Posted on by maenoferren22

Cost Versus Aesthetics Update 3

Today I was up with the larks to open up the school for a let and to sort out some more loft space … only to remember at 12.30 that they are in Unst today and with me tomorrow… it wasn’t too much if a buggeration as I needed to sort the loft anyway… it did give me 5800 steps . When I got back I set to work slicing  pikes, now as I am a pillock I decided to increase the size from 60% to 65% for the pikes to compensate for the difference in base height.

Here is my Pike test… I put them four deep, but could drop it down to three…see what you think….

They are a bit on the large side, but is it too much, please let me know what you think as I am actually unsure. Having had closer look at the block I have realised that it is the ommnad strips that are on the larger side, the rank and file troops are actually smaller.

This is the hand guns and cannons with the pikes and gendarmes.

I think this is going to work…

I have got some zweihanders printing now, along with some Spanish sword and buckler men as well as some mastiffs.

I also increased the size of the cannon to make it into a heavy gun. I am not sure what to do for a light gun as they were sort of giant handguns on a stand. Come to think of it the Holy Roman Empire kickstarter I backed has some in… time to do some shrinking I think.

So the shrinking has happened, both the culvern and swivel guns… however I am going to have to wait to print them as unfortunately I have had my first failure in a long time…

The sword and buckler men and dogs printed fine… I have one zweihander out of sixteen and none of the officers. I have relevelled the build plate just in case. To be honest the temperature has dropped a bit, but the hand guns had a failure in the same place twice, which makes me think level has altered over time.

So in an hour I will find out if they have printed correctly the second time around.

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Cost versus Aesthetics… an update

I may have found a  compromise to my cost conundrum.

After Azael commented about 3D printing pikes I went on a bit of a hunt. I couldn’t find any historical pikes. I got a bit miffed to be honest as I can get pretty much any period. I put calls out on various groups and still nothing, then I noticed a warmaster advert and the penny dropped… so after a bit more searching and further requests…I drew a blank… no pikes to be had, but then all of a sudden the clouds parted, light streamed down and angels sang… on Thungiverse, the free place I came across a Warmaster dogs of War Pike block. I downloaded them and had a mooch.

Printed full size

Apologies for the naff photo, but these are in heavy armour on the torso and a mix of helmets and hats… success…

So I then set about trying different sizes to fit in with irregular. I started off with making them 9mm tall I included the pikes and eyeballed the figure… too small

I then chopped the Pike off to speed up print time and did one  ar 60% one at 50% and one at 40%. The larger size won. They still looked too small as the Irregular base stood at 2mm. So off I went again and made myself a 2mm base in 3D builder and stuck a couple of three’s on there.

My attempts are seen below…

As you can see the larger ones to the right of the painted minis look too small… so here they are with their bumped up base…

Another naff photo,  but they do seem to work. I will redo them with their pikes and paint them up have a look properly. Here they are from the front…

So the plan is… Irregular in the front rank and printed ones behind. This should drop the cost a fair old bit as the 32 bases of pikes were the ones bumping the costs up. So with these removed I have dropped the price to £50.00. If I remove the hand gunners and cannons and print some then the cost drops to £36.00.

The advantage with this pose is that no supports are required. They print at an hour 20 due the the height of the Pike, the cut down test was just over 30 minutes.

I am now off to print some hand guns and xannons to see what they are like.

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Peasant Size Comparison

Okay that does sound like a thing a feudal Lord might do, but I would like to point out that no peasants were harmed during this experiment.

As I said yesterday, the printed ones at 100% were too small so today I did a little size comparison. I did four tests at 110%, 115%, 120% and 125%.  I then did a highly scientific test by sticking them next to a base of ashigaru and then eyeballing them here are the results…

The 120% seemed the best fit amongst the four chosen. To be honest they are a little on the large side and I technically should have gone for about 117 – 118% but with the discrepancies in base height then these fitted better

Four hours later I have the start of an Ikko Ikki force.

Front row, Samurai with swords, they have a sashimono on, but as I want them as Ronin then those will have to go. Next are the peasants with spears and beside them the peasants with agricultural weapons. At the back are a pile of sohei with naginata. I evidently forgot to order some sohei with the yumi.

My plan is to add in either some Irregular or Baccus individuals to act as prominent people.

Now printing things this small has its advantages and disadvantages. Without a banner they take about 40 minutes to print, a nobori that the sohei have took that force to about an hour-ten. The main pain in the backside is removing the tiny built in supports. They are a bit on the faffy side. Just looking at some if them now and I can see some tiny bumps on the end of spears.

Tomorrow I will give these a base and a spray and see what they look like painted.

I totally forgot to say where I got tye idea from, so here is the post that got me going Tenka Fubu . Some seriously awesome Sengoku era miniatures and terrain on this blog.

