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Diorama Ideas

Tonight I started printing a pack of wolves for the diorama idea. I will print off the rhino tomorrow, but basically it is going to have about four or five wolves and a pair of rhino, with one being a calf.

I kind of mocked it up a bit using some bits and pieces I had lying around…

Voila…. finished

It is not going to be a snowy scene, but further into the summer as the calf has been born. I will have them near a water hole and Mum is trying to protect the calf from the wolves….

High quality artistry here!

I have a couple of options for the adult rhino. One is the above one, other option is the first one I ever printed with the head turning, there is also a ‘leaping’ one which I don’t think would work. I want more of a stand off than a charge.

I have mirrored and fiddled with the size of the wolf that looks like it is slinking, this will allow them to circle the pair in the middle.

I will see how I get on with this idea as I have bucket loads to paint and make, but I do like building terrain so it might just be fun.

I managed to finish the rhino tonight and had a fiddle with a Wolf’s colouring…

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A Hairy Elephant With Friends

Tonight I wanted something easy so went for the hairy beasts…

Not really much I can say about them except they are rather large and not too bad to paint. Still some work to do on them, but they are getting there. So I survived my first day back in work. Spent this morning trying to sort out colleagues IT problems, which meant I dint get as much done as I wanted. Hopefully it will all work tomorrow…

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Wraiths and Things

I never actually got anything undercoated today as the rain was apocalyptic out there and not good for me or models to be out in it. So this evening I actually resorted to undercoating things with a brush (shock horror). I actually cannot remember when I last actually decided to actually undercoat this way (except in an emergency… which I suppose this was, in a way). For this undercoat I went for a sand colour with a dry brush of white over the top, I decided to do it this way to see what effect it would have on the Contrast paint.

To be honest I was a little hard with the dry brushing on the lady with the basket and snapped her off at the ankles! I will see how things get on tomorrow.

I also got a bit of paint on these two…

This is the same figure, one mounted and one on foot. I have gone for a dark blue cloak, which I intend to cover in dark tone wash tomorrow to darken it down a bit. I went this way so that the horse would be a different shade to the rider.

No printing at all today as I reckon I have got enough to keep me going for a while. I have based up the wolf from yesterday as I intend to print some more for my diorama idea. There won’t be any snow (or at least not large amounts of it. My mother n law gave me some MDF sheets yesterday so they will be ideal (I think), if not I will improvise a base.

Tonight I started watching Louis Theroux on Netflix. I forgot how much I like him… right I am off to drive Tanks on War Thunder, I just wish I knew how the bloody tech tree works!

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Wraiths and some more Beasties

Tonight I decided to carry on with the wraiths. They won’t win any prizes, but they look ok.

I think that the greys and blacks work. I decided on an antique bronze type colour for the helmets and more exotic weapons as I felt it was better than a shiny steel look. I will photograph these tomorrow in the daylight so that they will show up all the errors, I mean so that you can see what colours I used. I will get the base edges done tomorrow.

I also got the mammoth off the plate this morning and managed to squeeze in some cows and a couple of woolly rhino to join the herd.

Yes both of these are printed in the same colour! I am not sure what happened to the white balance in the right hand photo, never mind you can see what they are at least 😂.

I learned an important printing lesson earlier…. remember to change the wash and cure station to cure when you stick you recently printed things on it. Wash tends to rotate them at about 1000 rpm and they really don’t stay in situ.

Regarding the Neolithic stuff, I have a couple more animals to print off, but that is really it for them, just to get them painted up.

I am a bit on the buggered side this evening. As I mentioned earlier on this week, the horse came in and as a money saving thing we order the shaving in bulk. We unloaded and put about 200 of the bales into the stables today. I was stacker so it meant, in some cases, arranging them above head height. We then went and got 10 bags of coal and carried them to the trailer. I then needed to change some light fittings for my in-laws. I hate working with my hands above head height. To make matters worse the lights were ornate and heavy… all in all I am just having a whinge 🥴

Tomorrow I shall hopefully get my printed stuff sprayed and will start painting too. The way the wolf and rhino were placed in the photo above makes me think about doing a diorama using them as a ‘natural’ scene…

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A bit of Painting and a bit of Printing

Today we got my daughters bedroom moved about, it involved a bit of retiring, but luckily I had all the gear so it wasn’t too much of a hassle, except the front plate of the plug stopped working for reasons known only to itself. I will get a new one with USB chargers on it tomorrow.

Anyway today I managed to get this lot printed and some other stuff sliced too…

The mammoth from last night had a bit of bad luck… this boys and girls is the reason why you check the resin vat before going to bed!

