totally different. They are nice and irregular shaped, but wouldn’t match in with the ones before.

Here are the monks amongst the hills

The other thing I did was to work on some of the 3DAlienWorlds walls. Rather than print then build I decided to build in 3D builder and then print them. This was a bit fiddly. Once the tops and bottoms were merged I Shrank them down to about 16% and printed them. This is them in the foreground.

Now I felt that they were a bit small so I bumped them up to 130%… Seen at the back of the photo below.as

As these are a bit tricky to see, I put them side by side.

Personally I prefer the larger one, but wondered what other people thought. The Files are saved so it isn’t a problem to bump them up,. Part of me thinks make them a bit larger again as a man on a horse would never get out of that gate 😂

Monks Nearly Finished

Tonight I worked on finishing the Monks. I still need to get the bases flocked but otherwise I think they are done. No doubt as soon as I look at the photo I will realise that I missed something!

I also cracked on with the individual samurai. They are going to take a while I would imagine

Pete asked how the road wars miniatures compare to Irregular. Well I don’t have any of the Irregular vehicles but I can compare the miniatures…

Tomorrow I will try and get some more done on the Samurai, before my Baccus ones arrive!

Undead Finished

I got these based up today, but sadly I have no tufts to add to them like all of the rest. So I will need to put an order in. I tried making my own but the least said about that The better!

I also got the bases levelled on the new stuff… some of them were worse than others…

I rest my case…

I got all of the Irregular stuff ground down and a pile stuck onto lolly sticks. My priority is to get the monks and samurai heroes done

I am going to use some of the mounted ones as messengers with the large silk ‘Horo’. I will make it out of Greenstuff a small ball should do the trick 😂. I also want to do the battlefield Maku screens as well as field defences and more terrain.

My first castle has been shipped from Japan, so it should arrive within the next year I reckon.

Tomorrow I will get the above sprayed white then make a start on them on Friday.

6mm Samurai Finished

Tonight I got the mon put onto the sashimono and the tufts stuck on. I am really pleased with how they have come out. I might change the colour of the mon, but I will see how the white grows on me.

I might have to search through my tufts as I have about 15 left of these ones. Problem is I can’t remember where I got them or what they are called!

I made a start on the the halfling army by spraying them white, along with some orc chariots and a couple of ogres too. I will get some paint on them tomorrow. They might take a while as they are going to be in lots of bright colours as befits a halfling force.

I also got a small file onto the Battle valour samurai. I hadn’t noticed before but the mould lines are really bad on some of them. It was only when I sprayed them white that I noticed.

So it has been quite a productive day. I spent a lot of it in the big shed, sorting it out so that we can set it up more as a craft room. The resin will go out there. My wife has her office out there so I can’t put the resin printer in there. That will go into my bottom shed, once I sort it out!

Sengoku… Nearly There

Tonight I cracked on whilst watching Monsters Versus Aliens. I am now within spitting distance of finishing.

It is so funny. Yesterday I hated these and today with a bit of flesh colour, some silver and a lot of black then I actually quite like them again. My next thing is the sashimono design. To save time and effort it will either be a straight line or a circle in the middle. I am probably going to go with white. Originally I was going to go with Gold, but I have now decided against it. The four mounted banners will have four similar designs, a bit like I did with the Sons of Set.

My resin has come, my UV light has come, my resin funnel has come, the one thing missing is the actual printer.

I was asked to show some WIP of the resin pouring that the kids and I did yesterday. So here we go..

On the left my son’s paper weight, then my eldest’s shot glass out of the mould and on the right one still in the mould.

Tomorrow is the last day of school in Shetland. So I will be running around like a bit of a loon to get stuff ready so that I won’t have to go in next week.

I am hoping that I can get these Samurai finished and based tomorrow evening.

Sengoku… Arggggghhhhh

More work on the 6mm Samurai and I absolutely hate them. They just seem to be taking forever!

Weapons are all painted in now as well as the sashimono poles. Hands are repainted white ready for the flesh colour. I reckon a few more days and they will be done. Still no sign of the printer ☹️. The kids and I played with the resin and a couple of the moulds today. They ran around and collected flowers from outside and put them into the moulds. They should be ready by tomorrow evening.

Sengoku Jidai..Further work

Tonight I started on the samurai infantry. Again I went for the different coloured armour. Part of me thinks they are a bit bright, but with all of the white bits showing too then they aren’t exactly looking the best. The other thing I did was paint the undercoat in for all of the flesh on the cavalry

The other thing I think is the problem is that there is a lot of solid colour without a break. Once I add weapons and flesh etc it should look better… I hope 🤞

It was a nice day today so we went just over the hill to Catfirth. The kids went for a paddle and err, as you can see it progressed a bit…

Please note, the pile of clothes, by time we remembered, they were somewhat damp and my daughter’s leggings floated away! Not a bad place to live really!

Sengoku Jidai in Small Scale

As my Samurai army were already undercoated white I decided I would make a start on them.

I really hummed and hawed about colours, and in the end I decided that the samurai were going to be different colours. In my 15mm army I did three coloured clans. This time there would be lots of variation across the miniatures. For some reason I decided to start on the cavalry. Most of the horses are bay or chestnut, with a smattering of black and other colours too.

This is them looking a bit untidy as I just went for it, I will paint in faces, hands and weapons in later on. I have decided they will all have a black sashimono to tie them all in together. I haven’t decided on the mon yet,but it will more than likely be a dot!

The Ashigaru are my next problem… do I go all coloured natural browns and greens etc. Or do I go for a single clan colour… I will have to think on that one.

While I remember one of the ‘elf’ bases sneaked in for a white undercoat and they are very obviously skeletons with the undercoat on.

I gave them a quick blast with skeleton bone as well as grey for the cloak. I actually think they will look fine.