Oh while I remember today is my 18th Wedding Anniversary, we never do anything for it, I think our first wedding anniversary cemented how things were going to go… we were in France, Normandy in fact, a place of amazing food and we spent it in a Macdonald’s.

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3D Printed Stuff

I got another ruin printed today.this onetook just over 5 hours to complete. I also printed off the multi barrelled organ gun…

As you can see there is also a pikeman sneaking into the picture. I now have a full unit of twelve, with for some reason, an extra half dozen heads… teach me to try and add up when I am tired. I also did a driver for the wagon with a pile of camp followers too. They are still in the print head now. I will show them off tomorrow.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 16 Comments

Birthday Treats, Printers and Painting

Well I have had a jolly old birthday. Got lots of brilliant presents from the kids. I also got some great maps for RPG’s from my mate. My main present is still in the post. As the old iPad has eventually given up the ghost then I decided to go for a new Android tablet as they are a whole lot cheaper.

Pressies from the kids

I had a lazy old day, eventually got the springs off the brake shoes too. I did manage to take time to flock the duellists bases…

And get another building printed…

The one on the right is from last night.

I am having to get used to slowwww print times… I went back in to check after leaving it for an hour and fifteen minutes (after the usual making sure the base layer was down)… it had got to here…

Luckily it is going over night! This new one is a two level one, hence the two separate bits.

I am also using up the resin in the vat by printing a wagon with a pair of horses. This was to take about three hours, if I can be bothered I will go and check on it in a tick.

Tomorrow I will do some more ruined buildings. They won’t be done in a hurry that’s for sure. The FDM is slow but it is a whole lot cheaper than doing things on the resin printer (if they would fit that it). I might actually do some for my 6mm Armies.

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Duellists, Crossbows and a Cavalry Command

Today I actually managed to get the duellists just about finished. Still a bit of tidying up to do and bases to cover, but on the whole I am happy with them. Are the uniforms accurate to Flintloque cannon… nope not at all, well apart from the boots that is!…

I cracked on with the Cavalry command and the mounted crossbows…

Interestingly enough (and I just found this out) by the time of the Italian (Renaissance ) Wars the mounted crossbows would supposedly shoot from the saddle. Now this is something that is intriguing and I will have to look into it a bit more as it causes a lot of questions, first being how the heck do you recock the thing when you have shot your bolt? Secondly how do you stop the bolt just dropping off?

I think that is it for the miniature printing for a good old while… I pretty much have two Armies now or an army and an allied contingent. Upon saying this I want to just check on the Dwarves as they could do with a unit of light or medium infantry, plus there is the matter of the light cavalry and a giant.

it is handy having a South facing conservatory with a wide widow sill…

So instead of printing more miniatures then I decided to go for some terrain on the old filament printer. It had sat for a good while and the filament had snapped at the extruder. Luckily I managed to slot a new roll in.I took some of Iain Lovecraft’s ruins and shrank them down to 70% and set the printer away. I relevelled it a couple of times and still came back to this…

This is about the size of a cherry tomato. I was a bit miffed as it was an hour and a half into it when I went back. I set it away again, but sat with it whilst it printed the first couple of layers, this meant I could alter on the fly. It still tried stripping away at one end, so I am afraid I got the superglue out and stuck it down. Not clever I know but it was what was handy. After about 2 hours it was still delaminating so I shoved bluetack up against both sides of the bit that was threatening to cause the whole thing to come away. Hopefully it will be okay by time I go back tomorrow morning. The one thing I am not used to now is ten hour prints for a short run.

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Cavalry, Hounds and some Religious Zealots

The first of my heavy cavalry came off the plate today, four are finished and two are still printing. I am doing six of these heavy cavalry…

Now with these I went for the smaller of the banners, part of me now wished that I had gone for the bigger one. In the second and third set I have printed a ‘warhound’ these came from Iain Lovecraft’s Frost civilians and are actually the rat catcher’s dog. As they had a spiked collar I thought the looked cool. I kept them at full size instead of dropping them to 75% like the rest. I reckoned they would make a passable mastiff/Great Dane type of hound.

I also got the hands glued onto the Flagellants… one is missing a left hand.. sadly I think it fell off the supports and was lost in the shed…

The top three on the right are the ‘command’ set… now these will make nice cultists as well as religious nutters. I also managed to get a photo of the Zweihanders…

And finally… I actually managed to get some paint onto the duellists…

I am pleased with how they have started, but less pleased with wood Elf. This is going to need another undercoat as the Gesso has left it shiny and the paint won’t adhere to it properly. My guess is that I really didn’t shake it enough to get the paint and medium mixed together. I did thin it down a bit with medium, but by all accounts that is what I am meant to do. Probably find I purchased the shiny version!

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The Empire Musters

So as you know, yesterday I based all of my dwarves and today I decided to do the same to the spares on the Empire side. Sadly it would seem I either cannot count or have lost a pile of bases… I would say the former.