I did manage to get some painting done this evening too, not as much as I would have liked but we ate late and I didn’t get as much time as I could have done….

Now these are some of the nine riders so I wanted them to be predominantly black but, with a bit of other colour in there too, just to break things up a bit. Hopefully I will get these finished off tomorrow evening.

I have another mammoth printing overnight and there is a full vat of resin. He will take about 65ml of it. After that more cows and a couple more woolly rhino.

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A Quick Paint Job

Tonight, to be totally truthful, I couldn’t be bothered to paint anything as I had spent ages fighting with my resin printer, if it carries on being a bugger, it is going back. The plate wouldn’t go up or down so after swearing at it and threatening violence I did the old IT trick and turned it off and back on again and voila… it worked. On the build plate this evening is hopefully a mammoth.

So my little painting venture was thus…

It’s alright for 20 minutes work. I wanted something done and I cannot think how I am going to do the wraiths, so I chose something easier.

While mooching about I found this lot…

A pile of female Halflings, one is riding a pig. For the life of me I cannot remember where they came from.

I have ordered myself Osprey’s Men of Bronze rules to have a look at, there is absolutely no way that I am going to be adding another load of lead to the pile of shame. 🥴 But interestingly enough the Museum miniatures z range are rather nice… not that I am getting any though… I just thought I would point it out.

‘‘Twas a productive day on the old house front, filled the hole in the floor, rewired a light switch, changed a socket front plate, did a tip run, got horse feed, and pretty much sorted out more…sadly the weather was against me so I couldn’t get the seams on the roof or the walls on the conservatory painted. But hopefully some nice weather will arrive sooner rather than later. I am really hoping that the annoying little drip has been well and truly sorted… but as you know water, like life, always finds a way.

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River Maiden and the Hobbit

Well I managed to get these nearly to completion tonight.

They were really nice miniatures to paint and didn’t take too long really.

As you can see, the rhino have had a bit of work too.

Now I learned a little fact this evening. By all accounts, the only way you could get leave from the Napoleonic French Army was for, wait for it… Homesickness… yup the urge to go home, except it wasn’t called Homesickness back then… it was called nostalgia (a bit like other conditions with algia on the end). They spent a lot of time and effort trying to work out what it was and to also stop it as it was a serious medical condition.My good lady came across this snippet while reading some articles from the Welcome Institute… you can have a read here…https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/X3L9vxEAACEAoOIt

Hopefully tomorrow I will crack on with the Wraiths, I am still unsure what colours to do them, hopefully inspiration will arrive by then.

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Wight he is Finished

Tonight I managed to get him finished. When I say finished I mean that he is where I won’t faff with him any more. There are other bits that I could do but he will do.

The prince and his minions

I have got the four riders and other two from the other night sprayed today so will make a start on them tomorrow.

I also threw some paint on the woolly rhino to see what they looked like.

I was going for two different shades of brown, which I achieved, not that you can see it on the photo. One is a red brown and the other a more yellow brown. Still some work to go, but not bad for 10 minutes of flinging paint about.

And finally… this made me laugh…

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A Quasi Night Off

So, this evening I decided to paint something and set to work, the problem was that I really couldn’t be bothered…

As you can see, there is still an awful lot of white visible, but at least some form of progress has been made. I am not using the GW paint schemes on these and will choose colours that I fancy. I also stuck the wraiths to their bases…

The most important part of the photo are the 6mm Japanese town gates. I have turned the house and shed upside down looking for them. I opened my paint box and there they were. I have only opened that box and rootled through it dozens of times. I though that I must have put them in with one of the castles that went to new homes.

Two more days to go before I am on leave. This is just a short term, so I get a bit of a break, during which I have a list of jobs as long as my arm 🥴.

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Starting in the Fellowship

Today I managed to get the fellowship and Bree chaps sprayed and the. This evening I made a start. I decided to go with Gandalf first as he was a pretty easy colour choice, but me being me just had to start with others too…

I nearly finished Gandalf, the dogs are getting close too, but there is still a fair old way to go on Boromir. The wargames club has a competition again this year so my Fellowship (plus extras) will probably go in there.

The other thing I did was to mooch around and find some undead for a Mordheim warband…

Now I also have enough plastics to make a human warband or two. I also found a priest of Sigmar which was originally purchased for the game. Terrain will be a bit of a problem straight off, but I do have some cardboard buildings that I made for Frostgrave, not to mention some MDF ruins too.

My little boy has just got me back into Fallout 4. So if he is interested then I might actually buy the board game and see if he is interested.