I set to work merrily glueing down miniatures to bases then suddenly realised that I had actually run out. It would seem that my seventy 25x25mm weren’t enough. I need another 36 to base the extra handgunners I printed by mistake, then I have a dozen flagellants and also a dozen zweihanders. Hopefully I should have enough cavalry bases as I didn’t order any more of those. I should have if I only go for the heavy cavalry and demilancers, but if I also print the cuirassiers and mounted crossbows then definitely not. I bought some more infantry, ogre and cavalry bases just in case. I also ordered the Furioso rules which are Renaissance rules.

So on the left front to back… crossbows, pikes and Ogres

Centre we have the culvern and volley gun with crew for both behind them are the command miniatures with some random ‘spares’ behind that.

And on the right… heavy Infantry, hand-gunners and Reiters.

All twelve flagellants printed really well, apart from the end of a two handed flail. Luckily it didn’t affect the next lot being printed. My first six zweihanders have just come off the build plate and have had a wash. They are sitting in their basket letting the ISO evaporate before I pull the supports off and then get them cured.

I got my elf duellists undercoated this evening. I tried putting some Contrast paint over the GW wood elf that I undercoated with gesso. It is very streaky. I will try a watered down layer of paint to see if that will help.

Last night I watched Tremors for the first time in an age. I really enjoyed it. Tonight I am watching Kill Bill as I have never seen it before… I am somewhat confused so far. Hopefully things will become more obvious as I go along.

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The Dwarves Assemble

Today I decided to get all the Dwarves plonked onto bases, for two reasons, first they need them and second, I wanted to see how many I had and also to see what was missing.

So what do we have…

Well first are the two artillery pieces (one missing a crew).

Second row from left to right are a unit of light infantry, a unit of crossbows, heavy ram cavalry and a general and entourage.

Rear row are the heavy Infantry and medium infantry with a couple of spare medium infantry.

Now I need another unit of medium and light infantry and one of hand gunners (plus the missing artillery crews).

One thing that looks a bit weird is the organ gun. It is a short piece on a long base. Options I have are to cut the base in half, just buy some or l could put two cavalry bases together and fill in the gaps…

The latter would work nicely. I would fasten the two together with superglue and fill in the joints and indentations with Greenstuff. It would save waiting for another Alternative Armies order to arrive

I also did some simple work in Meshmixer to remove one ogre head and replace it with another. Luckily the designer had made it an easy thing to do. Well okay it took 25 minutes of YouTube viewing before I could manage it…. but the hard work had been done by them. I also shrunk down Iain Lovecraft’s Fey Amazon’s to 75% original size. This fits in better with the Dwarves and Imperials

Now part of me is thinking about a Fey army, they have rangers/hunters. Mounted types as well as some centaurs. So I could potentially have a small guerrilla force or an allied contingent. Of course the other option is to buy some Elves that go with the two forces mentioned. Have a look here…lots of goodies

I just got a message to say that the volley gun is nearly done, then work will start on the Giant (plus we are getting another unit for the Dwarves…pony mounted light cavalry). Now to be honest I am not sure if the extra is an add on as the main Kickstarter is getting s free Giant and Volley gun that they failed to meet the financial backing to get, so either way it is a win.

Tonight is another Dive into the Aliens RPG… excuse the deliberate pun. As they broke the submarine retrieval system and unbeknown to them they are hauling a couple of Androids on the end of the wire then they are going to have to come up with a way to get back into the monster inhabited underwater research station. Luckily one of them left a compression suit on the sub so a swim across the gap to gain entrance shouldn’t be too big a problem, unless of course the local fauna is being belligerent … Mwah Ha Ha ha… apologies for the outburst there.

I will let you know how we get on tomorrow.

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More Bang for your Buck

Today has been busy, busy, busy. I have hit the holidays running in terms of jobs around the house and garden. I can now see almost all of the floor in the big shed, which is quite an achievement.I did, however, have time to hit print a couple of times. so first up is the organ gun with dwarf crew (with stolen doggies from a different set)…

The dogs are ready for their game of fetch…

The second thing printed is the first pair of Reiters….

The second pair is printing now, I made a simple change by mirroring these two and changing the pistol hand. That is the beauty of Reiters, they have pistols on both sides of the saddle so can easily be firing left or right handed.

Tomorrow I will print a third pair to give me a unit of six. I will then think about some with a carbine.

I have been looking at Renaissance flags too and have a nice photo library of what I like. The dwarf banners are going to be plane coloured I think. With any distinguishing features on the shield and disk… this of course may change by time I come to paint them. Probably some form of Runic lettering.

In case you are wondering, I made some progress on the Samurai … in that I got them out, went…nahhh and then put them away again. I looked at them this evening, I didn’t yesterday so definitely some progress.